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.

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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...)

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.)

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.

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...