I can make movies too, ya know. Just not good ones.

Well, I went to see The Hunger Games this past weekend, and it was AMAZING. I didn't even nerd out too much... I only wore my fab Stella & Dot Arrow necklace and painted my nails like so:  

 

(my bangs look SO GOOD right there... jeeze... sorry internet, but totally worth it) 

I have absolutely no complaints about the movie except for the fact that I want more of it... there should have been more of it. So I'm just going to have to see it again next weekend (this means you, Val. You know who you are and what the plan is). In the mean time I'll just be obsessively listening to this song by Birdy. 

ANYWAY, back to the fact that I periodically make art but still on a bit of a movie tangent. You know how people can really like something and not personally be good at it? Well that is still true. I am NOT GREAT AT ANIMATION, no matter how much I love it when others do it (which in case you are wondering is a lot. I love animation a lot). It was when I took an animation class and then had to make one that I confirmed this fact. We had to find a way to make a minute long animation of a love triangle in space. Whatever that means. 

This is apparently what that means. 

But I made it and it took me a long time and now you can watch it of you so choose. HERE IT IS AND YOU'D BETTER WATCH IT:   

Questionable love triangle. Definitely took me forever. That one mountain is actually made out of the back of another giant Mother Earth puppet that I made... so... that's crafty of me at least... and I am quite proud of the fact that I managed to make the native made of yarn and feathers actually look as if it was shoving the robots there at the end... yeah, it is what it is. But it got the job done.

Ready... Aim...

... JOAN OF ARC IS ON FIRE. 

Joan of Arc has always been a really interesting person to me. She was just so epically tragic and badass, and maybe just the littlest bit crazy. As she awesomely should be to live on in plays, movies, statues, and pictures that I make. 

A lot of my choices are made/based on this kind of badassery, so when I had to read a play for one of the last classes of my collage career last year, my teacher nudged me towards "St. Joan". If you're feeling ambitious and want to read it, it's actually a pretty funny play about Joan of Arc by George Bernard Shaw. I was reminded of how fascinating she was and I got on kind of a Joan kick after that, which led me to watch both The Passion of Joan of Arc (beautiful) and Messenger (badass), and which concluded in this piece where I decided to make her look like some kind of fiery lipstick model... 

Colored Pencil, 10"x 12"

I know what you're thinking - "That is not how one would look while being burned at the stake! LAURA. GET IT TOGETHER. MORE BLACK." But you know what? SHUT UP. That's what. As interesting as it would have been to try and draw her charring in agony, that is just not how I roll. Instead I decided to make her all, "I know that I did right because God told me so and so this DOESN'T HURT AT ALL. Peace out."  

As a side note, this is one of those pieces where the reference photos that I had to search for would make me look like some sort of pervert if someone had to troll through my internet history or photos folder. This happens to me a lot. There is just no good clean way to make a search term for 'girl bound in ropes'. So I stopped trying. Meh.

ANYWAY, I also thought that this would be a good time to post this since THE HUNGER GAMES MOVIE COMES OUT SO, SO SOON and I keep seeing posters that look like these ones all over the city:

I. Am. So. Pumped. 

GIRL ON FIRE MEET JOAN OF ARC. You are both epic and I love you. 

Those would have been such good, clean, beautiful, helpful reference photos if they had been around when I made Joan... next time... 

EDIT: HOW COINCIDENTAL. Success.