What's to come...

Been so incredibly busy lately, I feel like I'm forgetting to update. I'm trying, really I am. Unfortunately working retail in December, despite school almost being over, will now eat up all of my free time. (I am always shocked at the money people will spend on cameras. It's ridiculous.)

But at least I can officially say: NO MORE POSTER SIZE DRAWINGS! Whoopee. I finished the last one last Friday. Handed it in today. I've got my fingers crossed for something better than a B, but who even knows anymore.

Had my portfolio interview Wednesday night. Had to wait around an extra two hours for it to start because a certain someone has horrible sense of time. (Brutal.) But I think I did well? I don't even know. My drawing marks are so randomly inconsistent. Everything from C- to A. But I suppose I'll be happy with anything above C- and not complain.

I have to take some photos of my final project to send in to my teacher, so hopefully those will be posted here, as well as some life drawings perhaps? We'll see what I get around to.

I'm almost happy that all I have left to worry about is my History Exam. Worth 30%, but if I manage another decent mark, I won't complain. At least we get to look at my three favourite art movements; Rococo, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism.

I just need to make some flash cards and I'm all set. I love working at a printing store.

--

Also adding, since she has checked out this little blog, that I absolutely loved Time Based Media and am very sad that it is over. It is not a course I initially looked forward to. I know nothing about circuits or video. And only just enough about blogging and websites. But I learned so much in such a short time and it was awesome to have such an enthusiastic teacher. A great class that will be much missed come next semester. Thanks, Janis. =]

(That was a super long post...)

Chroma Chronicles

Haven't updated in a while. Been incredibly busy with assignments. I'm practically drowning in them. But I at least finished the final assignment of my Colour Exploration class. Wooo.
The idea was basically to use multiple media (which I did, with ink, pencil crayon, paint, mylar, graphite, marker, and collage) and at least two different narratives in one piece.

So I ruined a first edition, 1950's copy of a British book. I drew, painted, and glued in a number of different parades making their way through the pages. I didn't get it quite finished, but I did do a few dozen pages. Which, if you're drawing something new that many times, it takes longer than you'd think. I'm pretty happy with it.

First page, and the beginning of the parade.

A fashion runway, featuring the designs of the amazing Alexander McQueen

Chinese New Year

Funeral procession

Photos from a Korean parade I stumbled across in New York by accident.

Photo Session

Took some photos for my Time Based Media blog this morning. All inspired by the amazing Mika Ninagawa. I love her photographs. They're pretty much what I inspire to take. I only wish I could get in somewhere that had a ton of goldfish. Her goldfish photos are some of my favourite.

So here are some photographs. All flowers. I figure they'd be more fun to look at than my research paper for History.

I'll have to take a few more in the morning, because all my favourites came out portrait, and I really need them in landscape. Silly me.

Time Based Media Blog

Just to make note, I am creating a blog specifically for my Time Based Media course. This is an actual assignment, and it will contain all of my Time Based Media projects. An audio file, a short film (which is posted further back on this blog,) and a video of my electronic project.

It can be found right HERE!

Rococo and Notebook Doodles

So we had a mini assignment for Colour Exploration. We had to look at "bad" art. Of course I looked at kitschy art. Because it's awesome. Just a simple 8x10 sized drawing or painting to hand in. Nothing huge like my ridiculous drawing assignments.
One of my favourite things to draw is Rococo era costume and hair, so of course I stuck with that, making up some crazy powdered wig and lots of pink, with some frills, pearls, ribbon, and flowers thrown in. (All in pink of course.) I used copic markers for this one. Hadn't used them in a while. Because nothing I do for school lets you use markers. Which is quite sad really. They're such awesome things to work with.

Here she is, the stuck up Rococo aristocrat. I'm actually super thrilled with how the hair came out. ... I'm sure the teacher will give me a 1.374 out of 2 or something. He tends to give the most random grades.

Also, out of boredom, I thought I'd post some notebook/sketchbook doodles. When you have a 2 hour lecture followed by 3 hours of waiting around for your tutorial to start, it's hard not to doodle.

African/Pacific Art History notes. Complete with teen!Kenny and teen!Craig from South Park. (Been watching too much of that lately... Mysterion!)

Stylized Shiina Ringo, a super talented pop singer. Two costumes from her Expo DVD, which was amazing. And some more Art History notes.

And from drawing, an attempt at the maiko sakkou hairstyle, from memory. So it's probably very incorrect. I tried. It was more fun to draw than blocks. (I swear, our drawing teacher thinks we're incompetent.)

Drawing.

Metaphor drawing is completed. Hip hip hooray. It came out kind of kitschy. But kitschy in a good way I think. (I like kitschy stuff.) Unfortunately, the teacher wasn't totally thrilled with it. She kept mentioning how the hair looked like it wasn't coming out of the head properly, and how the hairline was too low and far forward. Well, I tried to explain that it was a drawing of a woman wearing a wig, but I don't think she was really listening. So yet another B- for me.

Except for the grade, and critique gone wrong, I did have fun making the piece.I threw in some collage and stitching, which I hadn't done in a while for some reason. Because I love collage and sewing. And neither are done enough in art. Also did a bit of painting with tea. A wash, mostly. Never tried that before, but it was interesting. And now my brush smells.

Tea for painting. You can see a tiny bit of the wash there on the paper.

Some of the pages I stained. They were cut up into cherry blossom petals before being collaged into the drawing.

The original idea was to paint in "Living Art" with red ink, but my writing is horribly messy, and the stitching turned out nicer. (Though it's a little crooked... Ugh.)

Part of the collage. Using photocopied pages from Mineko Iwasaki and Komomo's autobiographies, and then some washi paper I picked up in Japan, and some random origami paper found lying around the house.

And the final piece. Light shading (which the teacher also didn't like,) light washes, collage, and stitching. The flower in the bottom corner is the crest of this particular Geiko's okiya, or geisha house.

This is the second time I've really done anything geisha related for class, and it's the second time I've had to defend my work because people either don't understand how a geisha looks or what it is they do. So, despite being one of my favourite things to draw or paint, I may have to stop because my grades may suffer from a lack of understanding from the teacher's point of view. It's incredibly disappointing. Maybe next semester I'll get someone who actually understands, even just a little.

(Not likely.)

This is Halloween.

So instead of working on my "metaphor" drawing for school, I decorated the house and carved/painted some pumpkins. Yeah, I'm not very good with priorities. But anyways, figured I'd post my pumpkins here, as I love how they turned out. Lots of blood coloured paint was used in the process.

Little sketch for the initial idea.

Gutting the vampire pumpkin.

This guy will be lying on his side.

And this one standing up, both underneath...

This guy! Who will be sitting on an iron planter filled with leaves. I had way too much fun finger-painting the blood on...

A Little Better...

Well, my faith in my drawing has improved, as I have seen the mark I received for my texture piece I had been working on a little while ago. A-. First A of university. Go me. Which averages out my C-. So my drawing grade, like everything else, is just that. Average. Better than below average I suppose.
At least it's not another C.

As for the critique on my rainbow cityscape piece. Someone actually asked how much to buy it. Wow. Quite the compliment. I now must think of prices. It's 3.5x3.5 feet on vinyl. I don't know. I really don't know prices. The print was done for free, and really should be free, as it was not the size nor the material I asked for. Of course, if I am going to sell it, I would like at least what I would have paid for it, plus maybe an extra 50 or so for the hours and hours spent in photoshop putting this massive thing together. Because I would like a copy of it for myself, and would need to pay for the second print. But like I said, I don't really know.

I hate pricing work. I never know what people really want to pay for it. And generally, people don't really want to pay that much.

Stress.

Midterms and Another Drawing Assignment...

Had my Art History midterm today. I don't think I did too badly. But I also don't think I studied everything I should have. I also forgot most of the things I studied because I was in a frenzied panic to get to school on time. I'd like to thank the tard responsible for slowing up and eventually stopping the subway today. Thank you. I almost missed my exam and had to spend an extra 10$ on a cab. At least I managed to make it on time.

As for Drawing class. We have to do some metaphoric piece with an object, can have a human form in it, and must contain text. Going with what I know, I'm sticking with the Geisha theme, which has completely taken over my art work the past couple months. I'll be doing a version of my Kikumaru photo (look to your right -->) with a lantern in the background and a fan with the Hanafusa okiya crest on it and the words "Living Art."

I'm sure my teacher will find something wrong with it, but I've FINALLY come up with a composition, after worrying about it for nearly two weeks, so whatever. She'll have to deal with it. I like it.

The sketches so far. The plan is to go crazy mixed media with this, using pen, pencil, ink, watercolour, and pencil crayon. We'll see if that actually happens. But as it stands, this is somewhat close to the composition I want. ... And I have a thing for borders, so it will be surrounded by one.

City Scape Rainbow

Finally finished Colour Exploration project number two. Where we had to take the colour scheme of one thing and apply it to something else. I pretty much looked to those cheap and tackily coloured plastic children's toys you can buy in the dollar store and applied that to a collage of my photos of buildings and architecture from New York, Tokyo, Kyoto, Paris, Rome, Venice, Florence, and Verona. Creating a jumble of a city in a rainbow of colours that looks bright and cheery and child friendly. Which is usually not how cities are portrayed in art. (Dark and dingy and grimy, with lots of greys and monochromatic colours.)

I'm quite pleased with how it came out. I wasn't sure it would look the way I wanted it to while I was working on it, but I'm much happier than I thought. Now it's on to the printers to get it printed on some fabric so it can be made into a canvas. Woo.

As well, Frittata has been graded, and, like the last Time Based Media piece, received a B-. So I'm still content. However, drawing has given me my first C-. Average for the school, yes, but not anywhere near acceptable for me. Maybe I'm not used to getting Cs in art. And I get that there are people here better than me and marking needs to be done on a bell curve, but I can't get a grade like that again. Now I feel like I need to get something in the As to average it out. Fingers crossed and hopefully we'll see something a little better than a C-. Ugh.

Oh, and another 72% to add to the mix. On the first essay I had written in three and a half years. Go me. I've never been good with essays.

Average?

It seems like I'll be sticking somewhere in the 70s while at school. I've received marks from 70 - 75% so far. Nothing above. Nothing below. A little strange, but consistency is nice I suppose. Though something in the 80s or, God willing, the 90s would make me a little happier.

I'm told it's because teachers want to push us to create bigger and better things. So, what am I doing? Creating a giant photo collage of a chaotic and tackily coloured city scape. It'll be 36x36. Which may not sound overly huge, but is quite big for me, as I like and tend to work small.

That is what I am currently working on. I've chosen all my photographs of buildings from around the world. (Mostly NYC, Paris, Tokyo, and Florence. And a few other places as well.) And now I am photoshopping each and everyone to look different; different colour schemes and whatnot. All highly saturated and very bright. Planning to get this printed on fabric which I will stretch over a canvas. Hopefully it'll turn out alright. We'll see...

Just some random notes...

Something random here. Out of boredom and procrastination. And out of feeling the need to post something today.

Anyone with long commutes to school (or work) taking a subway or bus knows how long and boring it really can be. So people pack books to read, sketchbooks, notebooks, iPods, iTouches, ect. I personally go with the iTouch/book method. Though I'm always paranoid watching movies and TV shows on my iTouch is going to kill its battery. But I've found a new, super addicting, and free app. Something I'm sure a million people have found before me, but whatever. Pocket Frog. Sound lame? Yeah, maybe. It's like an amphibious version of Pokemon. You collect frogs. There's something like 10,000 possible species you can get. And you can sell them to make money to get bigger habitats and whatnot. I can't stop playing this thing. It's horrible.
So maybe you shouldn't download it. Unless you have lots of free time on your hands. Because I even found myself playing it at work. Oops.

Secondly, Moleskine notebooks. They're beautiful and awesome and have the best paper ever. You can get them for all sorts of things, different kinds of paper; storyboard, watercolour, lined, gridded, sketching..., different sizes, and they eat the money out of your wallet. Moleskine notebooks are amazing, but crazy expensive. So when I was in Dollarama the other day, and saw notebooks that looked almost exactly like Moleskine? 2$ each? I grabbed a handful. Sure, it's not the same quality, and the paper is a little thin, and the only options they come in are a black or brown cover, I still think they're great. Especially if all you're really doing is sketching and making notes. I love deals. And I don't look for them often enough. I need to work on my spending habits...

Also, memorizing dates sucks. (Curse you, Art History...)

Textures.

Almost finished my texture drawing for, of course, drawing class.

The basis of the idea was to draw a tree, but leave the leaves as negative spaces and colour in the background (the gaps where we could see sky) with different textures.

An interesting project. Though my OCD need for super well rendered detail came back to bite me in the ass. I've spent hours on this thing...

So, my work so far. Corn, leopard print, a metal flower on a bracelet, and in the top corner there, some paper stars. You know, the fold-y kind.

My work space. A messy pile. Three cheers for messy piles! Wooo... Note the picture of the adorable maiko, Fukusato. I have pictures of my trip to Japan scattered everywhere.

And the aforementioned paper stars. I have a big jar of over 2000. Never try to realistically draw these. It is a huge pain.

"Frittata"

Yes, finally finished my video. All edited nice and fancy.
Well, relatively nice and fancy. First video I've ever done. It was weird. I'm used to taking stills, not moving shots. And working with a Nikon instead of my trusty Sony was just awkward. The D90 is crazy heavy. And I'm used to working with an 18-250 with a battery grip. Oh well

Anyways, finished product. On youtube. Yay.
It's pretty much just my mother making a frittata. With Dean Martin in the background. (Who I ironically saw on TV today...) I chose him for the song because let's face it, when you think cooking and Italy, doesn't Dean come to mind?

"FRITTATA"

The First Grade

Well, it may not seem like much, but considering the average mark at my university is a C-, I'm more than content with my B- on a project that I thought I had done horribly. Building circuits is something I'm not even the slightest bit familiar with, so it was nice to see my teacher gave me a decent grade even though I kept things super simple. Only using a motor that spins and a button to turn it on and off.

And while I'm also super proud that I was able to put a circuit together; never again. I'm way too paranoid that I'm going to electrocute myself or set the house on fire. That and I don't build things for the life of me, so yeah. No more circuits for me. I'll stick with my B- and be happy with that.

1 Down, 999 More to Go.

Handed in my Visual Analysis yesterday. Before we looked over a good chunk of Michelangelo's work. How depressing. I had seen all of what she showed. It makes me really want to go back to Italy. Particularly to go see the Pieta again, because it's beautiful and perfect. Yes, perfect.

I've started my half colour half black and white painting. That shouldn't take too long. Then I should probably start the abstract/surreal watercolours. I think they're due tomorrow, but our teacher is so vague on dates, it's horrible. It's best to get everything done as soon as she assigns it and not have to worry.

I hate when people aren't specific about things...

There's a Film in the Kitchen.

I have already started to work on my video project. Not due for another few weeks, but I figured I'd work on it anyways. I've never done video before. At least, nothing more than holding a camera up over my head at a concert and getting a short clip. I'm more of a photo taker personally.

So, having to film something performative. That was interesting. I was pretty stumped for ideas. (Though I did know I wanted to borrow the D90 from work to film.) So stretching the definition of performance, I went with a simple, everyday task. My mother cooking in the kitchen. She made some sort of frittata. So I basically got some shallow d.o.f. shots and will attempt to edit those later.

Filming is a little more fun than I thought. Though I've always had issues holding a camera steady, or straight for that matter. We'll see how things turn out...

Blog Entry Numero Uno.

Well, here it is. I have started yet another blog, on yet another site. And hopefully this one will be written in regularly. Such is my habit of starting and never finishing things. C'est la vie.


I have decided to give myself a little project, to add to the myriad of projects I already have. I want to create a blog to house my thoughts and plans for my school projects throughout my four years as an art student. Yes, I've already missed the month of September. Oops. But I'm sure that will be forgiven. There are still hundreds of assignments to complete, so I'm sure the blogging world hasn't missed much.


I have a fairly large list of things to complete at the moment, and hopefully some of these things will end up posted here:

• Visual analysis essay (art history)
• A picture painted half black and white (colour exploration)
• A three foot by three foot study of colour roles in society (colour exploration)
• One abstract watercolour (drawing)
• One surreal watercolour (drawing)
• A study of facial features (drawing)
• A drawing of a tree with the negative spaces coloured in with texture(drawing)
• A one to three minute video performance (time based media)

Needless to say, I have a lot to do, and perhaps distracting myself with a blog isn't the best idea. But then again, I've never been very focused.