Tonight I DJ’d my first wedding in almost 2 years and I’m happy to report I still got it! I was afraid my MCing & DJing was going to be rusty but once I started going through the motions it all came back to me. I forgot how much time it takes to process a timeline and prepare music for a wedding. I was up all night prepping for tomorrow. My first wedding in almost two years. Wish me luck!
If none of that makes any sense to you, I’m sorry. This is some nerdy tech shit. I made a Raspberry Pi Plex Server years ago using the same Pi and an external hard drive and used it till something stopped working. Tonight I thought I’d try again but with a thumb drive. I managed to get the server running on the pi but it’s not recognizing the movie files on thumb drive. After a few hours a gave up for the night. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.
I spent most of the day running errands but I made time to draw & ink this little diddly. I’m not really feeling what’s going on in the thought bubble. I might change it before inking.
Tonight I inked a couple sketches I made when I was hanging out with a couple artist buddies. The conversation was about copying other artists so as a goof I copied what they were drawing. They started as very loose pencil sketches then I added details and lettering before applying black ink.
As I’ve been figuring out what I want my zine to look like, I’ve asked myself, “What is a Frankiezine?” I’ve written down a few answers: I want it to be a way of getting my artwork “out there.” I want to advertise my website, blog and other merch. Spark joy when someone reads it. Be able to sell them at a lower price point than my t-shirts & prints. Today I thought about creating a dedicated zine illustrating all of those things. Something I can show people when they stop by my booth at events. Something that answers the question, “What is a Frankiezine?”
One of the reasons for making a zine is to sell merch. I’ll need at least one page dedicated to my t-shirts, prints & stickers. Tonight I was trying to come up with a cool layout based on the alien/space theme. It’s not quite there yet.
Today, while I was hiking, I sketched out some important periods in my life in regards to art & drawing. My earliest memories of drawing rocket ships with my cousin when we were little. Being a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fanatic and learning how to draw them like the cartoon. Being bored in middle school classes and doodling on my class work. Taking my first art class, meeting other artists and acquiring my first sketchbook in high school. In junior college, still uninterested in class, my first job working in a clean room and going out and doing graffiti at night. I haven’t figured out which specific events I’d like illustrate to cover the last 20 years of my so called artsy-fartsy life.
I dumped all the sketchbook drawings of me and space alien stuff onto my computer and sorted them into two folders. Over 600 pictures I took with my phone. I’m dreading all the scanning I’ll have to do.
I’m still working on how to to make an alien themed zine. One of the ideas I was to have a ufo fly by different planets and seeing the creatures that inhabit them. I figure Earth qualifies so I made a rough sketch of what that page might look like.
After two and half months of constantly calling Covered California (Obamacare), Medi-Cal (Medi-Care), and Kaiser Permanent, after an error caused me to lose my Premium Tax Credits and pay full price on my monthly health insurance premiums, I finally got confirmation that my money was refunded and my PTC were retroactively applied. It was a huge pain in the ass because no one new what caused me to lose my PTC, and once that was fixed there were more hoops to jump through in order to get my money back. I hope I never have to go through that again.
Between walking around Emma Prusch Park, checking out the Mexica New Year event, and walking the Penitencia Creek Trail at Alum Rock Park, I walked 7.7 miles and I am tired AF.
My buddies and I rented a private theater this afternoon to watch The Batman. There were 15 of laughing and joking throughout the whole movie. It was so much fun and I can’t wait to do it again.
I was up past sunrise making buttons from a couple of old comic books. They came out looking really good!
This is important.
While I was hiking today I started thinking about memorable movies about aliens. One of them was Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Specifically the dinner scene. When I got to back to my car I sketched myself as Richard Dreyfuss’s character with the mashed potato mountain on his plate. It took me a couple hours this afternoon to go through all 55 of my homemade sketchbooks looking for selfies and alien drawings. When I was done I had over 200 new pictures on my phone, in addition to the 400 pics taken from my store-bought sketchbooks. I wasn’t expecting there to be this many images before I started digging. Scanning is going to take ffforrrevvverrr!
I recently agreed to DJ a few weddings so I tried on my suit to see if it still fit and I could barely squeeze into the pants. I’ve decided to step up my workout routine before my first gig in a couple weeks. That means more hiking & walking. Picking up the weights. Running again. I may be a little rusty when I get back to work but I don’t want to be completely out of shape.
I don’t remember which idea came first, making a zine or making my own sketchbooks. Back in August of 2018 I bought a long reach stapler and starting binding sheets of printer paper and folding them in half to make cheap mini sketchbooks. I haven’t made a zine yet but I’ve been using these homemade sketchbooks over three and a half years now. I was always too precious with my store bought sketchbooks and didn’t draw in them enough. With these cheap homemade books it’s easier for me to draw in and write stuff down. I’ve got 55 of these books and counting. I’ll be pulling sketches from these books to make zines, which was part of the original intent. Tonight I went through them all and marked the dates they were drawn in. Next I’ll go through them again looking for drawings of aliens and myself. Those are the two subjects I want to make my first couple zines from.
Today, while resting on a bench during my hike, I came up with a possible layout for a zine based on all the alien characters I’ve drawn over the years. It’s sorta like a rogues gallery of the different species and environments. 👽
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Frankie Mcfly's
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