friday, how you say, may fourteen

egads. gads zooks. I was planning on going to Portland to check out the PNCA you know? But I slept not well at all last night, with an aching back, so I didn't push myself out of bed at four a.m. to catch that 5:30 train. I'm rescheduling for a time when I can stay for a couple of days instead, and stay at the hostel, prowl the city, that sort of thing. Maybe on break, before Summer classes begin. At least, that's the plan.

How in the world do students actually go to school full time?? Am I missing something? There is only so much money that the government will lend. Those loans and grants don't really cover all of school plus living expenses. I guess scholarships? What the hell?

Thirty grand a year for PNCA. Wow. I'd go in a heartbeat if I landed that Ford Re-Start Scholarship.

Anyway. My brain is tired, so's my body, here are a couple of paint pushers I paint-pushed this afternoon. I learned some stuff about the materials and application, which is all to the good - and I allowed myself to relax into putzing around without so much pressure to perform.

The photos are way more interesting than the originals. I don't remember why I thought to lift this one to the light (it was gorgeously sunny and really warm today) but it's much prettier this way:

I had laid down some watercolor and it wasn't to my liking (running together making a messy mudpit of a page) so I hosed it all off (literally). I then crumpled the paper up (it's a sizable sheet of watercolor paper) and made it soft, and then re-applied colors in wet on wet. I like the end result.......held up against the front door! The original is actually a very very dull rendering. I didn't need to fiddle with contrast or anything.

This original is dull too, so I liberally applied some contrast and stuff to it:

And here's the bleedthrough onto butcher paper, that I actually quite like

I'm going to watch the remainder of Ponyo tonight! Miyazaki's (and Co.) latest efforts, which becomes more charming as the film matures.