reading

Today I finished two books:
The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon.
Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, F.C. Ware.
I also sewed 10 buttons.
Cooked dinner for everyone.
Will play classical music later.
I feel decently accomplished.
But I have no energy.
And I'm a little worn out.
And I like the rhythm of this writing.

Beauty and the Beast music, today.

Today was:
from one type of wire to another, making something pretty that looked (vaguely) biologic. It looked like grass.
almost finishing my book.
taking notes on schizophrenia, OCD, and depression (in two classes).
finding out how much i have due.
drawing trees in interesting ways.


1. A tree made of lines, simple enough. I like it. Uses a perspective principle that says you mentally fill in the gaps in your vision.
2. Simple shapes and contrasts to make a section of tree.
3. Reflecting lake, from a helicopter's point of view (its shadow is on the lake). There is also the brightness of the sunshine on the lake. That would be the large star-shaped thing.

Week without a project

My project? I don't really know. Wire is friggin aggravating to use. I want to bring in my new bag and spent 2.5 hours sewing buttons. I won't have time this week, though, because I have Wed. Karl, Thurs. Ganes, and Fri. Karl. Maybe. Maybe I'll bring in the sewing during the documentary.

Rob workshop

I spent about 4 periods today taking pictures. I don't understand photography, I understand shape, pattern, repetition, and how colors interact. But I guess I don't have to understand it, because that's not what Rob asks. We love him. I actually liked being in front of a camera today. Not totally comfortable, but it's who I am. I'm not ashamed or scared. Just me and a white background.

I also photographed my AP art work. There were 10 pieces today, minus the piece I left at home. I only have one or two left, none left if I haven't lost anything. There are still more I need to finish and find, but I'll be done. I'm not going to worry about this.

I've started memorizing glossary terms for AP Psych. It's some of the best review I can do. Start with one word, then recite all the other principles and people related to it, then look it all up.

I drew after watching about Roccaterrania. I haven't drawn just for me in a while.

Workshop 4, Karl, and Passion, and a Lingerie Commercial

Listening: Clementine, Decemberists, Castaways and Cutouts


I actually got a lot done this workshop. I came in with a plan and I worked on it. I don't know if it was a good idea to come in with a straight idea, but listening to Karl talk with other people at my table helped, and I made a mock-up. I also ripped my paper, folded my signatures (I have 8), and put them under weight. My book may be as much as 1 1/2 inches thick. Oops. That's okay. I need to work on the outside cover of my book next week, which means cutting apart a pair of jeans. I'm making a watercolor sketchbook.


Luke keeps asking people 'what's your passion?', what do you really want to work on? I've spent this half of the year working with my hands. My original practice was sewing, and now it's cooking, and I'm making an armature model for my project. Craft things, hand-working things, small repetitive hand motions I can concentrate on.


And I read on CNN about LaneBryant's Lingerie Commercial. It isn't clear what happened, but the commercial didn't air during the time it was supposed to, because it was too racy. I don't like The View or whatever that's called on CNN, each person takes a biased view and they can't be in total opposition because they have to look good. I love the commercial, I love the support it's getting on youtube's comments, and I wish more people could see it.
     This, in comparison with a New York Times magazine article about how "food is never just food", and watching what you and your child eats and talking to them about food and exercise and weight, but having them be healthy. This is too much for little girls. Just enjoy yourself.

Project

Project: Make a wire figure without getting too frustrated. Put foil around it. Then, masking tape. Then, plaster. Then, paint. I want to make more than one, but that's assuming I don't end up pulling my hair out.


Project: OCD poster for health.


Project: Book IX of The Iliad: film a puppet show, for mythology.


Project: Finish projects.

Workshop 3, Karl

This workshop was when Karl found out I was taking notes.
I don't know what he was expecting of us, but no matter how much difficulty we had, we made books. It's a whole new thing to see a book you made with your own hands.
Now, what's a book that represents me? Or, what book would I like to make? Or, what book would I like to make in class that I can't make on my own? A book with buttons sewn on. A jeans book with a square border. A hexagon border. A thick book, 12"x3" with the spine on the long side, because I like sewing the papers together.


The big project for stac. Paper models, so far, but I want this to move into something else. But making a paper model is so interesting. I measure and mark lines and cut and tape and repeat repeat repeat. There's something therapeutic about that, and I'd get frustrated with keeping a wire work stable.


Quest project: piñata. Balloons, tape, newspaper, glue, and a hairdryer. There is a final product, there is a definite process, and it's better than "I'm going to learn guitar".

Old Drawings.

What I'm Doing

I have an idea of what I want to do, I don't know how to make a project out of it.
     I was taught that, to understand how to draw something, I should break it up into its shapes, thus rendering it into a two-dimentional figure within my own head. I don't know if other people do this, or if there is a better way to explain it.
     I also recognize that I want to learn how to animate in a three-dimentional world after a two-dimentional world. But if I understand how to make 3D things, I think my 2D art will be better. 'Better', meaning I'll know how the thing I'm representing in 2D is in 3D.
      If I made a full human sculpture, I would learn more than just drawing one side of it. And, I would be able to understand the side I'm drawing, and its relationship with the parts I do not see and do not represent.
     I want to understand the world as a three-dimentional place by building three-dimentional things. Sculptures. Paper geometric shapes I don't know the names of.

So, this week:
Make more 3D geometric shapes with paper. Get an idea for a final piece.
What if I just make a wire and plaster human face? Or skull. Homo sapien, Homo erectus, and Homo habilius. Human evolution, models, and an anatomical understanding. But where will they go next year?
What if I made a 1'x1'x1' cube like the plan, and wire the lightbulb and battery inside it, and make a glorified lamp?

things being what they are.

"'Normal' is a dryer setting."
Reading The Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon (scifi alias?), which is about an autistic man around 2030, who narrates what he understands, doesn't understand, and if this new 'cure' for his autism works. It's interesting, and the style is extremely simple and straightforward.
     I like things that are what they represent. Like, a Frankenstein teeshirt that is sewn together with scars, or a long speech about making long speeches. The courses of a meal representing how a soup is made. A painting about painting.

Karl, the Book-Binding Master, and Pratt, Accepted Students Day.

I can't cut things straight (even after all that foam-core), so this was aggravating. I liked the gluing part, and I liked almost forming a book. And I really admire the patience Karl had, even through the fire drill and people not working the whole time (limited supplies). I took notes on the process, so that I can keep making books after the workshop. I would like to make my own sketchbooks.


Apparently my practice is hard. Cooking every day. I don't think it's hard, because I have to eat every day.


Pratt. There were about 600 people accepted out of 6000, and they were all invited to Accepted Students Day. A lot of them went. I was really really nervous this morning. And then we were broken up into different departments, and I went with the film/photo students. We watched sample student movies/films/slideshows, and broke up into majors. There was this documentary about a high school production of West Side Story. I thought it wasn't serious, that it was a mockumentary, but it was real. Oops.
     There were about 12 students for animation. How many people applied? How many did they have room for? How come I was the one with the prestigious (so I read) scholarship, which I found out is given by major.
     The first animation studio/room we saw was next to the Chem room with a 'Liquid Nitrogen Deliveries through back door' sign. That's a plus. But the second one had a bulletin board. Someone had posted, "The winds of change, are changing." and the picture of a unicorn.
     That is from this student film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6kNxf6axY4
Geekout. This is one of my favorites student films. At this point, I realized that yeah, I think I'd fit here.

A big project, and an idea.

     I've never really wanted to work with sculpture. Clay, playdoh, plaster, it just never appealed to me. But two years ago, STACart did the year-long Frank Lloyd Wright project that turned people off from foamcore. Instead of using foamcore for one side of my house, I twisted brass wires (bassoon reed material) into spirals and embedded coins in the net. With one set of pilers.
     To understand drawing (the illusion of three dimensions), I should make something that is truely in three dimentions. I want to make something real without a pencil, for once.
     So, this can change, but I would like:
          Wire
          Lightbulb (that lights)
          A 1'x1'x1' box
In other words, a glorified lamp. I would love the charge from a battery to be conducted throughout the whole cube, so that when the switch it turned, you wouldn't want to touch it. I like the idea of having a piece that creates its own light. And wires are like string.

Step 1. Research.

Book-Making.

Workshop with Carl. C? K?
I wasn't expecting to be working the first day, and I loved it. I was expecting history (interesting, but not helping with teaching), a personal history, a getting-to-know-you. We got right into ripping paper for our first books. I feel like I know how to professionally rip paper.
     Then, folding, and sewing the signatures (the clumps of papers in the sections) together. I'm glad my practice, for a time, involved sewing. And summers of lanyard leads to +3 Dex.
     And I want my big project to be a thick watercolor sketchbook with the cover size of 4 x 8, so when you open the page, you have a square. I want to do watercolor gesture-drawing, and figure out a way to miniaturize a watercolor set for travel. That's an Altoids tin. Red, yellow, blue, green, black, white. All I need is a mini-brush, and I'm set.

not about dr. horrible.

So what keeps you up at night? What's out there, in the dark, waiting for you? Why go to bed with a flashlight when there's a blackout?


Zombies. That's what. Reanimated, blood-hungry zombies. I'm ashamed to have had a nightmare about zombies, but being trapped in a children's therapy hospital, which turned into an island later when we had to get off it, and then not having a weapon, and not knowing who on your side may eat you, is f'in' scary. There's a definite curse in having vivid, overly-imaginative dreams.


And, a slightly related topic: Bioshock. I'm in love with and terrified of this game. I don't call myself a gamer- this is my first first-person shooter- and I'm still working out how to aim. But the graphics are beautiful, and the storyline is told in pre-recorded audio tracks. Where that ever be seen again?

Book Presentations.

posted within 5 minutes of receiving the assignment.


Presentations in general are uncomfortable, and even more uncomfortable when no one is listening to you. I tried not to totally bs what I was saying (like 80% of everyone), so I wrote down different parts of the book, what the author wrote about, and my reactions. I should have spoke more, and read everything from my list. At least, I should have gotten past two minutes of ranting. Of course I could do better presenting, but I'm a lot better than I was a few years ago. I can actually talk in a normal voice.


So, I think I covered everything, but I wish I had my book with me (like Nina said, it makes me feel more comfortable). I felt I should have been more prepared, but I'd still feel that even if I was more prepared. I felt like I should have read over the book, or just finished the book.


Wind, Sand and Stars.

Artist Statement, v. 2.0

I don't know if this works as an artist statement or not. It looks a bit too long for me.

Artist Statement

Core Values

Art and Science

Movement, Change and Sameness

Comfort

Issues

Definition through Opposition

Opposites

Simplicity
Order

Communication

Something relating to children, childhood

I draw because it is the language I know best. That is, I feel I have more of a vocabulary with artwork, and my writing, speech, music-making, and nonverbal communications are secondary to seeing. As I learn techniques for drawing, how to see shape, form, and color, my vocabulary grows and I have more 'words' with which to express myself.

I like trying to convey a sense of movement in my artwork. I like to use repetition of shape or line quality to add a sense of stability, but movement, to my pieces. And, everything is moving all the time all around me. When there is repetition, there is the movement between the repeated parts of the piece. There is also stagnation, from the sameness of the repeated parts. I like exploring this duality in artwork.

I prefer using children's supplies for fine artwork. I've used crayons and markers for artwork that is usually made from charcoal, pastels, or oil paints (materials usually reserved for the refined, mature artist). Earlier this year I finished a pointillist piece with crayons, and I used Magic Markers for figure drawing. This comes from my love for simplicity and comfort, which manifests itself, especially, when I am faced with complex or uncomfortable situations in my artwork.

In the future, I want to work in different periods of art, like Modernism and Impressionism, to find out where I am. I also want to experiment with some three dimensional figures, like plaster models. I feel like that will help me understand space better in my two dimensional work.

Spring rebirth, for all of us.

I've spent the last couple of days in stac quietly writing and drawing.


My house is like several rock concerts happening at the same time.
One little brother is singing Beatles Rock Band in the living room, and the other is playing guitar or bass and blasting Tommy or Beatles or Weird Al. No one says "a little less noise there!" because they aren't bothering anyone.


From this, I have learned that I get work done when things are quiet.
Mornings are quiet.
If A = C, and A = B, then B = C. I forget the name of the postulation.
Therefore, I will do work in the morning.


These are from March, but my scanner wasn't happy. Hexagons (distances are the same between their centers, which is interesting for game design), I was tired during stac-notes one day, and that's the guy from the Heroin seminar. He was scary.

I don't need it.... I definitely don't need it.....

It was a good day. There's a lot of work, but it's mostly art-related. 24 AP Art pieces. I wonder how many of those will be figure-drawings.

I had a splendid idea involving food, a decent amount of photography, and some kind of mail-art (like Nikki did last year).

What do the insides of other people's refrigerators look like? Can I get pictures? Can I start a page for this? How can it get viral? How do you show the result, or is there no end? How do other people organize, or don't organize, their lives?

How to Train Your Dragon.

How to Train Your Dragon.


    Just a children's movie by Dreamworks? I was surprised. Last year, with Up, Coraline, and Fox, there were problems with target audiences for animated movies. This one was definitely for kids. And even though the first 10 minutes was made of exposition, it was interesting, fast-paced, and spoon-fed again later. It is definitely possible to make a kids movie without explaining the plot. But that didn't bring things down.
    The previews scared me. Besides Despicable Me* and Toy Story 3, I hid my face. Marmaduke? A remake of Karate Kid? More dancing animals making crude jokes from popular culture? No, thank you.
    Animation was pretty damn amazing. I loved the subtleties of Hiccup's movements. And the landscapes were a lot nicer than I expected. I'd see it again for the animation.
    Dragon is about a protagonist who doesn't fit in his society, forms a bond with his society's enemy/opposite, and together they make everything better for both species/races.
    Haven't I seen this movie before? All we need is one movie to come along and change everything up. One non-Pixar movie, because I don't think they've followed a formula (cept for maybe Cars and Ratatouille, see above plot outline).
    For all the formula, there were a lot of really hard plot questions. Hard, because there are so many possibilities. How do you show a dragon's gratitude, and how can that be brought back? How do you show Hiccup learning about dragons? How  does the love interest finally find out The Secret? (That was answered with a version of A Whole New World).
    Really really cool dragon designs. They didn't have to be color-coded, and each type of dragon was visually very different. The people were different, too. Even if I didn't know their names, I knew the difference between them.
    Overall, not worth 98% on RottenTomatoes, didn't break any new boundaries. But worth the $6.


*I'm really really hoping this movie is good. Like, how Planet 51 was supposed to be amazing. I'm just scared for the plot.