Left Foot.

This was 2 hours last week. Figure drawing and spacial analysis.
This is, literally, the hardest angle to draw your foot as.
Because:
My toes actually face the outside, since the toes are smaller as they come towards you, it is harder to understand the angle by what's in front of other things. The ankle is also not at a totally correct angle in relation to the heel, which basically looks the same from a number of angles. This piece did drive me a little crazy.

listening to Neutral Milk Hotel

This is on the whiteboard outside Stabile524, my secret HQ. Striped hat, coat collar, earphones, complete. Not the best photo, but the idea is there.

It's my first anniversary ever! <3 Zach.

(this was done while trying to pay attention to a drawing lecture)

college reflecting

I read Michelle's blog about independency in college, and I'm thinking about how I've changed.


So, in college, I'm organized.
I've kept writing. Since October, I've kept something between a scrapbook, vignette collection, and 
I've actually started to do my homework early. Not, 5-in-the-afternoon-before-class-the-next-day early, like day-after-I-get-the-assignment early.
I'm able to keep track of all my work without an agenda book. This started last year, and it reminds me how my memory works out.
I get more than enough sleep.
I'm not eating crap. Sorry if my saltines and organic alphabet cookies are bad.
Stairs.
I'm a bit more city-smart. Not much, but a bit more.


So, for vacation:
I like my house, my family, my pets, being able to drive anywhere. But Stabile524 is my quiet piece of NYC. I'll definitely be coming back here once or twice during vacation.

Vices

This is a design and color theory project based on the Seven Vices. We also had to write something to go with them. I don't know how this will translate from paper to screen, but it will be a little brighter here than how it is in real life.

tack

There's a metal tack in my shoe
and every time I walk
it makes a tap
so
I feel like I'm tapdancing

pen drawings

This was from art history today. 'Bored' should be defined by this class. I drew a what i hope is a labyrinth (not a maze) and a classmate's theory on cold noses: It doesn't matter how warm you are, if your nose is cold, you're cold. That's why we should make little nose-warmers, in the shapes of animal noses!

Grout

Imagine a mosaic made with pony beads instead of tiles. That will be the outside of my children's chair 3D final. I did a sample of the effect.


It actually came out amazing. And now I'm waiting for my shipment of 1000 beads. 50 beads covers 6" x 1", so I have no idea how many I need, but it's more than 1000. 1000 covers what?
12" x 1", 100
12" x 12", 1200.
Oh. No. I hope I'm wrong. I don't think I am. If 1000 doesn't even cover a foot square. I may need 5000. I may need more than that. Alrighty. Let's do the impossible.

Design

Redesigned this blog. It's still yellow.

figure drawing and ice cream

Figure drawing, and awful pictures of my work. We were supposed to draw the model like the bowling pin: broken down into volumes, starting with 2D shapes and transforming into 3D shapes. At least, I think that's what we were supposed to be doing. We did about 10-15 poses, and these were the more successful ones. The closeup on the bottom was a result of a horribly proportioned drawing and my need for a better clarity of the volumes by shading.

And I found Pratt's Ben and Jerry's freezer. Not a bad Friday, overall.

Subway Abstractions

Paraline drawings of... basic shapes. I really hope this was what was assigned. At least most of these were developed in the subway. Pen and colored pencil.

additive color, second attempt.

Folded paper, in diffused light, on my bed. I don't like the top left corner, I don't feel there's enough of a warm-cool/value difference for the bedpost. But I love the wall color. RGB/additive color, with caran d'ache. On textured paper, charcoal paper. Also, a picture of what I was looking at.

Best looked at without glasses, from far away, or with squinting. I don't entirely understand why anyone would want to make a piece of art that you can't see unless you're far away, but whatever.

A model and a bead-snake

I made a half-scale model of my children's chair design, out of illustration board and hot glue.
It is one of the most solid things I've made, ever.

I also got a pack of beads, and took all the small ones and made a snake. They don't look like the small ones, because they are in the same proportion as pony beads, but they are. Penny for size reference.

Also a few dots of you-need-to-clean-your-scanner.

RGB, and a paper bag in the light

This was today's LCD exercise. We're starting to learn additive color, based off RGB 'primaries', rather than RYB primaries. This introduction into additive color is the beginning of computer-based design, because computer screens are RGB rather than RYB.

This is supposed to be a pointillist paper bag lit directly with incandescent light, and colored with (mostly) RGB dots. It's a little more evident in the smaller picture, but it makes more sense when you're standing about 20 ft away. The background was a little improvised, an attempt at having some other shape that would suggest a background, rather than a large flatness of light-reflecting table.

cleaning.

It is, certainly, a person leaning on a cane, rather twisted-ly. There is also a list of the seven sins (a design project), a list (of sorts) of shapes around her head, and a doodle of Ganes. I think I like her face the best.


I need some time to fully revamp this blog, because at this point, I don't expect anyone to read / look at it. I just like having an artistic journal. Yes. Revamped, cleaned.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Large-scale drawing at the Met museum for the first time, and it's totally different than a little sketchbook or moleskin. At 18 x 24, with a few pencils and a kneaded eraser, so many people stood over my shoulder and just watched as I drew. The first sculpture drawing took an hour. The second, 45 minutes; the third, half an hour. But even with all the strange people, there were a few that stood out:


The Do you mind if I take a few pictures?-Lady. She took pictures of me drawing from every angle. I don't know why. I feel like it could have been a Met-based photo project, or she was just a student, or a journalist. I didn't mind much. Actually, I was a little flattered.


Middle Aged White Tourist, Female. This type looked over my shoulder, smiled at me a little when I turned around, and maybe asked a question or so.


There was a guard who came over to me in the morning, when no one was really around, and asked me, "How long did it take to master the technique?" It caught me so off guard that all I could say was, "This is just my drawing" or some equal phrase.


Small children. Older children. They are patient and they watch with wonder and they don't ask questions. I don't mind children watching my drawing. I do mind the parents who say, while I'm in earshot, "Oh see that- she's drawing".


And, finally, the two types of people who were in the way:
The ones who actually stood in the way, who I didn't really mind that much.
And the ones who realized as they walked in front of me that they would obstruct me and quickly hurried away with a short, 'sorry'.

visiting stac.

Luke interviewed me about college, and I should have been better prepared. But everyone, any by 'everyone' I point a finger at my brother, laughed when I said keeping my room clean was important to me.


Your room is your home base. You sleep, work, eat, live in it. And living in a room with dirty dishes in the sink, crumbs on the floor, cockroaches under the bed, how does that affect your work? What does that say about your ethic, your process of working, your life?


I've started reading Vision in Motion. The school library's copy is from 1947. The book is about how the impacts of the industrial revolution have been intellectual, but people could not keep up emotionally with production and global thinking. the book dictates a new art curriculum that properly teaches emotional expression in a post-industrial revolution society.

Deep Blue Sea (and Co)

roughcut of my stopmotion film for 4D class.

hope this works.

It's also a sound editing project, but this was saved before I started the sound-editing part.

Sock-fish

Started my first stop motion today. It is about a wave that eats a ship. And there are fish made of socks.
I got 6 seconds into it, and then class was over. But 90 pictures in about 90 mins is absolutely fine. Plus, the timing is fine (if not a little fast), mostly because I don't understand 30 fps. Every book I've ever read has been about 24 fps. I wonder if my movie would be better if it was lowered to that speed. I bet final cut can do that.

urban life

Midterms are coming. Next week? The week after? I'm not sure, but hell I need to find out. Most of the classes have portfolio reviews, which are fine, but that means I have to redo and rework some of the homework i've done over the last weeks.


I've started keeping a journal of vignettes about some of my experiences. It started a few weekends ago, when I visited manhattan. A couple of children were running down the street, they crossed my path, and the boy ran into the street. The girl stopped herself, and made a primal screech of danger, which caused the boy to stop, look both ways, see that he'd run at the right time anyway, but turn around and come back. It was a wonderful moment of primal expressed within a metropolitan setting.


I've been watching, carrying this book with me, trying to figure out how to live here. Urban Life. It needs a new title, but that is the gist. Maybe if it's in Latin. Vita Urbanus. What about Vera Urbanus? True/truth [pertaining to] Urban. I wonder if I could teach myself Latin.


I find that I need to write more, to balance my visual expression.

reading

In English, we're reading Autobiography in Red. It's a retelling, in verse-novel, of the story of Geryon. As one of Herakles's tasks, he had to steal or kill the red bulls that were herded by the red monster Geryon. But this one ancient greek poet retold the story with Geryon as a sympathetic character who meets his death at the bow of Herakles. The book is a retelling of the retelling, modernized, as a love story between Geryon the red monster boy photographer and Herakles. It's interesting, I've never read a novel written in verse. Every word is used sparingly, everything has been edited hundreds of times over to reveal a perfect result.


We started painting color-shapes in LCD. I didn't realize how fast I paint, or how accurately I can mix color. It's interesting, because I don't think I'm a very good painter.

hard work procrastinating

I'm writing this because I'm almost done with a drawing that took me about 4 hours, with many many breaks. Maybe it took me 2 hours. It was supposed to take me 6 hours, about, but there isn't much to copying a drawing and deconstructing the figures within it. I don't even like the painting. It's also about 3 x 5.5 feet. In crayon, too, because why the hell not? I want to draw from real people.


Yesterday, I went to animation club, and it was wonderful. This is where I want to be, and I want to do so much of it and work hard at this. These are people who know what I know and more. They give reason to my existence.


Once again, I was convinced that whatever the asian station in the cafeteria makes, it's going to be good. I don't want to know why, but I always end up eating actual vegetables. Thanks, Pratt, for sneaking peppers, squash, broccoli, watercress, etc into my asian food. And also rice. I have wooden chopsticks and a ricecooker in my room, so, I guess I really miss herricks.


I sort of wish I was doing more... hopefully I'll get real busy and won't have to say that again. But I can get 10 hours of sleep a night. I'll just have to keep a sketchbook.


The first three are platonic shapes, which is my 3D course, basically. Isocahedrons, cubes, octahedrons, dodecahedrons, and tetrahedrons. Fun fun fun. My current hw is to remake the first one, slightly larger, with more interesting external tabs (all the others have the tabs hidden inside).

LCD work:
#4, Eggs and white backgrouds.
4A, Direct light
4B, Diffused light
4C, Direct, one color-aid wall
4D, Direct, color-aid wall and floor
4E, Interesting composition.


#6, a value gradient with magazine


#7A, color study of apple in windowsill, direct light
#7B, color averaging grid of that apple

song: STYX

I came from english class, and I need to write.


I like when you can feel the sharpness of the blade that made a smoothie. I like when the strawberry seeds are cut for you, and the pineapple flesh has been broken into juice and pulp. The peach fuzz has been broken down, and its texture becomes another layer. The ice that was once cubed has been transformed into cold. The strawberries become the texture's pink.


Well... the smoothies really are that good.


I just wanted to say something about working. I like college homework better than high school homework, because it teaches you how to properly manage time. I get a project and a week to do it. It's a step up from a worksheet and a night to do it, because then, you can only do your homework the night before it's due.

Figure drawings

Figure drawing today. I always find that the legs appear shorter than we think they should, but they really are that length. Except for the one where the legs are supposed to be like / \ if you see them from the side, but at this angle they are just ||. The one with one leg on the chair is my favorite.

LCD homework, interactions of color

Value (light - dark), Intensity (saturation), and Hue (the color it is). Each small piece of paper is affected by the field color around it, which changes a property of the color. This is straight out of Josef Albers.


You can really see how each color got changed through the camera lens. I have the most trouble judging intensity, because it often looks like value.


Done on color-aid paper, which is expensive, nasty, and doesn't agree with rubber cement.


Intensity
Hue
Value