Futuristicky

Tiny felted robot: "My head is on fire."

2009-08-16T21:29:00.002-04:00

I've been wanting to make more tiny felted things, and today I finally had a chance. This is only my second felting project, and it's my first felted robot. He is 100% wool. (Although i did poke my index finger a few times with the felting needle, so he might also share a tiny bit of my DNA.)

I love the idea of using simple natural materials to make a high-tech little dude. I have a feeling I'll make him some friends.

New Robot Painting: Yay, Lightning

2009-07-26T23:03:00.003-04:00

I made this while rewatching Short Circuit tonight on Netflix. (It's one of the movies you can watch online on demand.) The last time I saw this movie was in the theater in 1996, and I'm happy to say it still holds up, even if it's a tiny bit corny. I kind of hope the remake never happens.

It's stormy in NYC right now. Maybe somewhere out there, a friendly robot is about to come alive.

Robot shopping collage

2009-05-27T22:44:00.002-04:00

This is what happens when I don't feel like working:

New robot painting: I don't have an unfriend button.

2009-01-04T22:19:00.003-05:00

I don't have an unfriend button, so once you add me, you are STUCK.

This is a little robot painting about the suckiness of social networking, and more specifically about the jerk who just deleted a friend of mine. I think it's really sad that our society developed a way to end friendships with a click. If someone matters enough to befriend, don't they matter enough to keep around for a while? To maybe talk to? To let them know what's bothering you?

p.s. I think it's funny that the robot turned out a little creepy looking. That was unintentional. But I like to think that even creepy-looking pink-haired robots deserve to meet people (robots?) who won't unfriend them on a whim.

New robot painting: I can almost reach it.

2009-01-04T22:15:00.003-05:00

A new little robot painting, for days when it seems like everything worth having is just out of reach. (He's optimistic, even if he has no reason to be.)

Happy holidays, world.

2008-12-20T20:57:00.003-05:00

May your holidays be full of snowflakes and robots and love. :)

I made this year's sparkly, roboty cards with two block prints on 100% recycled paper (yay!) -- one had the snowflakes and one had the robots. They turned out kind of messy, but I like them anyway.

Recent robot painting: You got super-served.

2008-07-25T17:17:00.002-04:00

This one makes me happy, because it turned out just like what I had in mind.

Recent robot paintings: Kitchen bots

2008-07-25T17:14:00.004-04:00

"I like to mix things up."

"I am making you a treat"
(note: he is an ice-cream machine, not a toaster)

Recent robot painting: My head is full of teen TV.

2008-07-25T17:11:00.003-04:00

Yes, I do realize that my depiction of teen TV looks more like a middle-aged couple. What can I say? People aren't my strong point.

New robot painting: Instead of a brain, I have teddy bears.

2008-05-11T13:21:00.004-04:00

My friend's son had a nightmare recently about a scary purple robot. So I made a little painting to show him that in reality, purple robots are no threat.

Purple robots don't want to hurt you. They wouldn't even know HOW to hurt you. Instead of brains, their heads are squished full of teddy bears, so basically all they know how to do is look cute. And hug. And hold your balloon.

Lovebot + Me = Love.

2008-05-01T14:53:00.006-04:00

I painted the little robot that was used for the Compatomatic Lovebot 3000, The N's new compatibility tester game. The people who built the game made him animate, and I think it's so cool to see one of my robots in motion! I'm also glad that he and I turned out to be compatible -- it would've been sad if he secretly hated me.

Old robot painting: Space Parade

2008-04-16T11:36:00.003-04:00

My artist friend Kelly Newcomer just asked me for a scan of this painting that we made together several years ago, and I realized I'd never scanned it or posted it here.

So here it is:

The one in the pretty green jumpsuit is supposed to be me. I know it looks dangerous that we're standing up in a moving rocket, and you're probably like, "Ladies, please sit down and put some seat belts on!" But remember -- we're in a parade, so that ship is probably moving VERY slowly. And I like to think it's hovering about a foot above the ground, so that if we started to lose our balance, we could just jump out and be fine.

Springtime robot painting: I think it's too warm for this jacket.

2008-04-13T00:28:00.004-04:00

If I had a little robot, I would knit him a zip-up sweater with bear ears. Even if he never got cold, the squashy sweater would make his square-shaped metal body a lot more huggable. (This painting was a gift for a friend. I hope someday, she will have a baby, and I will knit that baby a sweater with bear ears. Note to self: learn how to knit bear-eared baby sweaters.)

Newish robot painting: My only purpose is to hug you.

2008-04-12T23:23:00.003-04:00

He looks kind of stressed out, but it's only because he's trying SO HARD to hug that little kitty, and his stretchy arms don't quite reach far enough. (He was a gift for a cat-hugging friend/coworker.)

I have robots on my fingernails

2008-03-21T16:11:00.003-04:00

And when I play guitar, they look like a rockin' little robot army.

New robot painting: He's better at Scrabble than I am.

2008-02-04T22:46:00.002-05:00

Here's a robot painting I made for a friend/coworker who is crazy-good at Scrabble. I am a tiny bit jealous, because his first name is a legitimate Scrabble word and mine is not.

New robot painting: When you are not around, I video chat myself

2008-01-30T23:19:00.001-05:00

I made this one for a friend/coworker who once video chatted me while briefly experimenting with ichat's roller coaster background.

I think the robot is hanging out in a 1970's basement (with wood paneling and squashy green carpet), which I know doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of video chat. But whatevs. That's where he is.

New robot painting: I think I'm getting the wrong signal

2007-11-22T21:48:00.002-05:00

I don't have access to my scanner or my usual paints, but I'm painting robots anyway.

New robot painting: When I hide behind the chicken pile, nobody can tell that I'm sad.

2007-11-20T23:59:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure exactly why, but earlier tonight, I realized I wanted to make a painting of a robot peeking out from behind a pile of chicken.

It's on a 3" by 3.25" piece of a cardboard Fresh Direct box, even though I have plenty of actual painting surfaces I could've used. I guess I wasn't sure if I would like it. I do.

p.s. I've promised a bunch of people robot paintings, and I completely intend to make all of those paintings in the very near future. I don't know why I keep painting random stuff instead of working on the ones I owe people.

I don't think I have the right software.

2007-11-20T01:55:00.001-05:00

Another robot painting. It's about how the world feels sometimes, especially around the holidays.

This one is 8x10, so I made it clickable.

The scan looks sort of blurry, even when I view it at full size in Photoshop. I think my scanner is dying a very slow death. It's probably almost 10 years old, and it's incompatible with Windows Vista. I sometimes have to restart the computer more than once to get it to scan. Maybe if I end up trying to sell a few paintings at some point, that could pay for a new scanner... but my paintings are so personal. I'm not sure how I'd feel about a little bit of Lisa-sadness hanging on some stranger's wall.

I feel tiny.

2007-11-17T23:56:00.002-05:00

Another robot painting. This one's on a little 3" piece of a Fresh Direct box, and at actual size it was too hard to see, so this is an enlargement.

Argh. Maybe it's still too hard to see. But I guess that's sort of appropriate.

I haven't painted on random pieces of cardboard in a long time, but I realized the other day that my tiny robot blender (at the bottom of this page) is still one of my favorite paintings ever.

Robot babies like to swing.

2007-11-15T08:23:00.000-05:00

Another little robot painting. This one's a gift for a coworker, and again, it represents real people. (It's clickable so you can get a better look at the robot baby.)

Before this week, I don't think I'd ever painted a robot with facial hair, and now I've painted two.

p.s. If you think the robot baby is weird looking, you are WRONG. Mine is infinitely cuter than this real-world robot baby.

I wish you weren't so far away.

2007-11-13T10:19:00.000-05:00

A new robot painting. It's about a long-distance relationship.

Whenever I try to paint robots that resemble actual people, they end up looking nothing like the real people. This is actually NOT a painting of an eight year old girl robot and a Mexican robot, even if that's how it looks:

While I'm on the subject of eight year old girls, a little Indian girl on my subway the other day (who could've been 8 or 12 -- I'm bad at guessing kids' ages) blew me away with her sense of style. She looked futuristicky in the best possible way, and I will probably wish for quite a while that I'd taken a photo. She had short black hair that came to about her chin, and a dark plaid coat that looked expensive. I couldn't really see her shirt, but she was wearing slim silver pants or leggings with a great pair of black boots that might've been Diesel. (Not this pair, but hers had a similar feel.)

She was holding a black crocheted hat in her hand, and she had chunky arm warmers scrunched up around her wrists. Based on how completely amazing she looked, I'm fairly certain that I'm going to start knitting again this week. I want arm warmers exactly like hers. I've never quite realized it before, but I think my entire aim style-wise is to look like an eight year old girl from the future. I feel so lucky that I got to see one on my train.

Spazzy bowling robot

2007-11-08T23:05:00.001-05:00

This is the birthday card I made for my friend Lisa. I made it earlier today, before I went to the bowling alley, but I think it's a relatively accurate representation of what happened once I got there.

I'm starting to notice that anytime I draw things freehand, they end up looking kind of wonky. This little painting isn't quite as crooked as the blob in a mobile home, though. Maybe I just see life from a weird angle?

Stop throwing rocks at my heart.

2007-11-08T00:13:00.001-05:00

A new robot painting. When I saw him in my head, I didn't realize he would turn out looking like something out of an emo web comic.

I like him, but the emo-ness kind of bugs me (mostly because that wasn't what I wanted). Next time I'll use brighter colors.

[A follow up thought: I just put him next to the huggy bat painting I made last week. Both robots look a bit traumatized, but I think the bright colors make the huggy bat feel infinitely more optimistic.]