| Subversive Things To Do With Art Supplies |
[Feb. 28th, 2008|05:10 pm] |
So in a rare move the other day, I stopped at the art supply store and got myself some real supplies. Usually I'm content to use a good ol' No. 2 pencil with a regular pink eraser. Jen makes fun of me for it, but I don't have to drive as far to get said supplies.
Plus I have this eraser that I've had for years. It's this old pink eraser that's really, really soft for some reason. And yet, I've managed not to wear it down too badly over the years.
However, I do need a few actual real art erasers. So I got a white gummy eraser and a kneeded rubber.
The kneeded rubber (why does that sound dirty?) is like this magic Pla-Doh thing that you can mold into shapes, but it never hardens. Plus, it doesn't leave any crumbs. the kneeded rubber really lets you get into those hard-to-reach spots, if the lines are really close together.
Actually, I don't really use the kneeded rubber all that much. My favorite thing to do with it is to roll it out really thin and flat and then fold it over into a ravioli shape, trapping air inside.
The gummy eraser is something I tended to use a lot more often, simply because it's just so soft that it doesn't destroy the paper the way a pink school eraser would (well, except for the one I have). I used to have a couple of them in high school, and I eventually whittled them away to nothing.
Another neat thing about the gummy eraser is that it's a perfect rectangular brick of eraser with an extremely smooth texture. That means that you can actually modify them with an X-Acto knife and make stamps out of them. ...which is exactly what I did in high school.
See, when I was a young hooligan, our dean had this "APPROVED" stamp that he would ka-chink down onto any poster or flyer hanging in the hallway. The rent-a-cop security guards we had back then (this was pre-Columbine) basically had the sub-duty of glancing at these posters to make sure there was an official dean stamp.
So I nabbed one of these out of the hall and used it as a template for my own "APPROVED" stamp. And it fucking worked! I would print up all sorts of obnoxious stuff on my computer, stamp them with my bastard approval stamp, and hang them in the hallway. They usually had a lifespan of an entire day, which is a bit longer than the usual hour than an unstamped wall hanging would get. Usually, those were taken down within an hour.
Actually, we pretty much figured out that the only one who would habitually take down my phony approved hall posters was the dean himself. The man was pretty fucking anal. He'd even find the ones I would intentionally try to hide in the minutia of overabundant pro-school flyers. He must have been like, "Wait a minute! That 8½x11 area of wall was exposed only an hour ago! Some hooligan tried to hide this sheet of paper among other official wall hangings! Unbeknownt to him, I have memorized every square inch of wall space in the entire school! HA! BWA-HA-HA!"
I'd even try to hide them among the other flyers, but below eye level. And that kind of worked for a while. But they'd still be gone after a day.
Of course, you're probably wondering what kind of evil shit I used to print up to post around the school. Well, I don't remember everything, but my favorite was the official anti-school-pride fight song. See, we used to have these school assemblies, and the band would play the fight song, which we were all expected to sing along. Seriously! I make this shit up, not.
So, utilizing the best of my Weird Al abilities, I kept the song structure but wrote some pretty bitter lyrics that mostly loathed the having to sing it at assemblies and mocked the athletec teams for not achieving anything. And yes, my hooligan friends and I did sing the anti-pride song at the assemblies. Surprisingly, nobody ever threatened bodily harm.
Then again, by the time I was really posting that thing around the school hot and heavy, I was only going to high school for half a day anyway. I was pretty much an enigma my senior year. Someone would be like, "Where's Neil? How come he isn't around anymore? Did he graduate?". And everyone else would be like, "Who?".
Another thing I used to do with my kneeded rubber was to basically use it as modeling clay. I used to be really good at molding caracatures of my teachers, which I would immediately squash if they came walking by. "Is that Pla-Doh!?" "No, Mr. Rossiter. It's an eraser. See?" It was really easy to demonstrate this fact, so I never had it taken away.
Oh, as long as I'm on the topic of art, I might as well tell this story that actually has nothing to do with art supplies. It was about this girl I really, REALLY liked in high school. This was back when I had two art classes back-to-back (in the same room, mind you!), and this girl would be there in both classes.
And this girl was just drop dead gorgeous. Long curvy legs, luscious pouty lips, dreamy lavender eyes, and long wavy black hair. She was like Wonder Woman, only real. And I spent much of my Sophomore year just lusting after this girl, and I'm pretty sure she knew about it. And I would just sit there in a not-able-to-stand-up sort of way, dreamily thinking about her.
(If Jenny is reading this, this is about the point where she grabs her barf bag, I'm sure. She knows EXACTLY who I'm talking about.) Don't worry, Jen. You'll like how this ends.
Anyhoo, this girl would basically flirt with everyone. Nowadays, that would be a major turn-off, but back then, it was making my hormones do sommersaults. I didn't care that she hugged ALL of the guys in class. I just figured that it only meant something when she got to me. I don't know why. I guess I was stupid.
So, she noticed (as if you COULDN'T) that I love drawing the hot dames. Even back then, my sketch pad was full of them. But unlike the average babe-drawing schmoe, I tended to draw actual expressions on my chicks. Yes, even back then! So she's like, "Can you draw a picture of me. I knelt before her and was like, "M'lady. It would be of the highest honor. I shall gladly accept."
For the next FOUR WEEKS, I drew this picture of her. Now, that's a long time to spend on a drawing, but I was determined to make it perfect. I would put every ounce of my ability into capturing her eyes and facial features. And let me tell you, boys and girls, back then, when I was motivated, I drew some damn dreamy-looking eyes. I made sure I did it right!
On the other hand, I just might be full of bullshit here. It's also occurred to me that the reason I may have taken four weeks to finish this drawing was that I had a perfect excuse to stare at her nonstop. But I digress. Let us not quibble over every little detail, shall we?
What matters is that by the time I was finished, I captured her beauty. It was, in my honest opinion, absolutely perfect. Probably the best real life drawing I've ever done. ...to date, even. I was so proud of it, and I stood there like a giggling idiot as I handed it to her. Her big dreamy eyes opened wide, and she thanked me from the bottom of her heart. She also gave me the biggest hug. I was floating on a cloud at that moment. And then she folded it and stuffed it into her purse.
SHE FUCKING FOLDED IT.
And then I never spoke to her again. The end. |
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