250 ahhhh

250. The colors will change tonight. I'm looking at something plum and golden-yellow and red.
My portfolio. Warning: many many nudes ahead.

This is the last before the big one.

It's pretty late at night. 2am. Usually I'm asleep at this hour, but I've been working on my portfolio, which has been a slight problem. I got the 14 x 17 portfolio, while most of my work is on paper 18 x 24. I have done quite a bit of cutting, so things fit pretty well, but I seriously hope portfolio-book-size isn't a problem.


Within the portfolio, I've been using a ton of layout-design ideas. The flow of pages, corresponding model postures with others, connecting drawings through hip and shoulder lines.


Some new-years resolutions from last year:
Apply to CalArts. Done.
Boyfriend. <3 Check.
I really don't know. These are some other things that happened this year.
A1-bqx
Some good movies. Ponyo, Up, Princess and the Frog, Batman, Avatar, Coraline, Watchmen, Star Trek, District 9, Inglorius, and a whole lot more.
5 on the AP Biology. Credits not exactly transferable, unless there's an art school with Bio classes.
A lot of worry about things.
Figure drawing.


Aaaannnd it's too late to think anymore.

This should be 248.

working towards 250.


7:30am wake up
Mom drives into the city, we meet family friends, and we drive home.
2:45pm crawl into house.
No sleeping in tomorrow, either.


Yesterday was a party, and in the middle of it I get the call that my dog has run away. The whole party and half the neighborhood ran around looking for this small cow for an hour. I was saved from having to be pleasantly social. We found him in a few blocks from the house. Thanks to everyone who helped.


Making my CalArts portfolio today. I won't freak out. Magazine design has helped me a bit.

Goldfish

Lets get to 250 before the end of the year.


Grats to people for blogging during break. I'll read them.


I was looking through my portfolio photos and I found this closeup of a cutout I did last year. Single-edged razor, no predrawing, some invisible colored pencil.

I want to do a project like Ganes did years ago: a self-portrait a day. I wanna do a lot of things.

It's a christmas Miracle.

Prayers get answered and I'm heading over to the school tomorrow morning to get my stuff.
Thank you Mr. Ganes.

I have a cookie gun and extreme worry.

My brothers got a drum set for Christmas. It's set up in the living room. I'm blasting Maximum the Hormone two floors away and I can still hear it.

My art is very safe, in the back room of Ganes's room in school. I need to get it and put it in a portfolio and send it to CalArts. We get back on Jan. 4. It needs to be in California by Jan. 5. I've been very good with not freaking out.

     I was on the way to craft stores when I drew this self-portrait. In the mirror of the passenger seat, with a ratty pencil and notebook. I need a self-portrait for at least one portfolio, so I've been practicing. I wanna do one like Juliana's. And the face-shape bothers me. And the top lip shape. And the lack of help-lines. And what about making everything into shapes with Kandinsky-epic coloring? Like a child's block, but not exactly cubist.

Zombie, Fela Kuta, and Christmas.

Merry Christmas. No 'whad'jaget?', just that I have another large sketchbook. The extended family went, ooh, ahh, draw something, so I found a marker and showed off. I drew a self-portrait, and I like this one. There is enough going wrong with this picture in 'reality' that i'm just leaving it alone.
     I remember seeing a Man Ray figure-drawing and thinking 'I couldn't get into college with this.' And I smiled a bit because it's a little pathetic. On one hand, Man Ray is just a person. On the other hand, what am I expecting colleges to expect? Am I an intellectual artist? Can I be?
I've been listening to Fela Kuti's Zombie.

Attention!
Quick march!
Slow march!

Left turn!
Right turn!
About turn!
Double up!
Salute!
Open your hat!
Stand at ease!
Fall in!
Fall out!
Fall down!
Get ready!

Halt!

Merry Christmas Eve.

During the snowstorm, George tried to eat everything. Then he got tired.


I haven't touched my computer in a few days, and I'm not suffering withdrawal. I think I'm going to cut my computer time in half and read more. I have to finish Treasure Island, finish Lord of the Rings, read the 5th Ranger's Apprentice book, read Storm Thief again, read more art books, read philosophies, read some biology theory books from the library, steal the AP Lit book list. Start my own classical education.


Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. I love it. I love the intellectual art, the art that doesn't have extreme emotional attachments. It's like an illustration of an idea. I loved most of all the painting with clouds and shapes in the 6 primary and secondary colors. It was textbook perfect.


Shostagigi was amazing, people. Everyone thought about their gift, we spent the whole time laughing, and Luke got his gift (that was the nicest wrapping ever). The hats and codpieces were amazing, so you guys have to do it next year.


This is the Penguin-Viking hat from Shostagigi, and its plans. I like the way it came out, and I don't expect to be sitting on a shelf for years. Don't feel bad throwing it out.
The hat is based on a Barbute, a type of helmet used in Italy in the 16th century. It was also used in the Lord of the Rings movies as the standard for the Gondor armor.

I love the model for the planned hat. It was a Holden Caufield hat, shaped like a penguin.

AVATAR.
Well. Epic adventure, athropologist's dream, mythic story, scifi. Plus a god-beautiful planet.
I couldn't keep track of the character's names, so I called them 'Pocahontas' and 'Kocoum' and 'Priestess'.
I loved the culture of the movie. The blue cat-people, the Na'vi, worship the great tree and goddess Eywa. The army people 'worship' the Major, the father. And Protagonist is in between. I honestly wished the PG-13 rating wouldn't filter out normal things that would have happened: the women don't all have conveniently-placed beads, guns shoot people.


I do feel a bit bad that I saw a scifi epic before a disney princess movie.


Colleges have all been applied to. PiG paper is done. Portfolio is almost done. I'll have a driver's license in the next couple of months. I'll have my grandpa's old car, too. All I need to do is pass Health.

Howjufeelin? HOT HOT HOT! Howjufeelin? HOT HOT HOT!
Spent the morning shoveling and running after the giant dog (snow is a food group, with sticks and plastic)
I was a little sad that I couldn't hear every sound my feet made on the snow.


I was reminded of an old idea. In X-Men, all the characters have cool powers. Shooting laser beams, telepathy, telekinesis, weather goddess, prehensile tail. What about all the mutants out there with crappy powers. The best crappy power I can come up with: being able to digest plastics. On a Bio level, an enzyme mutation that can digest them. He'd have a desk job and a family and be scared. That's more of the reality of mutations, they don't have to be cool.


Avatar rant will be edited in later.

looking for a sideshow album.

Pretty marks with the new watercolor sets. The colors are amazing. Especially that good yellow. Silver paint marker over it. Been making some colorful self-portraits with them.


Thought about perfume today. A whole sense, in a small bottle. What about putting a sight in a bottle? A sound? A feeling? We can put a color in a bottle. And a taste. What about a feeling of a thought? Before the thought has a language?


Also thought of using balloons in a set. Original idea was for a yellow-brick-road that could be projected different places. The children's show set, eventually, would be fabric (easy to bring around places). And it may have balloons.


Been listening to Decemberists' Hazards of Love album. I'm still trying to understand it. The album tells the story of Margaret, who finds a fawn who is the Protagonist. He is the son of the Queen, who is nature, and she doesn't like Margaret.
And there is the Rake, a man who killed his own children just to be single again, and he kidnaps Margaret, and the Fawn makes empty promises to the Queen and the River to get her back.
Myth, simple characters, really deep, dark themes (infanticide, repayment, promising, nasty karma, drowning, kidnapping, possible prostitution). Some beautiful music, complete with an instrumental interlude. And it all starts off with a low organ prelude.

First words:
My true love went riding out
in white and green and grey
Past the pale of Offa's Wall
where she was want to stray
and there she came upon
a white and wounded fawn
singing, "Oh, the hazards of love."

Major accomplishment checked off the list.

The People's Veto of LD 1020 (The Equality Law) in Maine.
3,769 words.
386 lines.
14 pages.
71 paragraphs.
78 separate citations within the paper.
I believe this is the latest I've stayed up this year on a weekday. I'm still a little hyper. But I'm really focused. I guess... I just sleep now. I thought I would pull and all-nighter at least once in my high school career, but I guess I don't have to.

< o (. .) o > oink oink

Everything's a game and I'm just playing. There are the games you have to win at, and the games you just play. And there's another level, when you make win-games into play-games because of the losing part. It may be the 'i don't want to grow up' mentality of seniors. I don't know. It's damn good fun.


My social skills have hit the wall of the Twilight Zone, where events from four years ago can repeat, and you have that second chance, and shit better turn out right this time.


The PiGgie isn't quite cooked. I have to describe how Maine makes a law, how the people veto that law, and make sure i prove my these. And I added an 'overdone' bar to the graph. Glad the AP Bio graph-making skills are being used.

Pork Chops.

PiG paper. Same-sex marriage in Maine. I aim for 12 pages, 15 at my limit.
This is my Pig Paper thermometer. I found another excuse for crayons. It's also a tasteless meat joke.
I think I may be taking this graduation-determining paper a little too seriously.


Outer body acting experiences. I find that the 'game' quickly turns into something too real. I was Lenny, a 36 year old man leaving my wife and child and going to the airport to leave the country because I killed at least one person (revenge). I went to an airport, and I remember this specifically, because I knew that they wouldn't try to snipe me in front of everyone. And, I was prepared to take them all out. And I had deep guilt about killing this one person, and that was sort of a drive. And I had bad posture.
I didn't snap out right away. I was still paranoid in the airport.
I don't really mind that out of all the ideas that could have happened, I was a middle-aged man. I don't believe its some deep-down gender recognition problem, but a product of all the movie protagonists and their stories.

Vacuum 2, Dog 0.

I've officially applied to 3 out of 6 colleges, with two essays and portfolios left. Huzzah!


Saturday mornings, at 8, I have driver's ed. And driving is a lot of fun. I don't get anxious or worried, except when I get cut off (basically every week. no one likes student drivers). It's just fun to accept whatever happens when it does.
After college portfolios are over, and the holidays, and the paper, I think this blog will get a color change. Something more saturated but won't kill the eyes.


Now it's time to write a large paper on same-sex marriage's failure in Maine.

too much history channel as a child

I spent today in the city doing everything except figure drawing. I got to draw animals at the zoo and I figured out a cardboard suit of armor from the Met Museum.


Armor. I like the simple examples of Gothic German armor and the Italian armor of the 15th century. Basically, knights were still fighting in wars, the armor wasn't unnecessarily decorated (that happens in the Renaissance), and I don't have flutes running everywhere, as in German armor. There are also a lot of things you can do with metal that I can't replicate with cardboard. I took notes:

And this is Gus the polar bear.


I think, because I don't have science or history as classes, I'm overcompensating. It's great to study something interesting.

Peace of Mind

I understand about indecision
I don't care if I get behind
People livin' in competition
All I want is to have some peace of mind.


This is George. I think either the shutter speed was slow or my hands just can't keep still.


I got to join Juliana's portfolio review, and questioning artsy things.
Where do you want to go with art? I don't know right now.
Would you rather make your own project with a mentor or be given projects? The first, definitely.


I've been working with underpainting on two pieces. I think I once heard, but I'm not sure, that a layer of complementary color makes the other complementary color on top either stand out more or decrease in saturation.
One painting is a landscape containing an invisible castle, and I did the second layer (after the base offwhite color) in shades of pinks, from red (closer) to white (farthest). I hope that when the painting is painted green, some of the pink will still stand out. I was also thinking of keeping the pink and drypainting the green on top of it.
The other piece was started today, a portrait of the Queen of Hearts, based on this painting of Louis XIII. I've been wanting to put her in a time, but Luke basically said no research, no one notices. So I'll do no research and try not to claw my eyes out.

shostagigi

Made a flipbook. It was bad and rushed, but it is a flipbook. That's a basic start.


The few people in the STACroom around the end of school spent at least an hour bitching about Shostagigi problems. So, here is a working list of things not to do:
Do Not spell his/her name wrong
Do Not tell everyone who you have
Do your research
Do ask friends and family

Add more. I don't feel like these are new ideas, and I know there aren't actual rules, but not doing anything for a gift just isn't fun.


Princess and the Frog comes out tomorrow. I have a lot to do this weekend. I probably won't see it until next weekend, after the PiG paper. How to write a PiG paper: 1 part Kontroll soundtrack, 1 part Tea, 1 part reading Rilke to digest what writing should taste like.

shades of grey, star trek

Today is a writing day.


I found news that a Disney hand-animated production of Snow Queen is in production. The Snow Queen is an Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, in different parts. The story is pretty complex, in seven parts, and centers around the struggles of Kai (the little boy stolen away) and Gerta (heroine), who looks for him. She talks to flowers, crows, a prince and princess, is taken prisoner by a robber girl, and rides a reindeer to the Queen's snow palace. She frees him with the power of religion.
I get lost at TV tropes.


Working on a large landscape. Today, I went over everything with different shades of pink. White near the horizon, redder when it's closer. Next layer is green, and the pink will still stand out a little (only using palette knife), and the landscape wont just be different shades of green.

all I want is to have some peace of mind.

Listening to Peace of Mind, Boston, over and over again. The whole house has been singing it since this morning.  We even did Axel Rose covers. Best voice to imitate.


For the last two nights, I watched Alice on SciFi (screw the name change). It reminded me how much I needed to read the original Wonderland stories. Last year, SciFi did a similar change to Wizard of Oz, called Tin Man. Both stories were changed with central plots around technology, running a nation, and family relationships. It's like having two movies made by the same crew. Everything is so similar.
I don't know who designed Tin Man and Alice, but I like it. Something is a little too modern, a little too budget-tight. It was do-able. Except for a forest, general setting, lighting, facial hair, and a considerable amount of basic sewing. And I totally disagree with a lot of the plot and characters, but I like it. Some things explained too much, some things never are mentioned again, and sometimes, badassery ensues.


Self-portrait, used a mirror, I need to do something in art class before I implode. It took up a whole page, and I didn't crop it here.


I think my next project will definitely involve the Queen of Hearts. Not Alice, just the Queen and her minions.

Vampires Kill From Above, 2.

I realized I never actually did the Let the Right One In questions, because I lost them. So I found them on other blogs. This feels like a character-relationship rant.

1. Backstory. We understood backstory through the relationships between the characters. Oskar and Conny have a background together. We're never told it, but we can guess, especially by the progression of their relationship. Eli and Hakan have some backstory, but we learn when they are together or doing something for the other. Backstory is between the characters interacting with the other characters. We don't know anything, but we can guess.

2. Camera Movement. Hakan -> Eli. Father -> Oskar and back. Father -> bottle. Directional relationships. Other than that, there really isn't any movement. I wonder if there's any movement between Conny and Oskar.

3. I felt like the Camera was used almost as part of a character. Too close, too far away, too involved, too detached. Like extreme emotions.

4. Character development through action. Decisions defines you. Or, contrarywise, the decision you could have made defines you. Ginia decided to die. She could have decided not to die. Eli decides not to give in to temptation with Oskar's blood.

5. Sound. I need to pay more attention to sound. There's music and there's quiet, but quiet means that the sounds are amplified so that you can hear the quiet things, like snow condensing when you walk on it. Most of all the sounds, the condensed snow sound stuck with me.

6. Hakan and Eli. I thought he was a father figure until he was yelled at, sitting, and he apologized. Then I thought, well, he's just her servant. He takes care of things.

7. I thought the puzzles represented experience and time. Eli has a lot of time, she's had more experience, she figures things out fast. Oskar doesn't have lifetimes to figure things out. He's still little, he's still confused.

8. First plot point. Friendship accepted with gift of a Rubix cube.

9. Second plot point. I thought it was when Eli said 'Be me', giving him that strength, but he didn't do anything with them.

10. Happy Ending? I don't think so. It's unrealistic for kids to be travelling around. And I don't think the tall bully deserved what he got.

Economics drawing. I can't remember where I've seen these kinds of trees before. Not Ents, just... walking trees....

I like how the tree's legs are uneven. And the cat. And the cat lady. And a torch. I wish there was more paper.

it's a jungle out there, and randy newman connections

Monk ended yesterday, and I finally got to see the finale, and I'm glad shows can go on without people watching them. I don't really want a sequel. Sequels, even for good movies, can end up bad. Except, sometimes, if themes are strong enough, or if there's another theme that needs to be solved. Toy Story is about Woody potentially losing his spot. Toy Story 2 is about Woody being needed in that spot, even if it isn't permanent. And, many many times, sequels are made when there should be closure.


I am legitimately sick. I carry around my own tissues. Watching the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, because I haven't yet.


Toy Story 3 trailer. This is like Brave Little Toaster and the clip with Andy in the tent is like straight out of Iron Giant. Andy only owns blue. But I can't wait to see closure. I hope.

thinking is best in the shower.

I'm home alone on a friday night. So what to do? Blog, watch a movie, and go to bed by 10 because I have driver's ed tomorrow.


An interesting thing happened today. My design was not chosen for the tshirt. There were a few things that happened at the same time: childish anger and sadness, a feeling of foreboding, the need to mask feelings, and a process of association that involved past rejections. And I thought a few things, mostly in the shower:
1. I don't like losing and I'm a little too competitive
2. I don't want to be too outward. I don't want to put people down.
3. Thinking about the collection of bad things is worse than thinking about the bad thing itself
4. If I think I'm accepting failure, I'm probably not
5. I don't want to think about these past failures when doing things related to future success or failure
These do not include 'what do I want' or 'is this right or wrong' or 'am I a bad person'.


2. I have an ego and it's big, so I make sure that I keep it to myself. A blog is another way to talk, an option for someone who doesn't want to listen. But I haven't done anything public to showcase myself. I don't know if I want to. I don't think it's part of being an artist. But what's the point of singing if you only sing in the shower?
1. I also have to accept that some things aren't a game, not that you can win in your head and not outside it.
5. This is college. I really really want to go to california next fall. And I don't want any doubts, but I have them, and I don't want them to eat me alive.


I heard girls in the bathroom talking about parties they're invited to. My last party, with more than 3 teens at someone else's house, was a going-away party for college. I was late because I forgot, and it turned out to include family and friends.
I don't normally get invited. I don't know if I would go. I'm no fun at parties. And I realize for a second that this is a disadvantage of facebook, that there is a whole mindset just for facebook, and that I don't have it. And I don't mind.

Doodles. I cleaned out my loose-papers-drawer in art.

1. Drew with marker, like Fingerdents.
2. Guiseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate FDR in Miami. He did not succeed, and he had horrible abdomen pains, and he claimed no political affiliation, and he did it because he was angry with America. Learned this from Assassins. History through musical.
3. Skull based on a drawing attempt made by a kid in a different art class. The Nervous system should always be purple.
4. 5th Element costume notes. Amazingly costumed movie.
5. Princess and the Pea.

Vampires Kill From Above.

Let the Right One In.
I'm still thinking about the movie. I want to see it again. Rewind and watch again. Go to the parts I've forgotten and the parts I really won't forget. whoa cliche. I love after Oskar cuts his hand and offers it with the stupidest smile. I was almost crying when the blonde bully starts crying because he can't handle it. I don't think the other bully (not Conny) deserved it. I felt bad for Hakal when he couldn't please Eli, he couldn't do right, and he could never receive affection from her. That relationship was so one-sided.


I don't really like horror movies, but it isn't horror. I'm okay with the violence. The worst parts are before when someone gets eaten.


I'm not reading all the other blogs yet. I saw most of this movie off youtube, because I had to leave on wednesday. And then i had to sleep, to I saw the last 20 minutes half-asleep wed. night. I need sleep now.


Overall, for the movie, I was cringing in anticipated terror most of the time. I need to see it again. And I love non-sexual nudity, especially in movies. American culture is so scared of nudity, but I'm drawing nude people every weekend.


The Questions are momentarily lost. I don't think I brought them home.