New robot painting: I think I'm getting the wrong signal

I don't have access to my scanner or my usual paints, but I'm painting robots anyway.

New robot painting: When I hide behind the chicken pile, nobody can tell that I'm sad.

I'm not sure exactly why, but earlier tonight, I realized I wanted to make a painting of a robot peeking out from behind a pile of chicken.




It's on a 3" by 3.25" piece of a cardboard Fresh Direct box, even though I have plenty of actual painting surfaces I could've used. I guess I wasn't sure if I would like it. I do.

p.s. I've promised a bunch of people robot paintings, and I completely intend to make all of those paintings in the very near future. I don't know why I keep painting random stuff instead of working on the ones I owe people.

I don't think I have the right software.

Another robot painting. It's about how the world feels sometimes, especially around the holidays.

This one is 8x10, so I made it clickable.




The scan looks sort of blurry, even when I view it at full size in Photoshop. I think my scanner is dying a very slow death. It's probably almost 10 years old, and it's incompatible with Windows Vista. I sometimes have to restart the computer more than once to get it to scan. Maybe if I end up trying to sell a few paintings at some point, that could pay for a new scanner... but my paintings are so personal. I'm not sure how I'd feel about a little bit of Lisa-sadness hanging on some stranger's wall.

I feel tiny.

Another robot painting. This one's on a little 3" piece of a Fresh Direct box, and at actual size it was too hard to see, so this is an enlargement.




Argh. Maybe it's still too hard to see. But I guess that's sort of appropriate.

I haven't painted on random pieces of cardboard in a long time, but I realized the other day that my tiny robot blender (at the bottom of this page) is still one of my favorite paintings ever.

Robot babies like to swing.

Another little robot painting. This one's a gift for a coworker, and again, it represents real people. (It's clickable so you can get a better look at the robot baby.)




Before this week, I don't think I'd ever painted a robot with facial hair, and now I've painted two.

p.s. If you think the robot baby is weird looking, you are WRONG. Mine is infinitely cuter than this real-world robot baby.

I wish you weren't so far away.

A new robot painting. It's about a long-distance relationship.

Whenever I try to paint robots that resemble actual people, they end up looking nothing like the real people. This is actually NOT a painting of an eight year old girl robot and a Mexican robot, even if that's how it looks:




While I'm on the subject of eight year old girls, a little Indian girl on my subway the other day (who could've been 8 or 12 -- I'm bad at guessing kids' ages) blew me away with her sense of style. She looked futuristicky in the best possible way, and I will probably wish for quite a while that I'd taken a photo. She had short black hair that came to about her chin, and a dark plaid coat that looked expensive. I couldn't really see her shirt, but she was wearing slim silver pants or leggings with a great pair of black boots that might've been Diesel. (Not this pair, but hers had a similar feel.)

She was holding a black crocheted hat in her hand, and she had chunky arm warmers scrunched up around her wrists. Based on how completely amazing she looked, I'm fairly certain that I'm going to start knitting again this week. I want arm warmers exactly like hers. I've never quite realized it before, but I think my entire aim style-wise is to look like an eight year old girl from the future. I feel so lucky that I got to see one on my train.

Spazzy bowling robot

This is the birthday card I made for my friend Lisa. I made it earlier today, before I went to the bowling alley, but I think it's a relatively accurate representation of what happened once I got there.



I'm starting to notice that anytime I draw things freehand, they end up looking kind of wonky. This little painting isn't quite as crooked as the blob in a mobile home, though. Maybe I just see life from a weird angle?

Stop throwing rocks at my heart.

A new robot painting. When I saw him in my head, I didn't realize he would turn out looking like something out of an emo web comic.

I like him, but the emo-ness kind of bugs me (mostly because that wasn't what I wanted). Next time I'll use brighter colors.




[A follow up thought: I just put him next to the huggy bat painting I made last week. Both robots look a bit traumatized, but I think the bright colors make the huggy bat feel infinitely more optimistic.]

I want our paths to cross.

Another robot painting. This one is a bit bigger than usual (12"x12"), and it's hard to see on this page, so I made it clickable. One thing I really appreciate about tiny paintings is that they always fit on my scanner. This one didn't. I scanned it in chunks and pieced them together, so the large version has visible seams.




This isn't quite the whole thing, but it's most of it. (I think the bottom inch or so is missing.)

I thought I might feel better in a tree.

Another robot painting.

I have invisible wings.

I made a new robot painting. I think if a robot (or a person) had invisible bat wings, it would probably feel really neat to hug that robot (or person), because during the hug, the robot/person's wings would wrap all the way around you. I bet that would feel really warm and safe.

Robot in Alison's clothing

Another little robot painting. This one is called "I guess I kind of stretched out your sweater." It's a portrait of what it might look like if a robot borrowed my friend Alison's sweater and scarf. I wish that I had made him a little bit larger, because I think all that empty space makes him look lonely. But I do think he looks cute in her sweater.

I am not a robot. I'm a tree.

I made this painting for a coworker. It was inspired by this news article from last month about a guy who disguised himself as a tree to rob a bank. The robot does not rob banks, I don't think. He's just trying to connect with nature, or be invisible for a while.

Two robots stuck together with gum

I made a new painting.

Music-loving robot with headphones

This little painting was a gift for a robot-appreciative coworker. I think he sort of looks like a Jazzercise instructor (the robot, not the coworker).

I am feeling texty

That's the name of my latest robot painting.



I think the bars on his head kind of make him look like an advertisement, but I like him anyway.

Oh, and I also made this flame lady:



I like her, too.