Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Not-So-Wise Teeth


Confession: I don't think my wisdom teeth are all that smart. No. In fact, I know they're not. After 4 oral surgeon consultations and a cat scan, I found out that I'm some sort of medical anomaly. My wisdom teeth are very, very confused.

I was stoked to get my wisdom teeth finally removed but alas! My mouth has other plans. My oral surgeon has "never seen anything like it." Three of my wisdoms are declared "impossible" to operate on... COOL. My bottom two have laced themselves directly around my nerve making them inoperable unless I'm fine with losing complete feeling in my face (pause) for forever. Hmmm... The top left is growing directly into my last molar's roots making that a two-for-one deal. And my top right... Well, that one is growing in normally and is going to be yanked out next week!

It has been a stressful couple weeks but I guess those three guys and I are ending up being friends for life. I just hope they cool it with the uncomfortable aches.

You're definitely getting on my nerves, wisdom teeth! Urgh.


Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Pressed for Time.

Wooowee. The past couple weeks have FLOWN BY. That's what happens I guess when you're keepin' busy! I have a couple commissions I'm working on right now and last week the U of A Foundation and my mentor, Karen, asked if I could quickly letterpress some broadsides for an upcoming event the next a week.

Uhhh... OF COURSE. I was stoked and honored and excited to get to work! Which was good because letterpress printing is fairly time consuming (BUT SO WORTH IT!) and I needed to hit the ground running if I were to make the deadline for the event!

The broadside is for an important donor that passed away, Agnese Nelms Haury and it features Alison Hawthorne Deming's poem "Sanctuary."

The door to the photo polymer plate machine room. I have heard so many scary stories of people having students walk in on them and accidentally exposing their plates to light that I ALWAYS make a sign reminding people to knock! Plates are expensive and I can't imagine how sad it would be to have a little oopsie! moment like that!

Based off the poem and the purpose of the broadsides, I made a sweet and simple pattern of monarch butterfly wings to be printed behind the poem's type.


I printed it with a split fountain/rainbow roll and it was SO FUN.

What's a rainbow roll? It's where you put one color ink on one side of the press and another on the opposite side. When they rollers turn, the colors mix and create a unique, rainbow-y sherbert-y, completely unexpected color effect! I love how each print is slightly different, perfect to print butterflies which have uniquely patterned wings!


I have never printed this way before because I have been wary about the prints getting too muddy  BUT I just made sure to lift the rollers up between each print so they wouldn't mix too much!


I spent my whole weekend printing and when I got home each night, I passed out and woke up with my entire body aching. A satisfying ache though! I had a lot of fun with the project and I haven't had the opportunity to letterpress for a couple months so I definitely missed it.


Here is the finished product! 200 broadsides and 200 tags. (Broadsides 4.5x12 inches, tags 3x4inches) They wanted the broadsides to be sort of like large book marks so people could use them for coffee table books if they didn't have the space to hang/display them.


Time ended up not really being a problem at all. I finished two days before the deadline and I packaged them up and they're ready to be delivered early tomorrow morning! The ladies at the Foundation said they were going to assemble little bags for everyone attending and attach the tags to packets of seeds. SO CUTE. I love the nature theme!

I can't wait to see their expressions when they get to hold the finished product! Letterpress is so special.

xoxo

PSSSST! Do you want to have something made for YOU by ME? If you want to talk possible commission work, I'd love to chat! Shoot an email to ddeloren@email.arizona.edu OR danielledelorenzo@msn.com

 

Thursday, September 4, 2014

An Important Cause

September is National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month and although I'll try not to get emotional in this post, I must warn you, this is a very important and near and dear cause to me! This disease whispers and has affected the lives of the ones I love and my life too. I won't get into the details, but Ovarian Cancer has taken the life of a wonderful, sweet and influential woman in my life in this past year and raising awareness has never seemed more urgent or important to me. For those who aren't familiar with this strain of cancer, the symptoms are vague and silent and there are no effective early screening tests to detect it. This means that it often reaches its third or fourth stage in women before it is caught.

Please know the symptoms! Please tell your sisters, your daughters, your mother, your grandmas and your aunts about this! Make sure your friends are all aware too! If you have persistent bloating, abdominal pain, trouble eating or frequent urination go see the doctor! These are potential signs. Visit ovarian.org for more information!

Do you want to help out this month?! I would love and appreciate it if you did! It's really easy. You can paint your toes teal (#tealtoes) and wear teal every Tuesday of September! (#whyteal) When people compliment your nails or your outfit, you can inform them about Ovarian cancer and it's symptoms! This truly makes a difference! There are also walk/runs and other fun events that you can participate that are held this month all around the United States! The Ovarian Cancer website will direct you to those events.

You can also share these images I created to your friends, family, coworkers... etc! Posting these on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter can really spread awareness! You can even print them out and hang them on bulletin boards.



This is sized to be the perfect Facebook Cover Photo! Please feel free to use and spread the word!!

 
Share this post. Share these images. Share this information.
Let's inform, prevent and fight this disease!
Thanks, guys!

Doodling Doodles!

Here are a few of the stickers I mentioned in the last post in real life Oklahoma action! Don't worry guys, they are just paper stickers, so they're easy to remove and will wash away with the rains! Nothing has been permanently damaged, just temporarily beautified! :)




I hope these cheered up people who walked past and saw them! :)


Here are a few other little things I have done this summer but haven't had the chance to share yet!

I have been working like a mad woman in my sketchbooks lately! I finished 3 (almost 4!) sketchbooks in the past 3 months and it's been really nice keeping up this healthy, creative habit. Above is a quick (15-30) minute marker sketch of Dame Edna that I colored with crayons. She's a real character and fun to draw!

Above is another quick sketch, this one of Brooks Nielsen of the band, Los Growlers. He has fabulous hair and I just had to sketch it.

This is my interpretation of Thomas Jefferson. As I said, I have been drawing everything... and sometimes I run out of ideas to draw so I grab whatever I can find around me and draw that. That's not to say that I just have twenty dollar bills laying around everywhere I go... I wish! No, I just found this guy in my wallet and had to draw that face. Kind of looks like a weird Josh Groban more than ol' Tommy but hey. Practice is practice.

Some of my sketches I like so much that I work on them on the computer and polish them up! Here is one example of that:

It's just a funny little typographic drawing I made referencing my friend who pinky promises to hang out with us and then consistently bails (which doesn't say much about our company... hmmm!) Obviously it's meant as a joke and not a threat! Don't really break pinkies, guys!!!

I have a lot more I could show, but I'll spare you all that... for now! :)