Yay for Christopher!
My beloved Christopher is finally being properly outfitted, after four long years!
For those of you who have a) never been to my house or b) never heard of Christopher, Christopher is the cat I stippled back in eighth grade. (Stippling is an ink technique that requires you to compose a picture rendered entirely of dots, whose varying sizes and frequencies create texture, lines, and other whatsits.) I took a picture of a cat dipping its paw into a fishbowl and decided to copy it by stippling: a project that I began in September 2001 and finished in February 2002. Yes, the dumb thing - which is probably no more than 6 x 6 inches - took me five months! Every night, after I finished my homework and until the early morning, I'd bend over this thing and dot-dot-dot until I thought my eyes would bleed. In the end, I drained two pens of their ink and Christopher - as I named the cat, because a) the cat is very intelligent-looking and b) "Christopher" is such an intelligent name - won 2nd place in a state-level competition.
But for the past four years, Christopher remained on my wall with only a matte board frame. I've been meaning to frame him correctly but only recently decided that he really needed it. The difficulty I've had in keeping him up on the wall contributed to that decision (the matte is too heavy for various attaching devices to work effectively).
THEREFORE, to-day my mum and I took Christopher to Michael's, where we chose a frame and all that. So now I've entrusted my precious Christopher into the hands of a young, cheerful employee who works at the custom framing counter and who assured us that it would be complete - with museum-quality UV-protecting glass as well - by 5th May.
Not having Christopher in the house is weird. Then again, I've always been really paranoid about that cat. When I first finished him and brought him to school in February (he was a first-semester art project, but my art teacher gave me extra time as long as he was finished before the entries to the competition were due), I was scared that someone would tear the paper or something. After the teacher framed him and submitted him to the competition, I was scared that some careless judge would spill coffee on him. When I was packing things up before Hurricane Rita was supposed to massacre Houston, I wrapped him in waterproof plastic - five times over - and sealed it with two layers of duct tape. But the girl at Michael's used gloves and everything when she was handling him, so I guess that Christopher will be safe while he's away.
It's just occurred to me that, if I'm ever a mother, I'll probably be super-overprotective. Ouch. That bugs me. But I guess it's kinda obvious that I have major separation anxiety issues.
I can't wait to see Christopher again. He's been long overdue for proper framing. And I'll be relieved to have him safe at home again.
A funny thing, though: until to-day, under the bright lights at Michael's, it's never been very apparent to me that I used two different kinds of pens while working on Christopher. I mean, I know that I used two varieties of ink, but until this afternoon, it never occurred to me that that could be so obvious. But it is. One ink is kinda browny-black and the other is darker and looks, next to the first ink, almost blue. It's kinda funny to look at, if you can see the difference. I suppose that, next time I attempt some kind of Christopher-esque, eye-killing inking extravaganza, I should use pens of the same type and brand. Ahh, well.
In other news, this is going to be a bad week. With A&P, The Review, "studying" for the AP's, and Lord of the LEGOs... it's gonna be a killer five days. Augh augh augh.
For those of you who have a) never been to my house or b) never heard of Christopher, Christopher is the cat I stippled back in eighth grade. (Stippling is an ink technique that requires you to compose a picture rendered entirely of dots, whose varying sizes and frequencies create texture, lines, and other whatsits.) I took a picture of a cat dipping its paw into a fishbowl and decided to copy it by stippling: a project that I began in September 2001 and finished in February 2002. Yes, the dumb thing - which is probably no more than 6 x 6 inches - took me five months! Every night, after I finished my homework and until the early morning, I'd bend over this thing and dot-dot-dot until I thought my eyes would bleed. In the end, I drained two pens of their ink and Christopher - as I named the cat, because a) the cat is very intelligent-looking and b) "Christopher" is such an intelligent name - won 2nd place in a state-level competition.
But for the past four years, Christopher remained on my wall with only a matte board frame. I've been meaning to frame him correctly but only recently decided that he really needed it. The difficulty I've had in keeping him up on the wall contributed to that decision (the matte is too heavy for various attaching devices to work effectively).
THEREFORE, to-day my mum and I took Christopher to Michael's, where we chose a frame and all that. So now I've entrusted my precious Christopher into the hands of a young, cheerful employee who works at the custom framing counter and who assured us that it would be complete - with museum-quality UV-protecting glass as well - by 5th May.
Not having Christopher in the house is weird. Then again, I've always been really paranoid about that cat. When I first finished him and brought him to school in February (he was a first-semester art project, but my art teacher gave me extra time as long as he was finished before the entries to the competition were due), I was scared that someone would tear the paper or something. After the teacher framed him and submitted him to the competition, I was scared that some careless judge would spill coffee on him. When I was packing things up before Hurricane Rita was supposed to massacre Houston, I wrapped him in waterproof plastic - five times over - and sealed it with two layers of duct tape. But the girl at Michael's used gloves and everything when she was handling him, so I guess that Christopher will be safe while he's away.
It's just occurred to me that, if I'm ever a mother, I'll probably be super-overprotective. Ouch. That bugs me. But I guess it's kinda obvious that I have major separation anxiety issues.
I can't wait to see Christopher again. He's been long overdue for proper framing. And I'll be relieved to have him safe at home again.
A funny thing, though: until to-day, under the bright lights at Michael's, it's never been very apparent to me that I used two different kinds of pens while working on Christopher. I mean, I know that I used two varieties of ink, but until this afternoon, it never occurred to me that that could be so obvious. But it is. One ink is kinda browny-black and the other is darker and looks, next to the first ink, almost blue. It's kinda funny to look at, if you can see the difference. I suppose that, next time I attempt some kind of Christopher-esque, eye-killing inking extravaganza, I should use pens of the same type and brand. Ahh, well.
In other news, this is going to be a bad week. With A&P, The Review, "studying" for the AP's, and Lord of the LEGOs... it's gonna be a killer five days. Augh augh augh.