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. 

SO SOON.

YOU GUYS THIS IS HAPPENING SO SOON. 

And I will totally be watching. 

... I swear to god that I will actually post some art, like, tomorrow. 

Maybe. 

"Hunger is golden"

So... today after I picked up Brooke, the 10 yr old that I watch, she wandered into her room to accomplish (what I assumed was) her homework. I went in to ask her about dinner options a little while later she squealed and covered some colorful looking stuff on her computer, telling me, "It's not done! YOU CAN'T LOOK YET!" 

I was intrigued.

What this mystery project turned out to be was, as she described it, The Hunger Games - based entirely on the images that she had seen on my blog and things that she had heard me say about it. 

"You can't look at it... but you have to put it on your blog. Okay?" 

So I obviously told her that I would if she could figure out how to email it to me. 

She did. 

TA~DA

Hunger is golden - the title of the email in which I received this file. I laughed. I laughed good and hard. 

SO MUCH SUCCESS BROOKE, SO MUCH SUCCESS. There are so many amazing aspects of this I don't even know where to start. It's a little bit like when she saw the trailer for the last Harry Potter movie and declared, vehemently, that Hogwarts exploded. I just could not convince her otherwise until she actually finished the book.

I think that she made it with some sort of pre-set comic program.

Love it.

Dear Brooke, 

You are going to look back on this once you 

have read the books and love it too. 

Love, Laura. 

OPTIMUSPRIM - New *and* Improved!

Sooooooooooooooooo, the other day I was on this website and saw that there were apparently going to be Hunger Games themed nail polish colors. As it stands now, that isn't in fact going to happen, but for a second there it was EDIT: THESE ARE GOING TO BE REAL COLORS NOW. I guess that I need them... although they go against pretty much everything that the series is about... TOO LATE. I'MA PAINT MY NAILS AND PRETEND TO BE KATNISS. And these were are the colors that China Glaze created:

FAIL. 

Take a gooooooooood long look at those. Someone was actually in charge of that mess.

However, if you focus on the first one up there, the color that is supposed to represent Prim (a pinky primrose type color) but what they actually have written under the color is PRIME. Prime. Like a prime number or a primary color or... Optimus Prime. The Transformer. Then my brain got away from me again:

WHAT KIND OF BADASS TRANSFORMER WOULD PRIM BE YOU GUYS?! 

Personally, I thought that she'd be like this: 

But I did draw this.  

You know that she'd HAVE to be an ambulance because, come on, she just would, but she's still have to be girly and involved with animals somehow. Specifically Buttercup. So there you have it.

Once I started calling her 'OPTIMUSPRIM' I kept accidentally calling her 'octopus prim' (I did it at least 4 times yesterday alone), and then when I was saving her file I accidentally typed 'optimus prom'... So expect both of those sketches in the near future too.

OH, and, P.S. She can be 'new and improved' for all of you out there that are all like, "you can't be both- you can only be new OR improved!"

Wrong.

You can be both if you were just invented AND you have a new attachment. 

STOP RAINING ON MY GODDAMN PARADE.

...If you want to see my REGULAR Prim, then you can do it here. Boom goes the dynamite...

The Hunger Games VI - I demand tribute.

THE NEW TRAILER IS OUT FOR THE HUNGER GAMES. I am excited. I am very excited. You should be excited with me and watch it. Right now. Now. Do it. 

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Well, here is a slew of tributes in honor of it. I give you Cato, Clove, Foxface, and Glimmer. Two of them were drawn with a normal pencil, and two of them were done with a drawing one. You be the judge:

I AM SO EXCITED YOU GUYS. 

I'm trying really hard not to jump right into rereading them again. 

And again. And again, and again, and again... 

The Hunger Games V - Helpful Helpers of Helping.

I had decided that I wasn't going to post another set of Hunger Games sketches since I JUST graced the internet with 'Peeta on a Bagel' (you're welcome), but... I want to. So nah, nah, nah nah, nah. I promise that the next couple of posts will actually prove that I worked hard for my art degree that I now have to pay off. Ugg. 

Anywho, I bestow upon thee Mrs. Everdeen and Madge, citizens of 12/Katniss support crew part 2: 

Have I mentioned that I like to draw flowers? I like to draw flowers. FLOWERS FOR EVERYONE IN DISTRICT 12... or at least these two. 

Part of the reason that I did the above ladies is because I feel bad that Madge isn't going to be in the movies. I liked her. She seemed cute and spunky and generally pretty sweet. SO I DREW HER INTO EXISTENCE. Also, did you know that Mrs. Everdeen doesn't have a first name? I couldn't remember what it was so I scoured my book/the internet to try and remember only to find that she actually does not have one. But she does have gauze.  

Back in the real world, on my way home from work I stopped by Argo Tea to visit a friend. All of the drinks there are really yumzie, but I think that I've found my personal favorite in the iced vanilla chai. Since my friend works there, he is pro at making drinks, and he also made me a hot hibiscus steamer PLUS. I say 'plus' because he added a bunch of extra stuff that basically made it taste like some sort of fantastic fruit pie. I then proceeded outside where I sat by myself while reading my nook like a champion. 

I win at life. 

Even though it looked like I was spending some quality time with an imaginary friend, it was worth it. Both drinks were delish and I'd recommend then to anyone who wants to try a fancy tea at a cute little café. 


p.s. It just took me like 5 minutes to figure out how to make the stupid ´ symbol. 

When you have Peeta on a bagel, you can have Peeta anytime.

I feel as though I should preface this post by saying that in my apartment a lot of singing and dancing occurs, but not like GOOD singing and dancing. Let's be clear - between the three of us living here there totally could be some good singing/dancing, it's just that usually there isn't. That is how we roll.

For example, there are dances done for the express purpose to creep me out and songs are based on the fact that any one of us is excited about the food we are eating/TV or movie we just watched. Childhood advertising jingles fall into play somewhere too.

That being said, I bet that just about anyone who lived through the 90's remembers this special song:

For some reason my roommate Sean was singing this song (not as strange an occurrence as you'd think) while I was reading The Hunger Games for the first time. We had already been discussing the merits of marrying someone who is an accomplished bread/cake maker (I have yet to see the downside), how the name Peeta was also bread (win), and one thing lead to another - taking this Bagel Bites song to a whole new level of AWESOME/TERRIFYING while swapping just one little word. Pizza for Peeta. Try it. Try it now.

The song stuck. 

I've been singing it for months. 

Which lead to:

Yup. I had to. 

Do you have any idea how hard it is to draw a bagel? BECAUSE NOW I DO. Who would think that I little circle of bread would be such a pain in my ass... 

I wasn't feeling my all time best yesterday, but I still managed to whip up this little gem. I sat at my computer coughing quietly to myself for about an hour for the express purpose that the rest of the world had a chance to laugh at what I laugh at on a regular basis. And to embarrass Sean. A whole lot of the reason that this exists is to embarrass Sean. 

I hopefully haven't ruined books, song, pizza, TV, art, bagels, or Peeta for anyone. But if I did... whatever. I regret nothing.  

The Hunger Games IV - Capitol!

I love drawing curly hair. It is soooooooo muuuuuuch fuuuuuuuun... but her shoes (again) are subpar. Bah. Whatever. Here are Effie and Cinna, residents of the Capitol who keep Katniss in line/attractive! 

I *ACCIDENTALLY* made Cinna look like my friend Orlando. OKAY, ORLANDO, DO YOU HEAR THAT? IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. But you should probably be flattered... Cinna is freaking awesome. And he definitely looks more like Orlando than Lenny Kravitz though.

The Hunger Games III - The girls are back in town.

What's that? 

 I AM A BIG NERD. 

Which is probably why I ended up being a citizen of District 3. Go tech. ANYWAY, I got really pumped by the release of the posters for the Hunger Games movie that came out yesterday (which can be seen in all their glory here), so in their honor I present some of the more likable characters/few female friends of Katniss from book one: 

Rue was the very first character that I drew this summer, and when I started on her... she wasn't Rue yet. She was just some girl with curly hair that I wanted to be intertwined with flowers. So that's part of the reason why she looks so very, very much older than she probably should. I know already. I know. 

Also some Lady and Buttercup action up in here! What whaaaaat. I think that's the first goat that I've ever drawn...

The Hunger Games II - More from District 12

Well, here are some more of The Hunger Games District 12 residents/Katniss support crew members/people who Laura loves to be frustrated with. I may have tried harder on one than the other... but they both have some freaking weird shoes on. 

I'm a Peeta girl myself, but darn if I didn't do a good job with Gale... Haymitch... sorry I made you look so awful. 

Dear The Hunger Games, I love you. Love, Laura

Recently (and constantly) I have been obsessed with the Hunger Games book trilogy.

OBSESSED.

Since Harry Potter ended, I guess I needed something amazing and special and magical-ish to occupy my time, and this book series filled that particular void. So I have pimped it out to friends, relatives, people who come within a 10 foot radius of me in an effort to find someone else around with whom I could babble on about them for lengthy periods of time. However, now that that's done and I've read them all (twice) I. Need. More. Stat. I know that the first movie is coming out early next year, which I am pumped for, but thus far the 30-seconds-of-trees trailer just isn't doin' it for me.

So, to make myself feel better over the summer I started to draw a bunch of the characters from book one. It started by accident, I swear, while doodling with a No. 2 pencil. And no reference. Just desperation. And I suppose a desire to put down on paper what I saw in my head before my brain was influenced by the movie. But mostly I think that I was just desperate.

SO, without further ado, here are Katniss and Peeta:

More to follow in the future!

*sigh* I do love that boy with bread. 

I did not do him justice.