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Monday, February 28, 2011

gone to ground





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so yes, this is what I've been utterly consumed by this term. I have a dedicated table for Pre-Calculus. I used to eat at that table. Now I eat over the sink, from a can, standing up.

did you see Fantastic Mr. Fox? I think I should watch that again tonight. Or maybe Ratatouille. I need some spirit-lifters, and since alcohol is strictly out of the question, and I haven't felt any inspiration to draw or make art today, but I keep feeling as though I should be way more productive (aside from all the snot I've been coughing up and blowing out my nose, that is).....I do this all the time!! I feel all whiny and uninspired and bereft, and I don't know.......I just moon around......instead of just throwing in the towel and recognizing that I'm just feeling moony and sick and I should glut myself on wonderful funny absurd animation and such.

Two full weeks in the term, then finals week. You can bet your bottom brass tack that I will enjoy mucking this place out, especially the algebra table!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

happy birthday. to me.

For my birthday, I decided I would finally shove my way into a few free seconds and actually blog a post!! I keep meaning to do it...it's ludicrous, really. I mean come on! It's been over four months! So now where do I start?

Synopsis? Fall term ended, that went well, and I survived another algebra course and even earned an A (stay tuned for my neverending bitch-saga on upper algebra). I made a kickass reduction print in relief printmaking class which I included in the show at Museum of Unfine Art (month of January, prepped for that over winter break) and the other night I sold one of these prints!

So.....a reduction print? It's pretty cool, I loved the process. One block only. Carve away what's to remain white, lay down first color:


Keep carving and adding layers of color




Pretty soon (relatively speaking) you add your last color, usually the darkest, called the 'key block' and taa daah!!


The show at Museum of Unfine Art! That went very well too. Sold some stuff! Gaining much confidence! Actually you know..it was really great to be so well-received, and supported. I just gotta say. Jacque was a champ, she helped me lots with framing stuff. I felt very organized and spiffy with my whole presentation. I was also sick over break/christmas, but whatever, that was just a hiccup (stay tuned for my neverending bitch-saga about being sick).

So yes. Winter break was a godsend, I really needed that three weeks. This term is nearly finished THANK GOD, with two weeks of classes and then midterms. I'm in an Illustration class, which has been just loads of fun. I was hoping for more of the business end of things too, and lectures and presentations (because our instructor for this class is the printmaking instructor and last term she was chock-full of information and demonstrations). How do people in school actually learn how to become an Illustrator (it's a dying profession, I know, I know)? I mean, it can't just be that Art School teaches nuts and bolts; in fact I think most people learn more from just talking with other students....I don't know....anyway, here are a couple of projects from Illustration


Here we were to illustrate an (imaginary) article on phobias. So I started out with fear of mullets. My preliminary sketches and scenarios were not communicating the phobia real well. So then I thought I'd include fear of barbers, or haircuts (people do experience very high anxiety around this, whereas me, I merely dislike it to the point where I just lop off my own hair). I visited a wee barber shop


(the van really does equal the size of the shop)

and asked the ladies there to assist me with reference photos. So up in the chair I went and the woman with the scissors obliged with maniacal faces while the lady assistant snapped photos. THAT was fun and I discovered Thomas Ott, graphic novelist and scratchboard artist extraordinaire, in the process (book ordered, on the way! yee!).

On to the latest illustration project! An 11 x 17 poster of a Hollywood movie monster in the style of a well-known illustrator.



Which is due tomorrow, with an in-class critique, which I love and which I will miss attending because I am sick AGAIN, after being really effing SICK for weeks a mere six days ago. I had six glorious days of feeling like a normal living person and then I got slammed again with some barfy straight-to-the-lungs bullshit. All those students hacking and coughing all over everything and everyone, I am becoming such a germophobe.

This is what I will say about College Algebra/Pre-Calculus: it is one mo-fo hard course, with loads of work, very little in the way of rewards (understanding what the eff is happening) and has dominated my life for the last eight weeks solid. Freaking Twilight Zone of graphing techniques and blah blah blah to the asymptotic nauseatingth degree. I'm in the same boat as many students, unfortunately, although it's nice to know I'm not a total and complete idiot, because almost every student I've talked to who has taken it (sometimes twice, for failing the first time) or is in our class agrees on the magnitude of WTF factor.

Okay so that's it for now. There are other things - death, reunion, partings, seriously - but I'll save those for another time. As I posted on Facebook (yes, I know, I did it, I joined the milieu!),  my birthday wish is for everyone to drink a beer, eat some chocolate, make some love or anything else you dig doing -- and then do it again for me!!