woody harellson

go here. now.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3ib06feef71f62cc174740970bb2b5e90d

-pete

block printing zombies

hello friends.
i went to the art store the other day, which is becoming an addiction for me lately. i can't really afford to be spending any money right now, and what do i do? i go to the art store twice a week. yikes
anyway, i bought some linoleum blocks and some carving tools and started making block prints! i haven't done that since high school. it's so fun! i love being able to take a single image and make multiple iterations of it, altering each slightly.





i started printing on anything i could find:






i think i'm going to start selling these so i can afford to buy more linoleum blocks!
this may or may not be a severe obsession.

-pete

golfday

hello,
one of my roommates, jacob, and i invented a new day: golfday
which involved us going to a driving range to hit golf balls, playing wii golf, watching a golf movie, and finishing the night with a blazing round of minigolf.



-pete

dead anyway

hello,
i started working on a couple of new projects recently. one of them is an animated short film, about zombies (of course), tentatively titled 'dead anyway'. one night, when i couldn't fall asleep for a few hours, i played out the whole story in my mind. when i woke up the next day, i tried to write down as much of it as i could remember.

then about a week ago, i went to my cousin's wedding. i bought myself the crappiest flights ever, so i had a LOT of time sitting in the airport. in an uncharacteristic spurt of productivity, i used that time to map out all the steps needed to finish the animation. i even made little deadlines for myself for each phase, marking them in iCal.

so, while i was hanging out at the house today, i glanced at my calendar and noticed, according to my plan, storyboards were due today. yikes! i hadn't even started them! sooo i ran to 'fido', a little cafe here in nashville, and drew storyboards for 2 and a half hours.

the short will probably be around 5 or 6 minutes long, which came to 166 separate storyboard panels. very rough drawings of course. some of the major moments i might redraw, cleaner. i just spent the rest of my night importing the drawings into flash and arranging them in order.

next, i must make an animatic, which is sort of a roughly animated storyboard. my iCal tells me that's due friday. =)

here are two pages of my rough storyboards:





goodnight all!
-pete

amoebas on threadless

hello my little multi-celled organisms,
i just finished a teeshirt design, and i submitted it to 'threadless.com'.



if you get a chance, it would be a huge help to me if yall voted for it over at threadless.com

thanks!
-pete

tiny zombies

i keep getting sidetracked. this happens to me anytime i'm working on a project. i'm really obsessive about something when i first start it, but then my brain goes on tangents. it makes it hard to finish anything.

along those lines, i've interupted my zombie canvases to start making tiny little zombie watercolors. the good thing is, at least they're still zombies. which means i can kindof stay on task. progress? digress? dress?

so here's the last full-sized zombie painting. he managed to talk me into finishing him before i started on the little one.



and then here are some of the little zombies. they're done on a quarter of a sheet of watercolor paper. so 4x5 inches or something. also, there's a sheet of rough thumbnail drawings for possible new paintings. i like to work out the shape and composition at that size first. then if i like it, i redraw it bigger.



here are two of the small watercolors close up:





thanks for looking
-pete

the dark knight

hey yall.
i saw batman the other night, and again yesterday. imax style! holy crap! it's amazing.
if it's playing in imax near you, please see it that way. don't see it normally if you can avoid it. some of the scenes are simply breathtaking in imax. especially with that sound system! by the end of the film, i was sitting in a puddle of my own pee. too gross? sorry.

the movie is absolutely perfect. i had a little trouble with the ending the first time i saw it. something didn't sit right with me about it. like the writers were forcing us towards something. but then after the second viewing i was okay with it.

i know this has been said a million times, but it's such a shame that heath ledger can no longer give us spellbinding performances like this one. he is simple mesmerizing as the joker. in every respect. his mannerisms, voice, attitude. all perfect.

the other night i saw a special on the history channel about batman and all his gadgets. it was a really cool show, because they basically showed you that everything batman has is completely plausible. and in some cases, the military is already using a lot of it. i so love that christopher nolan went to such ends to make sure the series is grounded in reality. i mean, i love the tim burton batman(s?) as much as anyone, but i definitely prefer this direction.

yikes, that's a lot of babbling. in any case, see it. multiple times.

in other news, i just went to michael's crafts and bought a bunch of zombie-making supplies



and oh, here's that target lamp, graciela =)



-pete, the dork knight

listening party

we had the listening party last night at georgetown masters in nashville. it was a lot of fun. we invited everyone who was on the album, plus people from the label. we also had a few other friends come by. we put chairs in two of georgetown’s three studios.

it was so exciting for me to finally hear all the songs together, as one big piece. people responded very positively. it was very encouraging to have everyone noticeably impressed with it. neil and i are extremely proud of this album, and we’re both quite excited to get it out into the world.

mastering

mastering is the process of making every song sound like it belongs on the same record. usually it involves making everything a little louder. some decisions are made about lead vocals levels, to let them sit right above the instruments. we listen for clarity. we listen to make sure nothing is distorting, or is pushed too hard. this process usually takes a day.

my favorite part of mastering is the giant speakers we get to listen on. each speaker is taller than me. there’s a magic spot in the room to sit, so that you hear everything sonically just right. tomorrow night, we’re going to have a listening party to hear the whole album straight through.

[picture of speakers]

two more zombies!

hello again,
i just finished two more zombie paintings today. i bought a lamp from target, so i can actually see what i'm painting. =)
i'm thinking of making prints of this series to sell in the online store. is that a silly idea?





-pete