Interesting people

2009-09-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

one crit. left!

dino

2009-09-28T19:27:00.000-07:00

the stop animation done by two friends of mine. MAD PROPS to them.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/bates111/arted/Movies/DinoDone.mov

for fun

2009-09-28T18:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/9lo59/random_thoughts_from_people_our_age/

a snack and two fun finds

2009-09-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

As a unit, my room mates and I all share a common love of pickles and strawberries

He was on a cupcake in a wrestling themed student art show!!!!

Elise found this actually, and it made me smile all day, not at the killing part,
but at the composition as a whole.

TYPE

2009-09-28T17:47:00.000-07:00

ecause I love typography I have three links to share.
These links have consumed my eyes and mind space and are quite enjoyable when bored. I particularly love the we love typography website. 486 pages of typography art? AWESOME.

1. the daily drop cap
http://om.ly/IxaT

2. we love typography
http://welovetypography.com/

3. typophile intro

enjoy!

2009-09-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

so my very first TYPOGRAPHY assignment was to create 3 separate compositions using only type (futura light in my case). So yeah, pirate, ninja, cowboy all out of type, including the glyphs. The images in the circles/o's just reference what that character does. Ninjas sever body parts for instance, and so forth and so on. This is still not quite done, but should be soon.

Greatest job in the history of my life.

2009-09-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

THE GREATEST CUTTY-THING EVER. I miss it

Over the summer I had the most amazing summer job. I was an ASSISTANT PAPERMAKER for my old mentor who was finishing (or attempting to get closer to finishing) an artist book edition.

First and foremost, this was epically awesome because I got to spend the summer with Sarah, who is the greatest.

Second reason this was awesome was because I got to spend the summer working at MCBA, the most awesome place on the planet.

And OH YEAH, MAKING PAPER AS A PAID JOB is the final reason my summer job was epic.

There are many, MANY other reasons this was the best job of my life thus far. I went to the farmers market nearly every Saturday and ate momo's on the steps of the Guthery. I was introduced to 'This American Life' and 'The Splendid Table' on mpr. I now own rain boots that are covered in pieces of chocolate. I know the basics of paper casting and I discovered the HALF OFF shelf in the store !!!

Wonderfully sarcastic jokes were spoken and schedules were decided on a whim. I think I made approximately 300 pure cotton blocks for the pages of Sarahs book. My fingers got pruny, I had elbow aches (yes, they happen apparently) and in the end I got to see them stacked up and beautiful, with the type glued on and I would raise my arms in triumph and say "Yeeesssssssssss!" and be damn proud of myself for about three days after the fact. Then I would realize that I had more to do and the process would repeat its self.

I think I will miss the total atmosphere of my work the most. Especially as I return to food court work here are school.

For those of you out there if you ever need a new place to visit and learn new things or just to go and explore, check out MCBA (Minnesota Center for Book Arts) in Minneapolis .

upper level paper studio where most of my time was spent. BEAUTIFUL room.

tall tables room MY AWESOME STACKS OF CASTS

yar

Repeats and the hydraulic press (aka the bane of my existence):

Doodles!

2009-09-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

hop

Amazing Pants Dance

fat cat

smudged type notes

Intro to theater notes

As the school year starts up for me, I find that my doodles have improved epically since last year. I think that that is directly connected to the face that I now have a 3 hour womens studies class from friggin 5pm to 8 pm. TOO LONG I TELL YOU! but as I said, at least my doodles ar improving.

finished cards

2009-05-07T18:06:00.001-07:00

All right! these are my cards. most were done between 12:30 in the afternoon and 4 am. some of the pictures turned out funny, but I think you can tell what the animal is.

Trading card update

2009-05-05T14:50:00.001-07:00

Alright, so this
is my only finished card. As you can see it is a crow and a face and a red thing. The red thing is a piece of road kill that actually flips down over the humans face. The next picture shows it better.

They all get to be eating some kind of scavenged thing that hides the human face.

Ok, here we have the flipped down crow version and two of my sketched out cards. The first card is a marabou stork and the second is, well, a fox.

THESE ARE MY MATERIALS!
(not including the alligator or the soccer ball.)

Choice Amnicon pics

2009-04-26T12:41:00.001-07:00

These are some of my favorite pictures from our amnicon trip with LCM (Lutheran Campus Ministry) They are mostly from the tent raising and the canoe trip but theres also a shot of lake superior and the stupidest red squirrel ever.

ATC's

2009-04-25T22:58:00.000-07:00

THE TIME HAS COME FOR ARTIST TRADING CARDS!!!!!!!!
Ok, so all semester I have been waiting for this ONE project. We will be making 12 artist trading cards based on a theme of our choice and materials of our choice. The cards will be 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches.
My theme is humans as animals. Referencing how humans encroach on natural habitats. I want to use animals that are kind of overlooked. So no tigers, eagles, peacocks etc. Since I'm only making 12 I have narrowed the animal kingdom down to scavengers. Animals like crows, hyenas, bugs...
I am using a mix of collage, prisma pencils, AWESOME paper that I don't know the name of, shiny glue stuff and sandpaper. The style of the pictures was inspired by "sisters" by Harakut. Look them up, there are a husband and wife team and their stuff is awesome. The mood of the piece is kind of reflected in the song 'the animal I have become' by Three Days Grace.

I will post the cards as I finish them.

Some art

2009-04-25T22:30:00.001-07:00

This semester I only had (have) one studio class, 2D design. So the art works have been coming along slowly. From the top: My most recent assignment, going for surrealism around a train of thought using our water color pencils. My piece was about print making and I apparently need to add red to the bottom right corner. Next was the matting assignment where we matted something. The piece I matted was an old appropriation piece using a love story and an image transfer of an owl bringing a chipmonk to it's mate. Third was a doozy of a piece where I had to make an imbalanced image first, and then after the first crit. make it balanced. Keeping in mind we did not know about the balancing it later part. So finished the piece, all unbalanced (the red parts) and then had to keep going. not cool. My piece was originally about how much more I liked knitting than crochetting. Finally, the last picture is just a linolium cut of that picture. I wanted to be able to draw in different heads :-)

Surprise!

2009-04-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

our silly picture after raising the tent.

Back again! Its been a while but I finally have found the motivation to post again. Lost of great stuff has happened since mt last post. Fist of all, I am officially a graphic design major! My portfolio review went really well and I didn't choke on my speech. I have also chosen my minors,Studio art and Russian!! Thats right everyone, Russian. Since I can now officially handle small talk, (like hello and what is your name) I decided that the next logical step was to declare it a minor. Very cool, except I have to go to Scholastica to take the next class. I have an apartment for next year and my room mate (Bethany) and we are already planing how to decorate. The churchish group I am part of here on campus went to camp amnicon for our spring retreat and it was epic. Beth and I attempted to canoe, but soon realized that neither of us had any idea of what we were doing so we stopped. But tasty food and tea was consumed and everyone had an awesome time. We also helped raise a tent. I participated in relay for life this weekend and walked over half a marathon. By walking I am including the parts where we skipped, danced, walked backwards, grape vined and pretended to cartwheel. So yeah. That's pretty much it. The major stuff any ways. Oh, and I am in a Dr. Pepper withdrawal. Apparently it is banned here. Dumb.

2009-03-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

There are some days that I too wish that I was godzilla and could come up with catchy songs.
Dr. Horrible yo.

2009-02-03T21:28:00.000-08:00

I love my friends. just so you all know.

a most enjoyable hour on the ice

2009-02-01T20:15:00.000-08:00

The Muscle (up)

The brains (up)The girl who remembered her camera (up)

Above: The Players
Below: The Journey
We walked into what had to be the deepest parts of Fantasia in search of any sign of the southern oracle. Recently Fantasia had been plagued with storms of nothing, causing huge boredom dust storms to flair up and gobble the unwary. Having made it through the desert that is Duluth at something like 35 degrees Fahrenheit we had successfully crossed through the fist of the gates to the oracle (below).

We were now in search of the second gate which apparently looks something like a mirror. Unfortunately most ice slabs look like they could be mirrors. We were not deterred though! No, we pressed on. Suddenly Sam spots a glint that does not look totally ice like and carefully moves towards it.
Exclaiming "AH HAH!" as he carefully extracts what seems to be the mirror!
(awesomeness)
Elise inspects Sams findings, She being the expert of our party. After a few tense moments she deems it official. Now all three of us ponder how exactly we get through such a small portal. The decision is to wing it and jump on it. Which we did. Surprisingly we went straight through the mirrors surface and deeper ...
and deeper....Into the deepths of the worm hole of a portal.

In the end we got chocolate buttons with a party on top.

TBC

A frustrated rant

2009-02-01T19:47:00.000-08:00

Being in an artistic funk sucks majorly. Lately I just can't seem to come up with any ideas that I'm happy with. In fact, the first assignment for my ONE STUDIO CLASS I turned in unfinished because I got so frustrated with it! I could not get into the project at all. I can't remember ever being this upset with myself. All of my ideas are total rip-offs of old projects I have done, old projects that were not even that good! And, of course, when I come up with a project idea I like, I can't because I'm 2 and a half hours away from the materials I need. So now that I'm not actually making anything I just sit and stare at my old art. I have found that I have no distinct style or focus and my quality is never steady. I dislike feeling so unmotivated. What's worse is that I'm actually quite happy. I'm really enjoying school right now and I have some really solid friends to do things with. So since I'm sad about my art funk my happy becomes melancholy, and I HATE BEING MELANCHOLY. See how feeling escalate? Why couldn't I be depressed? Depressed artists make AWESOME art, and if I was depressed making such awesome angsty art would make me happy again anyways!

end

crafts

2009-01-06T20:23:00.001-08:00

So as you may guess from these beautiful works of art, winter break has had its spots of pure boredom. Sorry about my camera skills that don't exist.... anyways, the top picture is old and happened before first semester and is on this only because im really super proud of my emo girl. Um, I did the shoe (I have a pair that looks like that now,)and the ipod thing and my friend India made the lol cat and the bulbosaur. Lots of fun. Made from those fun iron-together beads!

Batman Final

2008-12-13T20:07:00.000-08:00

This is my final 2D digital project: Who Batman would not invite to his wedding. Im sorry to the people who were expecting something different, but I'm DONE. The class is done, this project is now done, I AM DONE. I do like it, but I wish I had done maybe a bit more with it. I don't know what, but its missing something you know? Like Two Face screaming RACHAEL!!! Yeah, thats what is missing.

The chair

2008-12-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

Makeyla's piece is cool (up)

I am in no way, shape, or form a carpenter, sculptor, or any type of 3D artist, but I have made a chair. We had to come up with a chair design based off of your choice of folded paper shape. Mine looks something like the chair. Anyways I wish everyone could have seen the sculpture studio tonight. To give you a clue think final project+due tomorrow+will be sat in by everyone in class and cannot break. It was PACKED. I hope everyone get everything done. Mine is a bit wobbly but thats ok. It's sturdy enough for my taste. Just cross your fingers for me that it doesnt break during critique

Esao Andrews

2008-12-07T19:50:00.001-08:00

ok, so I realize that the videos are getting to be a bit much, but I really like this one. This is a little video done by one of my favorite artists Esao Andrews: http://www.esao.net/ and on his blog it's called Inspired procrastination pt. 2. I really recomend looking at his site, he's got some amazing stuff on there, but be warned. There is some REALLY weird stuff too, thats all I will say. The pictures above are my favorites and are with out a doubt on the tame side of the weird scale for this artist.

Elise showed me this video

2008-12-03T09:02:00.000-08:00

This is probably the most epically funny video I have seen in a long time. The best part is I bet just about everyone either relates to this vid or has a friend it reminds them of. Maybe an acquaintance, but you all know someone like this. Please enjoy. Underground yo.

Hip hip hippopotapus

2008-11-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

Can you see the hippo? This blop of paint or what ever it is has given me a cool idea for a project over Christmas break. I want to take a picture of random faces I see in my enviornment, like in the branches of a tree or the eraser marks on a chalkboard and then sketch out only the face I see to display it next to the photo. I will make up an example later....

2008-11-25T16:57:00.000-08:00

perhaps one of my all time favorite graphic designers

Typolution

2008-11-25T16:51:00.001-08:00

Typography video

2008-11-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

buh duh buh duh buh duh BATMAN

2008-11-21T17:21:00.000-08:00

my question: People Batman would not invite to his wedding

Bat cave, robin, joker the bat mobile superheros the justice league MR FREEZE the penguin riddler, rich kid the dark knight scarecrow two face the movie my friend monica, action figures batmans getting married wtf? angry faces christian bale talking in a funny voice bruce w. the theme song buh duh buh duh buh duh BATMAN the butler did it Mr Fox is really cool would super man be the best man or would it be the green lantern? Did batman marry wonder woman or hawk girl in the justice league it makes you think wonder woman it cant be rachael because she died and thats when 2 face became 2 face and joker blew up a hospital while dressed a woman i hope they keep coming out with more batman movies because we really need to get to the riddler batman and robin guest stared on scooby doo once it was like, my favorite episode after the one with the globe trotters.

My final project is to make a poster off of this question. should be fun. This was supposed to be a brainstorm activity, the real answers we Joker, Penguin, Catwoman and the Riddler, but I switched the riddler for Two Face.

Figure

2008-11-20T22:31:00.000-08:00

We had a lady come in today to take us through some figure drawing techniques. We are doing a very brief section of figure drawing ( thats why all the skeletons). I love doing figure. I love drawing the people, emphasizing movement, rendering, gesture, all of it. I plan, as of right now, to take the figure class offered here at school second semester of next year. I would take it sooner, but alas, it has a pre-req. of drawing II which I have not taken. Major bummer.

Drawing update

2008-11-20T21:56:00.001-08:00

Lots of skeletons. Ok so the skeleton in charcoal was this weird group drawing thing. People touched my work, I did not approve.

Iz sik

2008-11-12T20:41:00.000-08:00

I can honestly say that this is how I have been feeling all week.

Photoshop

2008-11-06T18:04:00.001-08:00

In 2D digital design we have moved on from illustrator to photoshop. The change is a bit hard for me I admit, layers are so much more important in photoshop. I am REALLY missing the ability to just MOVE shapes with out having to click on the layer and then select the object. This is not to say that I am not having fun with photoshop, because MAN AM I HAVING FUN. Our first project, our warm up project really, was just to take the picture of the girl and make her dramatic and flawless. Most photoshoppers would be all, "Oh thats soo eeeasy" or "thats boring". NO it is REALLY really fun. I have been working on this girl nonstop just for the heck of it since 9am Wed. the 5th. I make believe that I'm working on America's next top model and just smile at the power I hold. I can make the pasty turn tan, the blemished turn barbie. It's great and, if done right, it can take up lots of that pesky free time that I have every other school day. We are not totally sure who the girl is but we have theories... like it's our teachers girlfriend/sister/friend or a random myspace pic. And thats just our warm up project! Our actual project is to create a realistic picture of either an extra terrestrial sighting in the Twin Cities, or a Lake monster in superior. I have not yet begun to enjoy this project.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

what might be the final

2008-10-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

everything actually says something. I swear.

Oil pastel drawing

2008-10-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

Project: create a new image using an art work from the Tweed. The art work I used is a bronze sculpture called 'The Faun' and this piece is collage and oil pastels. LOTS of blending was involved.

2008-10-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

I think I now have a picture from my window at all times of day! Pretty sunrise.

2D design project

2008-10-27T18:51:00.000-07:00

So these are two of my four pieces for 2D digital design. I was really happy because even though I HATED this project I got an A. The top one is contrast and the bottom one was alignment. I like contrast the best. The task was to create a composition based on an object you disliked and the design terms proximity, contrast, alignment and repetition. My object is this crazy big sweater I got. I always felt like I was going to get beat up in it. I had contrast as my main piece. The critique I got for that piece was that they wished it had more of a sweaters texture and that the leaning of the image made it look gangsta. hehe.

the Fox and the Crow

2008-10-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

here is my second 3D design project. wood and acrylic paint. Its based off of the fable the Fox and the Crow:

A Fox once saw a Crow fly off with a piece of cheese in its beak and settle on a branch of a tree.
"That's for me, as I am a Fox," said Master Reynard, and he walked up to the foot of the tree.
"Good day, Mistress Crow," he cried. "How well you are looking today: how glossy your feathers; how bright your eye. I feel sure your voice must surpass that of other birds, just as your figure does; let me hear but one song from you that I may greet you as the Queen of Birds."
The Crow lifted up her head and began to caw her best, but the moment she opened her mouth the piece of cheese fell to the ground, only to be snapped up by Master Fox.
"That will do," said he. "That was all I wanted. In exchange for your cheese I will give you a piece of advice for the future: "Do not trust flatterers."

I didn't post the first project because it sucked.

remembering a good conversation

2008-10-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

I was remembering a conversation I had recently and have decided to share it with you all.

Ok so the tweed has free coffee
So me, Andi and that one guy (all from drawing) had some coffee and started talking about how much we like coffee
Then we got into TV shows
And we got to the powerpuff girls and the other weird cartoon network shows....
Like Billy and Mandy
And how we wished that the Grim Adventures and Evil Con Carne hadn’t split up.
Which led to animated movies
And we talked about movies we need to find
Andi wants space jam
And the guy admitted to never seeing the jungle book!
Andi and I were scandalized.
But then we got on to POKEMON
And they both play the gameboy games
And we debated which evolution of eve was the best
Me and the guy said joltion but Andi said vaporion

JOLTION ROCKS

and then we talked about ZOIDS. and how freaking awesome liger zero is and how we wished there was an easy way to get the series. That of course led to the various Gundam shows and how much better zoids was than gundam.
And then we had more coffee
And the guy said, "this is great I can ell everyone that this morning I talked about pokemon and zoids, and they’d say ‘oh with your guy friends?’ and I get to say no, two chicks" and I laughed because we really were just that cool.

T-shirt

2008-10-22T21:57:00.000-07:00

ok, so this a design I submitted to Threadless.com. I still haven't been told it it's been approved for rating and all that, but if its declined, anyone got any ideas on how to make it better? Seriously, suggestions please.

Drawing

2008-10-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

It is finally that time of the semester where all of my drawing projects are due. I figured that also means that this is when I post all of them on here.

Depiction of travel- not my favorite project.
Use the 3 different kinds of line, harsh, soft and... that other one.
Show the texture of hair in a comparative manner- me when I was 5 and cut off all my hair, and me at 19. Words below to describe states of mind- I went with my idea of being an artist, then and now, the words you cant see are shows and portfolio.
Value and value reduction of an object. value reduction is where you fill in the space and then erase the image.

Text portrait

2008-10-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

the short description of what this project is is in the thought bubble. It was going to be a speach bubble, but I got lazy. Half way portrait! note: swirls and hat were just to make it semi interesting... they will not stay there, neither will the bubbles. oh and there is supposed to be so 'essence' of collage in it... still workin that out.

Froggy

2008-10-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

Kate's awesome hat as we head to the hockey game. Our team lost. It was unfortunate. Thankfully Kate's hat remained cool.

Alien invasion

2008-10-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

Radio towers on the cliffs, click to actually see the lights.

Me

2008-10-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

I am not a writer
So here are some haiku poems
Describing me yo

I will illustrate
A children’s book before I
Am pushing up daisies

Ingrid Michaelson
“Be OK” is a great song
I dance badly along

I am proud to be
A lady of the letterpress
Lead type rocks forever

Obsessions with fables
Is something I have come to
Accept as a positive

Skittles is a good name
For an indifferent cat
When in second grade

I am terrible
At counting syllables
You may have noticed

MCBA

2008-10-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

I miss MCBA. Minnesota Center for Book Arts was practically my home for the months between fall 07 and summer 08 and true to my prediction I'm rather lost with out it. There is no paper studio here. No 100 year old presses for that matter, and no dungeon-like atmosphere. We are lacking an the old, crumbling stone area, all ceramic tiles up here. All this weekend I had this urge to make some paper, just to go through the process. Lame, I know, but I really do miss the ability to just go DO it.

I remember the first By Design show I got to be a part of. We all got to make medium sized projects because there were no Advanced students. Well, all of us finished our projects the day of the opening. We were all in the basement going crazy, freaking out, telling ridiculous jokes and trying to keep Molly from crying. Aubree and Will talked about giving their little speeches through interpretive dance and I was taking deep soothing breaths to avoid hyperventilating before my talk about Coptic binding. Hailey was pretending to put crayons up her nose.
Perhaps my favorite memories of MCBA and By Design come from my first advanced session with my mentor Sarah. Sarah taught me the joys of paper making and extremely random art conversations. Like how one of her paper castings reminded her of a 2 headed cartoon sheep.
I learned how to pull a plastic garbage bag out of (insert special name) box like a bull fighter.

I learned that hydraulic pumps are REALLY annoying when you have to make it go down about a foot and its moving down a centimeter per pump.
I learned that the dryer is very popular, and everyone fights to be its friend.

I learned how to use this monstrosity of a beater. I actually had to go in with giant tweezers to clean out my fiber because it had gotten wrapped around the wheel. GOOD TIMES. I also miss the loud and scary 'buh thup' s it makes.oh, and the brown foam... just thought everyone should she it.

And FINALLY I actually do miss the smell of cooking flax. I guess its just something that grows on you... Sarah always said it smelled like wet grass.

My last session with By Design doesn't need to be discussed. My mentor was scary... but my project was pretty cool. Yay 12 ft. long scroll book! I seem to have lost my train of thought...

Dorm Room

2008-10-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

My best friend recently posted pics of her dorm room and since shes really the only person who looks at this I shall post my dorm pics and we can compare!

Chameleon

2008-10-02T20:36:00.000-07:00

this is my hand. It was wonderful to wave to people.

The view from my window on a cloudy day

2008-10-02T20:26:00.000-07:00

2008-09-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

This project was meant to once again focus on negative space, see the weird connection between classes? We ripped up paper and had to tape it back to our big sheet in the shape of the negative spaces and went back in with charcoal. The pic above was the precursor for the pic below. The idea with the final project was to create a self portrait by using this style. Then you filled in space with something that described you. I chose my old bus schedules and transfers to fill in shadows and my hair, anything that is black or darkish. I like it.

Fish

2008-09-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

Lunch last year

Adobe Illustrator and 2D design

2008-09-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

This was just a fun time filling project done all in adobe illustrator. You know, when I should have been making that damn wire shoe. Its bad ass though, me'n the pen tool are slowly starting to understand each other, a bond is being formed. Anyways:
This is my assignment for 2D digital design. The point of the project was to create images out of negative space. Once again done with the pen tool, bonding continued. HOWEVER, I only need three images so which do you think I should turn in?

2008-09-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

It’s raining here. It’s coming down in sheets and I must say it’s very pretty. The rain has been going all day, but as I was walking back from my first ever college artist talk I looked outside and it was just, pretty. Trust me, it had nothing to do with the art I had just seen (confessionals coupled with portraits of Iraqi prisoners from abu ghraib,) but it might have been the message behind his work. The text in the works depicted the memories of these prisoners of how they were arrested and what they went through. This was all part of a lawsuit to help the prisoners, the statements that is. But what I really love is that when you think of abu ghraib you think of those demeaning photographs of those poor people, most of which had not even been charged, and here you have Daniel Heyman who is painting and etching they’re portraits with the key purpose to return they’re dignity. So that people will see them as human and not a hooded figure. At least 2 of the Iraqis he meet have been killed. He told us the story of one man who during Ramadan, allowed his children to go get sweets from the shed across the street from the house. He gave them his keys and they went out side. All of a sudden he hears an explosion, and runs out side. He sees that 2 of his sons, one 9 and one 11 have been killed. He picks up one of the bodies and holds it, in complete shock even as the US troops come in. He sees a soldier walk into the field near his house and retrieve his sons head, which he hadn’t noticed had been severed, and saw the soldier lay the head down by his body. The man was then arrested (apparently common procedure,) and sent to abu ghraib until further notice, for lack of a better term. Torture occurred, but beyond that I can’t imagine not being able to mourn you children’s death. To not even be able to bury them or even talk to your wife. It just boggles my mind and I admit to crying in the lecture hall as his story was described. All of the stories were sad and perhaps that’s why the idea of being able to give back something like dignity through art really makes me happy. I guess I can’t describe it better than that. So that’s why I found the rain pretty, because I was in a midway place in my mind, and every things pretty when you see it correctly. It’s even better when you listen to this: http://www.singingrevolution.com/cgi-local/db_images/files/uploads/5-filename.mp3

Wife Swap is a terrible show

2008-09-18T11:49:00.002-07:00

Hehehe, this is Me'n Monica in the future.

Contour

2008-09-18T11:49:00.001-07:00

Look at how quick I am at updating when I'm asking for help! This next project is also for drawing, and actually both are due at the same time. This project is about contour line. Contour is all about making one slow, continuous line to create you piece. In contour you are not allowed to lift your pencil so there are often times where you get odd lines in places where there shouldn't be lines. We did our neighbors faces for a warm up (see above). It's terribly messy. I think most high school students remember contour drawing with disdain because of blind contour, WHICH SUCKS, but fear no future art students most of your professors hate blind contour too!. Ok, so it was the same project as the gesture one, still life, desk, yadayada, but no lifting of the pencil.

Once again I got in trouble for attempting to shade, but other than that my teacher thought is was pretty well done. Are there any areas that I should really go back and fix?

Something New

2008-09-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

I am a pre-graphic design major up at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and during this semester I have 3 art classes; Drawing, 2D digital design and 3D design. They are the basic requirements for us pre-graphic design majors, and in these classes we build our portfolios for the final critique at the end of this semester which determines whether or not we become straight up Graphic Design majors. There are 5o(?) spots open for graphic design per year, and we have about 70 pre-graphic design majors right now. I, being a paranoid little git, am scared out of my mind that they wont like what I've got, despite the constant reassurances from family and friends. They, however, are NOT my PROFESSORS so even if they think I'll get into the program that doesn't really mean much. Not everyone will get in, and that scares me because as of now I don't really know what I'm up against. Which brings me to the point of this post. I will be posting my assignment pieces and sketches in the hope that they will be critiqued by, well, who ever reads this, and that way I can further improve my work beyond class room critiques. I would much appreciate polite, but truthful critiques and suggestions on how to improve.
I would like to start out with my drawing assignments. In drawing we started out with gesture drawing. Gesture is very loose, quick and messy. You are just trying to capture the object you are looking at as quickly as you can. There should be no real detail and NO SHADING. This skeleton was what I chose to do during warm up. (The still life is the skeleton with this rather odd plant behind it. I added graphite for some highlights.) So those are the kinds of strokes gesture is about. For our actual piece we were told to make our own still life and do a gesture drawing of it. I chose the mess I call a desk in my dorm.
The response I got from my teacher was that the lines were looking a bit too precise for gesture and that it was seriously bordering on being a value drawing because I was dumb and shaded parts in. She said that the composition was nice, the chaos making it interesting... and I think that's it. She's giving us all time to make adjustments to I would love some feed back. Thanks for the help!

2008-09-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

Hehehe, ok so this is not the post I talked about on the back pack but is instead a tribute to my best friend. Maybe you should try this monica!
yay "no pink ponies"!

2008-09-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

All righty then!
I was on the light rail a little while ago riding down to the MOA (mall of america for you not in the circle types) and I happened to be caught in between a bunch of businessmen and women, rush hour is hell on the light rail. Any ways after five stops or so I got to sit down and right across from me is this cute little Japanese man. He was wearing blue jeans with a purple/brown/tan/pink button up shirt (the light did not aid my sense of color,) tiva sandals with white socks and big gold wire framed glasses. His face was tan and wrinkly and he had salt and pepper hair and all the while I was watching him he was either drifting to sleep or staring down someone he would guess was a hooligan and holding his backpack tightly. Which brings me to why I started writing about him. In his backpacks water bottle holder he had a tree branch wrapped up in a plastic Lunds bag. I, for some reason or another, found this incredibly cool. It wasn’t even a cool tree, it was a cottonwood branch. I still wonder what he did with it. Did he want to grow a cottonwood tree? Is he doing research on the life span of a cottonwood? Hell I wonder if it was actually a cottonwood. What does one usually do with a tree branch? Personally I try to start fights with them, like when my brother and I found really big branches after a storm and we invented extreme ring toss. If you are curious we really just whipped a hula-hoop at each other. Imagine that he does this sort of thing a lot, is it a hobby or is it some secret government research under a tell and die rule. It would be really cool if he were a government agent.

He got off at the mall too, I wonder if he works there?

Hello and this is what to expect

2008-08-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

Hello to the people who might be reading this. In this blog I will be writing about the various people and well, odd things that catch my eye on a day to day basis. I am not talking about the people I find attractive in the street, or unattractive for that matter, I'm talking about the people who make me curious or make me smile. I have about 3 people that I have actually taken notes on and semi-written about and really its just me scribbling down notes of what they look like and why they interest me. Truthfully they are the 3 people I found interesting while I had my sketchbook and was motivated enough to actually write things down. I can promise that this will not be updated on a regular basis, but I don't think it will be all that infrequent. In fact, it might become regular once I move up to Duluth for college, cool people live in Duluth. As a quick sample of the things I notice I'll just mention the dismembered pink power ranger head that rested at the Cedar-Riverside stop by the 3rd to last advertisement for about a year. I watched for it every time I road the train down to MCBA (Minnesota Center for Book Arts). It has, unfortunately, been lost for about a month now, but I occasionally look for it, much like someone would look for a pet they lost but didn't really like. Thats it, the first actual interesting person will be the Japanese man with the branch... when I get around to it. THANKS