the end of an era (or a year, whichever).

so i realize that i'm a few days behind on my happy new years sentiments. i got into the sunday-posting habit for my dailies, even though this week not only ended on a wednesday (when my happy new years-ing might've maintained some relevance), but also ended FOREVER. so here's the last of them:
sunday, december 28th: "i will watch anything and everything in marathon format."
monday, december 29th: "man i just love web-design."
tuesday, deceember 30th: "multi-tasking as if i actually needed to economize my time."
wednesday, december 31st: "nice to see you 2008, nice to meet you 2009."

as far as the new dailies are going, i have decided to treat them something like christopher david ryan's daily postings, which are a smorgasbord of illustration, design, photography, collage, etc. rather than choose one specific thing, i am going to do one mystery thing every day, be it a character illustration, a pattern, some hand-lettering, whatever. JUST AS LONG AS I DO SOMETHING. i haven't scanned the first few quite yet, so hold your horses.

only loosely related is the fact that, embracing the 'new' part of the new year, i revamped my website. the changes are largely in the portfolio department with my comics, but also (fingers crossed) in functionality as well. slightly more related is the fact that you will also find the first half of the 2008 dailies project (never before seen!) for those of you dutifully following them week to week, or just for anyone who's curious.

anyway, happy new years and all that. i'm a resolution-making sort of girl, so here's to 2009 being a fruitful one. also of note: the first book i read in the new year was the delightful "i was told there'd be cake" by sloane crosley. a collection of essays that read a little like sedaris channeling dorothy parker, i super-recommend it.

dailies 12/21-12/27.

this is the last full week of dailies for 2008, and maybe forever? like i mentioned, i am planning a change of pace for next year. i only have like 3 days to figure out what that change is going to be, but it should still be a weekly upload sort of thing, so in any case you can see the first few next week!

sunday, december 21st: "i'm too anxious to focus on anything, let alone my daily."
monday, december 22nd: "i was mostly sitting all damn day but i'm still exhausted."
tuesday, december 23rd: "getting acquainted with my new home."
wednesday, december 24th: "my subconscious is mean."
thursday, december 25th: "WOW IT'S CHRISTMAS."
friday, december 26th: "not so skinny jeans but i like them anyway."
saturday, december 27th: "i am so not feeling the proverbial it right now."

i've nearly finished laying out the year of dailies for my upcoming show, so from here i have some major web updates to my site to make, as well as to my spring thesis. maybe there'll be things to show along the way. happy almost new year, everybody.

better late than pregnant*: dailies 12/14-12/20.

*full disclosure: annie told me that she desperately wanted a way to casually work this into a conversation, and i cannibalized it for this post. sorry lady.

in case it snuck up on you like it did me, IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS WOW. and, apparently amidst the accidental shopping-on-the-last-weekend-before-the-holiday and the packing-to-go-to-a-home-i'd-never-actually-seen, the dailies update got lost in the shuffle. don't get the wrong idea, i still care about you! i don't want to disappoint - here they are for real right now let's go:


sunday, december 14th: "my brain is running amuck with an unusual number of fantasy sequences, zach braff style hopefully minus the dopey facial expression."
monday, december 15th: "the ends of things hit me more sharply than i would have guessed."
tuesday, december 16th: "it's impossibly disgusting outside."
wednesday, december 17th: "WHY AREN'T I ASLEEP RIGHT NOW."
thursday, december 18th: "i, ahem, hate my work."
friday, december 19th: "assigning unrealistic hopes where they don't belong."
saturday, december 20th: "and now for something completely different!"

in other news, i love my dailies, but i'm sort of sick of drawing myself every damn day, so i'm thinking about changing my approach for 2009. i have a lot of ideas, maybe something character-based like the hodgman-inspired "700 hoboes" or "700 molemen" projects (slightly related: i was reading his latest book "more information than you require" on my trip home yesterday and laughing out loud way too often not to be annoying, so read it! so we can spread awkward public laughter like the plague). anyway, ideas for things you would like me to draw 365 times - i would really appreciate any suggestions.

have a lovely, lovely holiday, everyone!

it is the last week of classes, hooray! not too surprisingly, last week caught the brunt of the workload for finals, so these dailies are not especially cheery. or coherent. bear with me and count down the last few days until i am a lady of leisure.


sunday, december 7th: "i woke up before the sun did."
monday, december 8th: "two steps forward, infinity backward."
tuesday, december 9th: "i like delivering presents."
wednesday, december 10th: "i super-extra-ultra-mega-mondo fail."
thursday, december 11th: "i've got boys on the brain."
friday, december 12th: "i stopped making any sense days ago."
saturday, december 13th: "yogurt is the closest thing to a solid i consumed all day."

dailies 11/30-12/6.

I HAVE SO MUCH WORK TO DO IT IS ZERO PERCENT FUNNY. here are my dailies really-super-mega-ultra-mondo-fast:

sunday, november 30th: "haircuts are never as dramatic to anyone else as they seem like they should be."
monday, december (omg shift one) 1st: "seething in silence."
tuesday, december 2nd: "too much sitting in one position and not enough realizing that other people could see me try to stretch back out."
wednesday, december 3rd: "i think writing them all down is actually more depressing, instead of less."
thursday, december 4th: "i need to learn when to give up."
friday, december 5th: "kindred spirits crossing paths briefly before parting ways."
saturday, december 6th: "these are the culprits behind me way not finishing my work."

SO MUCH SO MUCH SO MUCH SO MUCH.

dailies 11/23-11/29.

so, because of thanksgiving break, this week of dailies makes me look exceptionally lazy, what with all the eating and lying around and all. but i did other things, like... online shop? and sleep some more. i got a fair amount of work done, especially in preparation for the upcoming mica art market (which it turns out, is showcasing one of my pieces on the front page? neat), where i will be selling silkscreened postcards and prints, a mini-comic (a tiny anthology of most of the comics i've been posting on here plus a little bit of extra-adorableness), and maybe buttons? or maybe not. we'll see, since that was not a part of the work that actually happened.

sunday, november 23rd: "i felt like i was moving in slow motion."
monday, november 24th: "that sandwich was unreasonably delicious."
tuesday, november 25th: "IMPULSE EVERYTHING TODAY."
wednesday, november 26th: "i finally saw fight club tonight, thank god for being anti-social."
thursday, november 27th: "i didn't think i cared much for cats."
friday, november 28th: "my feeble attempts at domesticity only manage to make me feel extra-uncomfortable."
saturday, november 29th: "i indiscriminately extra-love cranberry sauce."

anyway, if you're a baltimore-ish person, you should come out to the art market next next week, the 10th-13th. there'll be like 200 of us selling things, so it will be mighty. or, if you can't wait until then, on the 7th (aka a week from today), squidfire will be having it's annual art mart at the lyric opera house and i will be working like the dutiful intern that i am. hooray!

finally, i (gulp) finished my thesis today. well, lie. but i finished all twelve of the tracks, and am well on my way with the cover a few other odds and ends. so! more of those asap.

okay!

dailies 11/17-11/22.

this is a super-speedy, "i'm-not-finished-with-my-work-but-photoshop-is-crying-really-slow-tears-of-please-don't-make-me-polygonal-lasso-one-more-thing-so-it-needs-to-take-a-break-before-it-crashes-and-ruins-everything-ever" in-between post. go!


sunday, november 17th: "NOW I CAN MAKE RICE PUDDING EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE."
monday, november 18th: "i didn't know your stomach could drop through your feet when you were sitting down."
tuesday, november 19th: "i think i'm out of fight."
wednesday, november 20th: "i thought it was yesterday long enough to wish two people happy birthday and skip spring registration."
thursday, november 21st: "apparently i'm not allowed to care."
friday, november 22nd: "i was compulsively washing dishes to drown out the sudden, uncontrollable and unexpected sobbing."
saturday, november 23rd: "i went grocery shopping a week ago but apparently that didn't slow me down."

end!

dailies 11/9-11/16.

a very sad and/or crazy week, i apologize in advance for the most grumbly nature of this week's dailies. some other things that are cool that i did not yet share: my newest comic is about an umbrella and i swear it's more interesting than it sounds, but it has some necessary finishing touches before i can float it out into the universe. so first things first:


sunday, november 9th: "i missed every single phone call i received today."
monday, november 10th: "i think we're all in this together."
tuesday, november 11th: "the day took a major nosedive post-delicious cup of coffee."
wednesday, november 12th: "venturing into question mark territory."
thursday, november 13th: "i may or may not be unreasonably paranoid, but either way, something's fishy."
friday, november 14th: "i've been compulsively listening to the same radiohead album for almost two weeks."
saturday, november 15th: "even the wonderful kind of large group outings make me anxious."

in other news, my sequential professor was threatening a pre-final final assignment that would force each of us to draw a comic that would confront our weakness, like a student who uses excessive expository dialogue to draw a silent comic, or in my case, to draw something not adorable. but then he decided to throw that out the window and instead, we're doing a youth-oriented comic, to which i say, in your face, non-adorable things. yeah!

dailies 11/2-11/8.

an up and down, back and forth sort of week. here are some things:

sunday, november 2nd: "i hope that smelling phantom strawberry milk doesn't mean i have an olfactory brain tumor."
monday, november 3rd: "we're not competing but it still feels like i'm losing."
tuesday, november 4th: "way to go america--this is maybe the first time i'm proud to be a part of you."
wednesday, november 5th: "this daily was dancing between me and my dreams of a reasonable bedtime."
thursday, november 6th: "we were the only students who bothered to sing for her birthday."
friday, november 7th: "all my efforts to do her justice were wasted and we were just left trying to clean up the mess."
saturday, november 8th: "we were most definitely making a spectacle."

the end! i have nothing more to say.

dailies 10/26-11/1.

closing out another month. two more to go! and then i don't know what-- maybe i just keep going until the end of time? i think yes.


sunday, october 26th: "we were walking to the same place at the same time in different worlds."
monday, october 27th: "i can't manage to do anything even remotely sneaky without it coming back to bite me in the ass."
tuesday, october 28th: "every door i passed open as i approached due to a) wind or b) poltergeists."
wednesday, october 29th: "i'm usually an epic failure at looking for things, but they didn't even try."
thursday, october 30th: "um, i can't do this by myself."
friday, october 31st: "you wouldn't even have known it was halloween from the night i had."
saturday, november 1st: "i can't believe i doubted the gravity of the situation and thought they were pulling a prank."

there are other things, but i will save them until later. the end.

dailies 10/19-10/25.

a bit of a weird week because of fall break (aka, four-day weekend) coming in and lulling me into a false sense of freedom only to be snatched away just as the revelry set in. but! here they are anyway:
sunday, october 19th: "longest, loudest, coldest bus ride. ever."
monday, october 20th: "dancing in real life to a song only in my head."
tuesday, october 21st: "feeling extra-wide today."
wednesday, october 22nd: "okay, so fine, i'm dwelling. what of it?"
thursday, october 23rd: "my first taste of the real world was pretty good."
friday, october 24th: "we sedimented ourselves under increasingly compounded layers of sad."
saturday, october 25th: "apparently, it's not worth the fight for me or anyone else."

i did some swell things in the city, like eat more rice pudding (a requirement, not a privilege-- this time it was cannoli flavored) and lurk around the strand, finding early release hodgman love and secretly awesome daumier lithograph books on high high ladder-requiring shelves.

also, last week i added a fictional sunday to the calendar, suggesting for no apparent reason that particular week was deserving of eight days instead of seven. the 19th, in fact, belongs in this week. traitor, slash, my bad.

dailies 10/12-10/19.

this week's dailies were delayed a day by my adventuresome mini-vacation to nyc. the visit was not nearly as eventful (read: good) as the actual travel there and back (read: bad), and as such, i didn't get home to baltimore until 1:30 yesterday morning, and at that point, prompt weekly dailies update was not so much a priority, i'm not gonna lie. but! better late than never, here they are:


sunday, october 12th: "like how i imagine king midas must've felt, if, you know, he spilled everything he touched all over instead of turning it to gold."
monday, october 13th: "i'm a little bit sick. "
tuesday, october 14th: "getting a little territorial about things that aren't actually mine."
wednesday, october 15th: "i scheduled my day around 6 hours of television."
thursday, october 16th: "there's nothing like hearing the things you try to ignore and push to the back of your brain come out of someone else's mouth."
friday, october 17th: "one roommate was rightfully celebratory and the other rightfully crestfallen.
saturday, october 18th: "this didn't actually happen, but was dangerously imminent."

back to reality and such for the rest of the week, plenty to do, yada yada. fall break is a big fat tease. also, presently stuck in my head is ne-yo's "miss independent", partially because it plays everywhere you go, and partially because i maybe like it. so there.

dailies 10/5-10/11.

a little late with the dailies this week, i am a little sniffly slash under the weather at the moment, and last night i was just not having it, where 'it' entails anything and everything ever. of non-sequitur note, i baked an apple pie last night at midnight.

sunday, october 5th: "i had an full day before noon today."
monday, october 6th: "a well-intentioned but terribly-executed effort to make sure he's okay.
tuesday, october 7th: "my mediocre research skills indicate that i do not have a future as a historian slash detective."
wednesday, october 8th: "i had distinct impression that someone was watching me today in the studio, but i didn't check. SO NOW I'LL NEVER KNOW."
thursday, october 9th: "misheard, misinterpreted, mis-everything."
friday, october 10th: "i didn't think sentences were allowed to start with "alissandra" and end with "got hit on in a bar like whoa."
saturday, october 11th: "world: 45 hundred million, alissandra: nothing."

i have a long weekend coming up, which should be secret code for "updates times one thousand!" but really is code for "nyc vacation." we'll see if it can't be a little of both.

dailies 9/28-10/4.

okay, so super-speedy because i wanna shower and sleep like whoa. ratatat was tonight and it was epic. SO GOOD LIVE. it was round three of my new "ras are people too" strategy that was implemented this weekend, a most excellent of weekends. anyway, i'm out to be clean.

sunday, september 28th: "i can't take credit for the image here, but man was today a broken record sort of day."
monday, september 29th: "HOLY SHIT HEADACHE"
tuesday, september 30th: "high-five, sweet squidfire internship."
wednesday, october 1st: "today was the first day i ran into my roommate not in our house."
thursday, october 2nd: "this is all i need."
friday, october 3rd: "an experiment in 'to hell with it'-ing: i blew off my micro-managed self-imposed schedule."
saturday, october 4th: "powering through toward an unseen end."

dailies 9/21-9/28.

more dailies, just like always. there are some big things on the horizon, including the debut of my thesis (finally finally), on which i am rounding the 1/3 point, which is pretty cool slash terrifying to think about. look for the first couple pages a little later this week!


sunday, september 21st: "fighting bad habits."
monday, september 22nd: "i've ruined myself for sleep."
tuesday, september 23rd: "a completely free, no-schedule-no-meetings day"
wednesday, september 24th: "i was at the built to spill concert, but my mind was somewhere else."
thursday, september 25th: "everyone ever to my rescue."
friday, september 26th: "not so much rising to the occasion."
saturday, september 27th: "i spent $192 today."

as the last daily details, i went to new york city yesterday, on a whirlwind 15-hour trip including transit, for mp3-experimenting and frivolous-spending. and, of course, rice pudding-ing (can you imagine anything more amazing than tiramisu-flavored rice pudding? the answer is no, you can't.) sigh. anyway, there will be legitimate things to come, and soon, i swear. try to swallow the platitudes i am shoveling at you until i give you something real to digest.

dailies 9/14-9/20.

so recently in the dailies-making process, i forgot how to count and i made a few this week that are aren't so much square. forgive me. here is the week:

sunday, september 14th: "i have the guts, but will i actually use them?"
monday, september 15th: "there's that 'doors close, windows open' cliche, but it just feels like everything's locked."
tuesday, september 16th: "falling apart at the seams."
wednesday, september 17th: "i still can't tell if they're laughing at or with me."
thursday, september 18th: "enough minute changes to throw everything off."
friday, september 19th: "the music distracted me from the fact that i didn't do what i was supposed to do."
saturday, september 20th: "i have recently been falling asleep the instant i get into bed--if only i could get there."

i have obscene amounts of work to upload, but due to the work-making, there has been less time for the work-blogging. to come, i swear.

dailies 9/7-9/13.

a very non-figural week for me, apparently. here are the dailies:


sunday, september 7th: "compartmentalizing to see if i can keep home at home and work at work."
monday, september 8th: "no dirty-laundry airing allowed."
tuesday, september 9th: "i'm nitpicking myself to death."
wednesday, september 10th: "conflicted and can't sleep."
thursday, september 11th: "my insides are maximum confused."
friday, september 12th: "i fail at reckless."
saturday, september 13th: "no means no, even if i'm not used to saying it."

in other news, i scored a sweet internship with squidfire, a company that designs and prints their own t-shirts here in baltimore. win! i'll keep you posted on anything awesome that goes on.

dailies 8/31-9/6.

first week of classes! sort of. two of my classes did not happen because of labor day, so it was a little bit of an anti-climactic start to the semester. but! i moved into my shiny new studio in the fox building - it's lovely and it has a nice big window for primo natural light. i'm trying out this new work-stays-at-work, studio-stays-at-studio, home-stays-at-home thing, so we'll see how that works out for me.


sunday, august 31st: "i love my new house and the people in it."
monday, september 1st: "hit the ground running? or hit the ground face first?"
tuesday, september 2nd: "i'm not so good at keeping in touch."
wednesday, september 3rd: "...and the class hasn't even started yet."
thursday, september 4th: "i wonder how many people ignore them when they say hello."
friday, september 5th: "she needed me to be there and i wasn't."
saturday, september 6th: "getting things up an running bit by bit."

in other sort-of exciting news, i am finally trying to put all these dailies to good use and am preparing an application for a solo exhibition in one of mica's student space galleries. i realized that this spring (when the shows are slotted) i will have an entire year of tiny square illustrations to show, so i figured it was worth a shot? wish me luck!

dailies 8/24-8/30.

dailies dailies dailies dailies, as per usual.


sunday, august 23rd: "dreaming things into complexity."
monday, august 24th: "i can now add 'thriller choreography' to my list of useless skills."
tuesday, august 25th: "hmm, just add shit."
wednesday, august 26th: "planting too many seeds to see if anything will grow."
thursday, august 27th: "cranky in a cute dress."
friday, august 28th: "what's self-control?"
saturday, august 29th: "i'm counting down a lot of things."

i'm finally unpacked unpacked, settled in and loving my new apartment and roommates. things are looking up, so look for a shameless apartment photo shoot a little later this week before classes get too far underway.

dailies 8/17-8/23.

just a little late this week, it's been a crazy few days. i'm finally getting nicely settled into my new (lovely!) place, i'll probably post pictures and deviate mildly from the strictly art nature of this blog to show off my new house as soon as we get the finishing touches squared away. apparently our toilet is a 'toto', which i'm told is essentially like having a bentley parked in our bathroom. i'm not entirely sure why that was relevant, but here we go:

sunday, august 17th: "a silver lining that basically tied my loose thesis ends in a big fat bow."
monday, august 18th: "a cold shower in a steamy apartment i guess balances out."
tuesday, august 19th: "my thinking cap was exceptionally high-functioning today."
wednesday, august 20th: "actions speak louder."
thursday, august 21st: "i'm letting too much in."
friday, august 22nd: "i'm suddenly ready and willing to pick a fight."
saturday, august 23rd: "too many things are demanding my attention."

the end the end the end the end. classes start up in a week, so expect much more in the visual stimuli department than just week after week of dailies really soon! like whoa!