Vidja games

Here is an official list of things I want to finish*:

Advanced Wars
Fire Emblem
Super Mario Galaxy
Legend of Zelda: Windwaker
Maplestory - Aran up to level 120 by school
Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea books (3 more left)
Frankenstein
Painting my room

This is easily 100+ hours.



*Finish: Not 100%, but finish enough. If not finish before school, I'll try to bring them to college.

#400

This is post 400, at the beginning of the 2011 summer.
There are a few things I wanted to do.
I want to finish a few videogames.
Finish reading the Earthsea books, and some of the other books on my shelf. They are technically young adult fantasy.
I've started taking apart my desk, so I should continue that.

I've had 4 cups of tea today. two with morning one with lunch one after dinner and they were all caffeinated so. Maybe I'm addicted to caffeine? Maybe I'll just finish Advanced Wars.

The second: What I had in college. Year 1.

Since packing, bringing everything back, and repacking, I've had a lot of time to reflect on things I've had in college.

Also, not all of them are material. Being home, I sincerely miss not telling anyone where I'm going when I go out, having my own clean existence, and not being able to choose food without caring too much about the price.

I have a lot of stuff. So much stuff. An unbelieveable collection of useless knickknacks, art supplies, clothes, books. And I want to see how far I can go with de-cluttering. Not cleaning yet, just getting rid of all of this useless stuff that I don't use anymore. Make scrapbooks of things, pick up papers from the floor, and do I really need so many books? 3 bookshelves of books and I'm trying so hard to fill boxes for donation. Do I really need two different graphic novel versions of Macbeth? Why do I have these anyway?

There is a specific problem: I have an object that was either a gift or something from a younger me, and I don't know if throwing it out will upset anyone. It may take a few minutes for me to decide. Will my Aunt care if the ceramic teacup gets trashed? What about the "Soup Bible" cookbook I'll never use? Why can't I just get tickets or experiences for gifts instead of things? I keep as many of my tickets as I can, and they fit snugly on a shelf.

How can I throw out the relics of my early teenage years? Or even before that?

I also found and went through a lot of my old sketchbooks. I went through a lot more sketchbooks than I thought. I have a lot of empty ones, too. I shouldn't have to buy art supplies for at least 5 years.

But I've been working on it. I don't know if I'm being heartless and trying to forget middle/high school, or if I'm being realistic and forward-thinking. Probably a bit of both.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

baked french toast

I still need to make a new Reading blog. I have been reading every night, and I've been marking up the everything. It's only Wednesday, but by Friday I need to have finished whatever chapter of Lord of the Rings: tTT ends closest to pg. 60, finish at least to pg. 100 of The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea's sequel), and have the first chapter of the Stac book done.

By the end of break, I want to be 150 pgs into LotR: tTT, halfway into the next book of the Earthsea series, and I want to finish the next 2 chapters of the French flying book.

Baked french toast. A delicious recipe that I want to play around with. Because, in a perfect world, syrup is unnecessary for a lasagna-like slab of french toast.

It's still snowing.

Coan, Changing, Drawings.

I've missed a few important things. There was the Coan party, there are a lot of drawings, and there have been class changes, that have altered my perspective on the people around me. But switch 2 and 3.


Coan.
A lot of things were written on my page. I loved the format, and I know that we could never have pulled it off last year or the year before. Consider the truth written on your pages testimony to a Stac class of good people.
"Why can't life be simple and work my way?"
At first, I laughed a little at this, because of its truth. 'My way' is a childish thing, a safety net, and sometimes its the only way I know how to do something. And I know I always want things to be simpler. Even if something starts simple and is built from there, I know how it's simple. There's a comfort in that, too. Maybe 'comfort' is my third core value.


Changing People.
I learned a few things today.
One, there are nice idiots, then there are status-needing, womanizing, spineless idiots. I have no patience for the latter. This comes from an incident in class. I will not be the only kid who does work in a group.
Two, I'm not the only one who watches Jeopardy every day.
Three, I live in a different world than a lot of people. Today in Psych, we were asked to name all the seven dwarves. So I did. I didn't understand what the big deal was. It happens during Jeopardy, too. "Oh, I just saw a documentary about Biblical Wars a few months ago". There's a reality check.


New drawings. These aren't just from play rehearsal.
I like the Lord of the Rings movies, but I want them separate from my own ideas from the book. So, I drew a basic Legolas and Aragorn. Both are missing very important parts of their dress, but I wanted their faces to be not-pretty. Legolas is from the northern elves, and I got the idea that those elves have half-sweaters. Aragorn also actually looks old here. He spends a lot of him time looking towards Gondor and saying 'oh, how I wish I were ruling my fair nation' and whatnot. It's not finished. They're missing cloaks and all sorts of necessary parts.

These are doll designs for Carousel. I would love to have a made doll onstage rather than something from someone's house. It's very geometric. The doll is also like, what the character Louise is expected to be: quiet, demure, with a nice dress and apron.

This is what I worked on today, all in pen, all from memory. Originally, one of the girls on stage stood like this, so I drew the angles. Then it got out of control. I should get back to another figure drawing class. I need to give Ganes back his amazing pen. Hand and foot hiding. Her left shoulder bothers me a bit.
"Every time they make a Robin Hood movie, they burn our villiage down!" -Robin Hood, Men in Tights.

sum-ups.

Less blogging the last few months. I've been working on Carousel. And not at home.


My practice. Reading. I want to finish Earthsea by Monday, and start the Saint-Exupery book after that. Other than that, I need to finish the Lord of the Rings series. After the Stac book, Letters to a Young Poet, then the Accidental Masterpiece.


I think I'll post the pages I read each day, and a quote from each reading. And some line of reflection. That should be enough. All set to go on monday. After Superbowl, after finishing Earthsea.


A Wizard of Earthsea is basically about a boy with wizard talent, who goes to a wizarding school, releases a shadow upon the world, fights a dragon, fights a malign stone from before time, and needs to fight the shadow. It's a typical, simple fantasy book, and it sounds a lot like Harry Potter. Only, it was published in 1968. So a lot of children's fantasy is based on it. The world is a giant archipelago, Earthsea.
There's a moment when the dragon will not fly over a stretch of ocean to fight him, because dragons belong to wind and fire, and men of earth and sea.


By the end of the show, I'll make a giant post with all the possible sets I've drawn.

A very nice title.

I thought of a very nice title for this entry in the shower this morning, but it's gone now.
This will be in parts:
Why I haven't been writing, the nature of an Enneagram, a difficult book, and something amazing.


I haven't been writing because I've been out of my house. I'm working on the musical, I'm at the movies, I'm at Zach's. And when I'm at home, I'm working in my room. I have started breaking away, becoming separate than my family. I've been thinking in terms of 'when I have my own place' and 'then we could drive there' and 'maybe there will be a dog'. There isn't a big life plan about fame and fortune. I'll be married with a little apartment and money will be okay but tight and I'll be an animator with a steady job, maybe even with health benefits. Isn't this what's going to happen?


I've also been thinking about language. I still don't comprehend. For example, if I were to choose between sending a telepathic thought in language (speech, the picture of written word), or in a set of pictures, feelings, and experiences, I would choose the latter. There are so many things that I don't have words for, and there are so many things that I feel, that all I can do sometimes is repeat.


I am a 1w9, and in order, 1, then 8, then 4, then 9. 8, 9, and 1 are all in the same area. 1: the Reformer, the Perfectionist. Details, flaw-noticing, fear of being evil. Hate not having some sense of personal control, an innate need to improve (based on flaws), and are emotionally repressed (as a result of the self-control). And there's a sense of organization, ambition, and overall self-reliance.


I like some of this, and I don't like some of this. This year I've been fighting the giant monster of criticism, of being extremely driven, and I considered these aspects as evil. It's a case of the Reformer's traits eating each other. I don't want to be overly critical and I don't want to fight to win every moment of my life, and I want to think differently. So, I think I may understand how an Enneagram is like a tool for change. Core value used here: Movement.


The unhealthy Reformer is like an unhealthy Romantic (4): moody. The thriving Reformer is like a healthy Enthusiast (7): happy. That's pretty much right.


When you have an idea of who you are, look at what other people are, and then realize that you don't look at the world like that, and that you almost don't realize that people live their whole lives quite differently than you do.


A difficult book and something amazing.
I have Letters to a Young Poet- Rilke, and The Accidental Masterpiece- Kimmelman. There's also a book on Pixar Business, which I don't expect to be philosophical. And there is also a science/art book to research. Or, I can just try to read them all.


Something amazing. I would love to do a big big project, but we've tried that idea for the last two years of Stac, and it doesn't work. I know I need to do something. I would love to not do an AP Art portfolio, save $86, and animate something. A walk. An 11-second sound clip.


I haven't heard back from any colleges, so I'm in limbo. I have done what I needed to do with the college forms, and now I don't know if my big goal, CalArts, has been reached or not. And I can't stand still. A great treadmill.

I've been thinking about books.

Today I took a small inventory, and I have approximately 108 non-fiction books of my own. This does not count the books of my siblings and parents, whose libraries are open to me. The break down into specific categories:
Fine Arts (MC Escher, D'Orsay), Animation (The Illusion of Life), Biology (Anatomy, Gardening), Other Science (Astronomy), Writing (Publishing, Comics), Crafts (Cooking, Sewing), Story Collections (Bible, Fairy Tales, Myth), German, Sociology, and Other. Other includes Blackjack Gambling, Glassblowing, So You Want to Visit Soviet Russia.


These don't include the library books, the borrowed books, lost books, or sketchbooks. And I haven't read them all.
I'm still reading lord of the rings. I spend a lot of time reading it, but I want to speed-read it again. I don't have a cohesive idea about the characters.
     I don't want to read a book by its movie. The movies are amazing, but they represent what other people think of the books. I need my own connections with the characters, outside Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen. It was the same with the Harry Potter series. Books let you have your own vision, movies are just optional visions.
     How do you read a book when you can't see characters? I feel like JRR Tolkien's writing is like a giant iron that smooths out ideas into a textbook of an adventure or characters being an emotion. Pippin is the stupid one. Gandalf is powerful, but not infallible. Sam complains and worries. Frodo is troubled. Legolas is perfect and Gimli is... stout. Boromir is a prick. Aragorn is silently concerned. I don't even know what Merry does. I really want them to be more, but I don't see it yet, and another 40 hours may not help.
     So many channels and nothing to watch.


I've been sending in portfolios, and I don't particularly like my non-figure-drawing work, except for the Tower. And today, something horrible happened- someone in art class asked my opinion. I didn't give it. If someone asks, I can be honest, but honesty isn't nice. The worst thing happens when you can say, "I think you can do better."


So that's what I've been thinking.

design prattle

So, I like the yellow. It isn't oppressive, and the reds and browns are nice. I'll keep it a while.
I'm sending in my Pratt portfolio tonight. And the Purchase portfolio (same exact thing, but due next month).


I've finished Treasure Island, and I'm convinced pirates beat ninjas any day of the week. I need to see Treasure Planet and the muppet version and other movie versions.
The first song of Rocky Horror is made of scifi movie references, and I want to see all of them.

Culture Vulture

1. for the fall rebirth, I wrote that I would make art for me, not for college or anyone else. I've since rethought and considered many things since than. Now, here is what I don't want things to look like:

Because I'm taking things to far. (I've also been working on legible caps.) Let's go with Choice A for now.


2. I have been given a proposition of illustrating a children's book. Naturally, it's not anything big. I don't know if it will even get published. But still, my mom's friend would like watercolor art for this 15-pg under-sea adventure. And I'll be paid for it. Commission!


3. Workshop. I feel bad because Cathryn comes in with so much stuff, and we could definitely help. We do get a lot of things done, and we are direct in our approach. Okay, we'll each do two designs, line them up on the table, talk about what we like about page layouts. There's no wasted time, because we know exactly what to do. There isn't much talking. That may hinder the addition of ideas to the mix.
   Making layouts is interesting. The guidelines make sense. I feel like everyone in the workshop knows what to do, what the goal is, and what we want in a magazine layout. Clean, simple, leaving breathing room. Something that sets this group apart from others: we will say what we like about a design, and combine designs, alter it a bit. Not every idea is used, and as a group, we understand that.

Giants and God-er-pillars.

Some paintings. I don't usually paint, but last week I found out just how much canvasboard I have. These weren't planned out, but I sorta like the foot. They're pretty surreal. Watercolor, the PRANG sets from school and some 'real' tube colors. Pancreatic clouds and god-faces. The foot is, technically 'still life'. I got to model for that one. I was going to go into the city for figure drawing, but it was gonna rain, so I painted.

Part of what I'm looking for is what I do. Everyone has a specific handwriting, line quality, mode of speech. What am I like with painting?

I got a lesson from the Food Network on how to properly cut a whole chicken from the supermarket. I can't say it doesn't interest me. Some part of my anatomy learnings are waiting for the chance to understand how my meat is cut. It's not sick or disgusting- it's what happens. If I'm gonna eat meat, I want to make sure I'm not shy about it. Except for the killing part.

Movie to look up: The Thief and the Cobbler. Or the Princess and the Cobbler. There are so many different versions of the film. Hand-animated, by Richard Williams (Who Framed Roger Rabbit animator), and it has some killer backgrounds.

This is one version, and this is another. And another with Broderick doing the voiceover.

Running on a stage blindfolded is one of my greatest hells. I've been on that stage in the dark before, but this is having someone else lead you. And then having to run. And listening to everyone else running around you. Holy Shit. I'm an artist- without my eyes life gets a lot harder. I don't always trust the people around me. No offense, but everyone makes mistakes. And then I get lead through the halls, and I try not to remember where I am and let Taoism* take it's toll. I felt like I had more fun leading blind Ashley around, and I connected more with my other senses that way. I had to think of things to explore without my eyes. What's interesting? What can I smell and feel and hear? I liked the leading when we were running, too.

Romanticism is in the works.

*Taoism: The present is beautiful and fun. Read some of the Tao of Pooh.

playing railroad tycoon.

Every so often, my digestive system decides it can only survive on water, fishy crackers, and unsweetened applesauce. It's not too much fun, but I'm always thankful that I don't have 100% of the stomach virus.

I've been thinking about painting that's not watercolor. Acrylic paint. Plastic paint. And how I need a lot more experience with it. I was thinking about making my own paint-by-number drawings on canvasboard and filling it in.

I've also started looking through all my art sets and collecting things and then I'll put them in shoeboxes under my bed. I have a lot of those kits for older kids.

I have a book about creativity someone has to read. 'The Imagineering Way', written by the Imagineers at Disney. A lot of the principles are ideas we learn in stac.

Quotes from the book.

"Never underestimate the power of a stack of multicolored index cards."

"By knowing ourselves, we can contribute to the team collaboration and the vision is built."

"The first ideas that come out reflect more the instinctive, emotional, and intuitive response to a project."

before the final shot, an animator draws out the pencil test, to make sure everything works they way they were planned. These are some of the originals from some really great animators. http://www.penciltestdepot.com/.

colors kill

I left art at school. I'll bring it home for tomorrow, because I drew interesting things and painted some things.

I was reading Interaction of Color, by Josef Albers, and I didn't know what what happening. Then the book covered the idea that we see the opposite color every time we see the actual color, and that was a property we learned today. And I read some other things that I don't remember, because I'm just not up to it. Things are flying over my head and I just need more picture examples.

Color theory is a topic I only started on last year, and I would like to come back to the book in a few months when I've had more practice.

I spent last summer at two very different art classes, with different kids. FIT was full of fashion people, and Art League was full of kids who could really do art. But both groups started every conversation with 'did you draw that? it's amazing' and similar compliments. I personally don't trust compliments unless they're coming from someone who knows what they're doing, and even that has to come with a sense of critique.

Rilke said that you shouldn't care if your art is 'good' or not, but that it comes from you and speaks with your voice. Where did we go wrong, that we learned art should be about being better than other people, more accurately copying predecessors, or that a number can be assigned to these skills? Can we blame this on the 50s too?

And why am I in AP Art? I think I want the challenge of it. I need a test and I need to learn everything I can for it.