I'm just a happy kid.

I hit a creative burst this evening and I am quite hyper, so this may be long.

First off, I heard from my favorite proximity friend today. What is a proximity friend you ask? This is from the Chuck Palahniuk series of short stories collection entitled "True Fiction" and I think it's genius and indicitive of a portion of the life I lead.

"At the time, most of my friendships were based on proximity: neighbors or coworkers. Those people you know only because, well, your're stuck sitting next to them every day. The problem with proximity friends is, they move away. They quit or get fired."

So Rutar, my ex-office-mate, who I have spoken fondly of before, has a great way with words. He wrote to tell me that our ex-office-neighbor passed away. Our ex-office-neighbor was a fiftyish German man who looked like Doc from the popular Back to the Future trilogy. He never learned to distinguish between the two of us, so he referred to us collectively as "Dude." I thought this was cool.

Rutar, a now phd candidate has a great way with words. Here is quote from his mail which sums up why I love hearing from him.

Yeah, so, did
you hear about Forsberg? If you didn't, apparently he just passed away
from cancer. Anyway, on a less depressing note, are you getting a lot
of poontang in Austin or are you just doing the loner artist thing
still? Later.

Death is never funny, but just knowing that there will be a doctorate holding man who uses the word "poontang" out in the world helps me to sleep easier at night. I miss him. The entire email exchange turned out to be volumonous and nothing short of hilarious as well as entirely obscene. I will save it for my memoirs.

Finally,
Mud season is in full effect up in my backyard. Everytime Fred goes out for his nightly shit he leaves 187 paw prints across the floor, fresh laundry, or anything else in his path.(yes it's mud, i checked). He refuses to heed the mat placed at the door which clearly reads "Wipe your paws". In faustian moment of jeckyl/hyde battling my creative/engineering sides came together in a joint effort to impede the filthification of our carpet. If I were to lay a giant strip of velcro (the loop portion) across the entranceway, and then constructed small paw-boots with the opposite side of velcro on the bottom of them, i could put his booties on him before he goes out. He would then proceed to muddy his paws, take his shit, and then run run back into the house. However as he crosses the threshold the grabbing power of the velcro would rip the muddied booties from his husky legs thus saving my carpet from the dirt.

I think this would work.

This is the cover of a catalog that arrived with the post today. Somehow, my name found itself on the vascular compression therapy mailing list. I find this very deeply disturbing. 

A little work done tonight. Not sure if you can event tell the difference, but...toned up the flesh, detailed the leaves and brightened the flowers. 

I know how Noah felt.

sketchdump47_colored
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

It won't stop raining here. It's the kind of day where you cannot shake the dampness and feeling of cold.

This is an old sketch that I did, but I have been itchin' to try out the new watercolor paints I ordered. They come in tubes, unlike the little trays you get in grade school (the last time i watercolored), so this was an experiment. It's pretty portable too, a few tiny tubes, a small brush and a cup or bowl and your all set. I'm thinking I will take them to Japan with me, just in case....

My IPOD is on it's last legs. It's the first generation, so I have had it for a few years and use it literally for hours every day. I have dropped it 28 times, the twenty eighth time being the one that did it in. It kills me to spend 300 bucks for something I already have, but this is the one gizmo that I really like. (I just ordered a new one...)

Overheard at my house

Me: Okay, that's it. We are officially down to 1 fork. I want all of the forks out of your room.

(brother returns with 2 handfuls of forks with months old food stuck to each one, opens dishwasher and throws them in)

Me: Oh hell no. Your scrubbing those by hand. The dishwasher isn't going to do jack shit to those things.

(brother furiously scrubs forks for a few minutes)

Brother: This isn't working. I think i need a sandblaster.

I was out until the wee hours of the morn last night resulting in not getting out of bed until 1 pm. Tonight is my privacy fix however. A William H. Macy (you just can't go wrong wth him) movie from blockbuster, the pixies on Austin City Limits, and a new library book, all is good and joyous in my world. 

Here is a little painty-paint update. The letters really popped out this time around.

I sat next to her in physics. She always was mean. 

Everyone has a crazy family, especially me.

My great uncle jim was a dapper man with brown curly locks and a soft southern accent. Being a logger, he travelled and was often removed from his family for long periods of time. When great uncle jim died the entire family showed up to pay their respects. His wife and kids were in attendance for the services. Then his other wife and kids showed up.

That's right, although he wasn't of the mormon persuasion, great uncle jim was a living , breathing practicer of boligamy (i don't know how to spell it, but you get the point).

Quite the shocker, wouldn't you agree?

The craziness never ceases in the bowels of warrick county. Sometimes we even make the news:

I find it odd

The Little Donny Foundation

I have decided to champion a cause this year, and that cause is the little donny foundation.

from class last night. 

Just a quick doodle. 

Overheard at my house

E: Where are those pepsi's you said you bought?

Me: They were in the truck, I just brought them in.

E: If I couldn't find them by 9:00, i was going to eat your chex mix.

Me: Dang! I forgot I had chex mix, I am gonna eat the whole bag.

E: Can I have half?

Me: No.

E: Can I have a can of tuna? I don't have any food.

Me: Yeah, but only if you promise to put some pants on. Seeing those saggy tighty whities reminds me of dad. It's icky.

E: I'm getting ready to back to my room.

......

Me: DID YOU EAT ALL THE THIN MINT GIRL SCOUT COOKIES??!!!???

E: They're crack. I couldn't help myself.

Me: You owe me 4 dollars.

From my hometown newspaper.

I just like the names and the quotes. I mean come on, we have all the makings of a dukes of hazzard episode in one article. Guys named cletus, trailer parks, i was just waiting for him to say, "The first order of business is to set up a speed trap to catch those Duke boys!"

On the subject of humiliation

Like most people, I am most philosophical when I am driving. Today's ponderings dealt with humiliating events. As humans, we all deal with humiliation of various degrees. I am of the opinion that the most humiliating events generally take place when you are at your most insecure stages such as childhood. Mine did, and oh, dear friends, was is it a doozy.

Let's set the scene shall we? At the young age of 13, enduring odd things like voice changings and the sprouting of hair in nether regions, I am walking home from school with all of the neighborhood kids. This motley gaggle of children, while they could be your best friends, at any given moment could turn on you like a rabid pack of wolves. The road on which my home lied was a slight upward slope. Carefree as we began to crest the hill my heart sunk as I looked upwards towards my backyard. There, in all their glory, hanging on the clothesline.....all of my underware for the world to see. "Maybe no one will notice", I hoped.

Queue the torrents of laughter from the afore mentioned wolves. Insults were not even necessary, as the Scarlet H blazed upon my chest. I wish it stopped there, but alas, having your friends see your line fresh tighty whities, while humiliating, holds no candle to knowing that you the next morning your were destined to wear Hanes that felt as though they had been starched (Blogger's note: clothes line dried clothes have a peculiar texture to them, the polar opposite of the soft goodness clothes have after coming out of a normal drier).

Moral of the story. Never do this to your children. It will scar them for life.

Worst thing on television ever

I recently saw perhaps the most disturbing thing ever broadcasted on television. After an utterly wonderful friday night, my Saturday evening was spent indoors reading and lounging about the homestead. As I perused the pages of a Hollywood tell all novel, the brother was feverishly searching the on screen cable guide looking for entertainment:

E Loehr: Dude, check this. This show is called 160 lb tumor.

Me: Don't even turn to it. You know they are going to show that shit, it will kick my gag reflex in.

(click)
(Flash to the most giant hideous 160 lb. tumor ever)

E Loehr: AAARRRGGHHHHH!

Me: AAAAARGHHHHHHH! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF! (gag)

(click)

Me: Told you.

E Loehr: Showing things like that on television should be illegal.

Money talks, bullshit walks.

Money talks, bullshit walks.
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

In art class a few weeks ago, Dave was critiquing some of my stuff.

"Ruel, the thing you have to remember is that there is no such thing as a line, its just an illusion created by the edges of two objects touching."

"Dave, I am an engineer, and I clearly remember from math class that a line is the shortest distance between two points."

"Ruel, first off, that's bullshit. Forget you ever heard it. Secondly, in here you are anything but an engineer."

The conversation reminded me of that scene from the matrix where the little boy said, "The thing you have to know is that the spoon doesn't exist." The point of all this, i tried to a picture without using lines. I liked the results.

Colors are becoming solid and the background is near complete. Next up will be the lettering... 

Remember that scene from that Bruce Lee kung fu movie, where he fights Kareem Abdul Jabaar (what was his real name? I forget), anyways, its a cool scene. 

me. now. right. now.

Bluebirds of happiness are buzzing about my head and I am walking with the stature of man of whom life has been kind to. It's just one of those kinds of days. There are some really fun things coming up around town that I am looking forward to.

First off, Hank Williams III is coming to town. I have wanted to see him for a while, he does one hard core country set, and then busts into a punk rock set. The irony is alluring.

Also.

I received my performance rating at work. I'm a 2+.
I'm an above average performer.
The next jump up is 1, and thats rare to get.
So 2+ is good.
Life is all about these little labels we place.
I went from being an A student to a 2+ worker.

The scale is 1, 2+, 2, 3, 4. 4 is the worst, it means you should find a new job.

When it comes to driving (an automobile) I am probably a 3, you know, below average.

Not a lot has changed. Blocked in some more tones, but I am really paralyzed until Dick Blick ships me 2 tubes of lemon color paint so I can finish the background. I also want one of those cool pallets like bob ross uses, but I am not sure how you clean them...... 

something old something new never sad but sometimes blue

I was doing a build today and had a half hour to kill. It was near the end of the day and everyone was winding down and chatting away. I showed Odanne-sann the picture I was working on and he immediately started cracking up. He gathered his friends around and they all started laughing and speaking in Japanese. Getting these guys to laugh is no easy chore, so I was quite curious.

"Do you know what that means?" he asked. "Oh shit!", I thought. "Nope, you all left before I could ask. I couldn't wait, you know how impatient I am." "Literal translation is 'throat helper'" he said with a grin plastered onto his face. It wasn't candy after all, it was a throat lozenge. Personally, I think it makes the picture that much cooler. They all seemed to like it, which made me happy.

As the idle banter died down, Beauford and I were discussing movies. We got on the subject of the Last samurai. Ohnishi-sann is the quietest of the bunch and rarely speaks, but I could tell he was eavesdropping on our conversation. He looked over at us and quietly spoke one of the coolest lines I have ever heard.

"There are no samurai's left in Japan, but the samurai spirit still lives in some of the people."

Then he went back to work.

Simply awesome.

cirque du soleil is coming to austin. You should go if you live here.

Thats all for today.

Not for distribution

Me: How was the spurs game? Did you have fun?

The sann: Verr ee fun. Big show! I took many picture. You want to see?

Me: Hell yeah, break them out.

(I look at about 27 pictures of cheerleader close up pics, one of them is great, it's this tiny japanese guy in the middle of 20 cheerleaders, I have no idea how he scored this)

Me: Those rock. Are you going to show them to your wife?

The sann: No. Pictures not for distribution.

No class tonight since it is MLK day, so I did some doodling, learned some new songs and ordered more paint. I want to experiment with watercolors, but I can't find them (imagine that).  

Jealousy reigns

one

tara mcpherson

joe sorren

clothes

Damn you, banana republic. Damn you and your dry crean only clothing. When I see that tag attached to a sweater, I know I shouldn't buy it. I know the dire consequences that shall follow. Yet everytime, I fall victim to your mark downs. Two months later, the fabulous sweater finds it into my non color seperated clothing pile. Sunday laundry day is all but shattered when I see that sweet merino fine wool emerge from the dryer. I know its too late. My clothing has shrunk to toddler size yet again. 

Here is a new one I started tonight. Once again, its big, as I prefer working that way. So here is the story behind it. The little girl was a doodle in my sketchbook which has lingered for a while. I really like the idea of elliciting a cute, sweet image, but then distorting it somehow so that it is disturbing. I think the gas mask does that. As far as the rest, today Odane-sann hooked me up with some japanese candy. I was checking out the packaging and thought it looked cool, some japanese writing and pretty flowers. Then the whole thing came together in my mind. I have no idea what the writing means, they left to go see a spurs game before I could ask. Anyways, its i just blocked everything in, hope to get some time to work on it this weekend. Purdue & IU play tomorrow and there is an alumni event for it which I am going to try and hit...... 

2 faces final

2 faces final
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

It turned out ok. Could be better, could be worse. Lately I have been consistantly cranking out mediocre stuff with occasional goodness. That is all a guy can really ask for, so it leaves me feeling content.

p.s. I checked out the warrick county sex offenders web page. Of the three people that I knew:

1) one attended sunday school with me
2) one was in my graduating class and freshman year small engines class (yes, i took a small engines class)
3)one of them I once watched beat down 2 guys with a piece of lumber.

Yikes! I think if I would have remained in the 'ville, I would have enough fodder for a crazy novel by now.

Small engines class was crazy. You brought a broken lawnmower engine to school and the goal of the class was to rebuild it. However, the goal of the sadistic student body was to sabotage your engine at the first available moment. Poor donald gossar was sick for a few days right before we tested our engines. The kids took opened up his motor and filled it with sawdust. When he gave the pull rope that first tug, a mushroom cloud of sawdust erupted and engulfed Mr. Roy R. Wilson (who did not have a sense of humor about these things)

she married the young son of a child molester

I think i am getting a lazy left eye. I just measured in the mirror, left eye is definitely a few millimeters off kilter. I spend far too much time hunched over a laptop. I have had worse jobs though.

Every year my dad would have this big bar-b-q thing at his shop. This dude would roll up with a giant bbq attached to his truck. At the bottom of this contraption were 2 giant tanks which collected the 'drippins (as said in southern indiana). After cooking enough bbq for 30 or 40 people, these bad boys were filled. Luckily, the shop had a steam jenny which i was fortunate enough to get the privilege to use to wash them out. Let me describe the steam jenny. It's basically a high pressure washer (like the car wash X 10) which shoots out a combination of boiling ass hot water and steam at high pressure. If needed, you could kill a man with it.

Now the fun part of this, is that it was so high pressured, whenever you washed something off with it, it immediately shot back in your face. In this case, hot stinky fatty beef drippings. Words cannot enjoy describe my joy in this task.

Oh, but dear friends, it gets worse. You see, one summer during a fabulously muggy indiana heatwave, my genius father decides to buy a crane. Of course, it was severely damaged. This thing was huge, you had to use one of those man lift things to get up to the top. Keep in mind the boom section was about two feet square.

Dad: "Listen, some birds have nested up in the boom section. It's full of nests and shit. We need to wash it out"

Me: "Oh shit."

Dad: "Your the only one that will fit in there. (I was 12). We will set the boom up at an angle so everything slides out the other end. Then we will hoist you up in an aerial life, tie a rope around your ankles so you don't slide out the other end, and drop you down in there with the steam jenny."

Me: "I'm claustorphobic"

Dad: "You'll get over it"

Me: "I will get covered with poop"

Dad: "Probably"

Me: "I'm gonna tell mom"

Dad: "............That won't work either"

So that summer day while my friends carelessly biked around town and went fishing, i dangled by a rope 40 feet in the air in the small confines of super heated boom section of a crane getting sprayed with steaming bird shit. It was even worse than it sounds.

Worst job ever.

A work in progress. It will get two more faces, but they will be upside down. Pastels are fun as you can crank stuff out pretty quickly. 

takin a break

inside_playing_video_games
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

This was the scene over the weekend. It looks like two 14 year olds live at my house.

drawing class

sketchdump48
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

Here is a sample of what we do in drawing class. Last night we drew chairs. Class is fun, but drawing chairs for three hours was a bit on the boring side.

I appreciate genius.

I appreciate genius.
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

Evan is in the market for an Ipod. You can get them engraved from Apple. A quick search on the internet for clever engravings yielded this one, the obvious ruler of all engravings.

rockgirl

rockgirl
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

I'm on a pastel kick it seems. I really like the way this came out, the physical features are in proportion and the back light came out awesome. What a great way to spend a Sunday.

This weekend came off to a rocky start. Friday night was sort of bunk. I woke up Saturday with high hopes of being productive. Instead, Fred decided to eat rat poison. We tried to make him throw up super model style (sticking fingers in his throat), but he kept biting and it hurt. Instead, I made an emergency trip to the vet.

Vet: "What's wrong with your dog?"
Me: "He ate rat poison. I tried making him puke, but he kept biting my finger, see the bite marks?"
Vet. ".......How much did he eat?"
Me: "A big hunk."

One hour later....

Me: "Did you get Fred to ralph?"
Vet: "Yes. We found some of the poison, some dog food, and what looks like nachos".
Me: "Yeah, he digs nachos"
Vet: "Well, I will bring him out. That dog sure is energetic"

The rest of the weekend was cool though.

Picture 009

Picture 009
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

A quick pastel from this afternoon. I don't really like it.

Emo boy

sketchdump47
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

Here is a quick sketch from last night. It turned out all-ight. This weekend is shaping up to be low-key but choice. The weather is wretched today, but we are going to finish up our bikes and hopefully take them out for a bit. I have an idea for a new painting, so I would like to start that, and the swamp has reappered in the hallway, so we need to pull the carpet up and let it air out. I might go see white noise also...

A random song appeared on my ipod that I have fallen in love with.

Interpol - the Specialist

sketchy

sketchdump46
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

A horrible still life.

Sweet jumps

DSCN1512
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

Here is my new bmx. I assembled it last night and took it for a quick spin, since it's frigid outdoors. I still have to put the pegs on in case I need to tote people.
I observed 3 things:
1) I have grown a foot since I last rode one of these
2) I have lost all of my wheelie riding skills
3) I don't remember being scared of falling off

Quick sketch from last night 

Deviations

Picture 013
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

"A box came for you today. What did you order?" "I don't know." "You don't know what you ordered from a BEAUTY SUPPLY STORE?" "...Shut up. Throw it at fred, let's see if he will try to open it"

Land of the rising sun

Feb 14-18.

Looks like I am headed to Japan!

pretty mouth

My bike will be here on thursday.
I am giddy like p. diddy.
My new art class started this week.
It is the fundamentals of drawing. All in all I think it will be good. We started out with some perspective studies, next week will be value, and eventually we work up to the human form. Its an 8 week course. For 130 bones it isn't too bad. The place that offers it has a plethora of different classes to choose from. For my next one, I am going to try an acting class. How fun is that??

It's on its way. I will be doing wheelies in no time. 

Overheard at my house

Me: Bitch! You have 4 forks in here. That's where they are all at. We are down to 3 in the kitchen.

Him: Eat my ass, I saw you throw one away the other day.

Me: That was a spoon. We have a ton of those.

Him: Oh.

Stuff

So today is big item pickup day in my neighborhood. That means people put all kinds of cool stuff on the curb. We went and did recon late last night to see if there was anything we needed. Although I saw some cool items, evan yelled at me and said I couldn't drag home anymore junk (as we had just cleaned out the garage). I did see a bike. I don't have a bike. This got me to thinking about bikes.

So our new project is going to be building some old skool bmx's. Mine is going to have pegs.

City of Austin - Austin Parks and Recreation Department: Doughterty Arts School Adult Programs

City of Austin - Austin Parks and Recreation Department: Doughterty Arts School Adult Programs: "
"


Classes in austin.

Goodbye old friends. It's been a great 5 years. You saw me through my college times, and into adulthood. You survived puke stains, paint stains, and burn marks, all with a stoic pride. We've traveled thousands of miles together and I must admit that I feel guilty about leaving you on the curb. If it wasn't for your stench, maybe things would be different, alas, it can't be helped. Auf Wiedersehen.