All of the summer

So what will I do with all of this summer?

Write a DnD campaign! It would be short, based in storytelling, and would feel like a Terry Gilliam movie. And I haven't started yet.

And I sort of want it done by the end of June, so I'll see what happens. I'll start as if I've never played any game at all, and work my way through the first 3- Player's Guide, DM's Guide, and the Monster Manual. All in version 3.5.

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.

Spider

There was a great spider in the port, and my family went into a house to see it. And my family turned into my cousins, and the house turned into my grandparent's. And my older cousin, she went to fight the giant spider. This thing was tearing down ships, and I knew the economy of the town wouldn't be the same. And then, when she didn't come back, a superhero tried to save the town. We thought he'd drowned the spider, but he was the one who drowned. The my little cousin puts on his under-water equipment, and told me that he's going to kill the spider, because of the town and because it killed his sister. And I watched from my grandparents' windows. And then, before he could reach the spider, I woke up.

Mr. Morton walks down the street. Mr. Morton walks.

LIZY pulls up to the house, parking badly.

LIZY opens car door and gets out of the car, taking her book.

LIZY starts calling ZACH from the sidewalk, even though the front door is open, because LIZY knows that walking into a house unannounced is rude.

ZACH is already there, opening the door. LIZY walks in.

LIZY starts taking off her shoes, because LIZY knows that they do not like dirty shoes walking around the house, especially on the new carpet.

ZACH says that bringing a book is rude.

ZACH
"You don't being a book to someone's house when you're going to hang out with them!"
LIZY
"I don't think it's rude. We may end up at separate ends of the couch."

ZACH shakes his head a bit and shows LIZY the computer room, where he is playing Team Fortress 2, one of LIZY's favorite games. ZACH directs LIZY to a desktop computer tower.

LIZY
"Sit on a computer?"
ZACH
"Yeah."

LIZY agrees, but is not comfortable. LIZY puts her forehead on ZACH's soft shoulder and watches ZACH try to find a server to play on.

LIZY tries to help, but is talking too much, and puts her forehead on ZACH's shoulder again.

The computer freezes. LIZY tries to list the ingredients needed for burritos while ZACH is waiting for the computer to restart.

ZACH tells LIZY to be quiet.

ZACH
"Do you have to talk all the time? Do you think l before you talk?"

LIZY does not talk as much, and puts her head on ZACH's shoulder again. ZACH tells LIZY that it is annoying and she should stop.

LIZY is listing ingredients again, but in her head only.

Dream Log

I've been keeping a dream log, to keep track of anything interesting. Vivid dreams represents the outer limits of my imagination, so I like to write down the places where they happen, whatever I remember about the feelings or the circumstances, the characters and plots.

WALL-E soundtrack.

Graduation. Shit man.


I went to the blood drive Friday, and I almost fainted, and it was scary. I get scared when my body is doing something I didn't tell it to.


I've started MapleStory. Sorry, world.


So on monday, I need to have
a first draft for the Turn of the Screw paper,
a final draft of my myth, which needs to be completed, renamed, and I need to look up things on TVtropes for story/characterization
a final manifesto, which I will put up, which will NOT be about being too harsh on myself

"Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks".

I'm sure there will be similar posts by the end of the week, but I can't go to church around Easter without going over Jesus Christ Superstar (one of the only Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals I really like) and Godspell, that crazy, horrible, pathetically executed musical I preformed a few years ago.


My Easter my isn't made of peeps and chocolate. It's made of going to church for each holy day, reciting passages with hundreds of people (like a play), and singing the saddest, then happiest, music. Every piece in minor chords, then Easter happens, there's a rebirth, and the music is in major chords.


There's something special, though, about memorizing four-part-harmonies in Latin. When all the notes are together, when a chord resolves, when the sopranos actually hit that high G. It's like Fuerzebruta, when there's a ceiling of water and plastic. But this time, you're in that bubble, and there's something beautiful about it.


Now, there is much stac-work to be done, much research to do, and much pokemon to be played.

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.

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."

almost done with apps

1/2 hour: Act 1. Life is established.
Then, First Plot Point: Life is changed.
1 hour more: Act 2. Rumble Rumble of plot.
Second Plot Point/Climax: Point of no return
1/2 hour after: Act 3. Story ends where a Life is established.


I still have to read the first chapter of Reave's story.


This is a college essay I wrote. The question was 'in 500 words or less, describe why you would like to be a visual artist', or to that effect. It's exactly 495 words.


I want to do art so that I can help people deal with their own problems, like art helped me deal with mine. In middle school, I was extremely confused about the world. I could observe and I could observe, but I didn't understand the people around me. And then, I started doing art. Only drawing a little, at first, but it grew into a preferred pastime.
The drawing became a way to express what I could never have verbalized. I feel like that is the point of art. Words and labels limit the expression of emotion in a way art is seldom limited. The artist creates something that, in some way, discusses feelings that cannot be spoken about. And through this art, the artist can express his or her feelings. And through this art, the observer of it has the opportunity to understand these unspoken ideas. And perhaps, an understanding can be found. There is a new outlook on life. The observer has a conflict resolved. And so does the artist.
I am part of an integrated arts program called STAC, Student Television Arts Company, and although we do not work with television, we are truly a young arts company. There are 30 teens from all grades, and we come together every day for two and a half hours of integrated arts.
One of the most important aspects of our artistic journeys is the understanding of myth and storytelling. Last year, we read A Short History of Myth, and spent time recognizing Paleolithic myth with the Hunter, and Neolithic myth with the Mother Goddess. This year, we went further with the topic, understanding our own holidays as extensions of older celebrations.
Recently, we had our own Rebirth festival. Fall is technically the season of death, but since we are on a school schedule, it feels more like a beginning than an end. We toasted to 'better fortunes'. As a community of artists, STAC 'sacrificed' pop-tarts to be 'reborn' (according to custom in religions across the world). And we wrote on a giant paper, thirty feet long and six feet wide what we don't like about ourselves, and what we will do to be better. One giant piece of art, with feelings, designs, leaves, paint, and all the feelings we can't find words for.
It helped us understand that we weren't the only ones feeling certain ways. It helped us put out what we were trying to work out for ourselves, our own conflicts and ideas about life. And most of all, we each pledged to do better.
A rebirth into the second quarter of our schoolyear.
That is why I would like to be an artist. We could have just had a party. We could have just pledged to be better people. But, we put ourselves out there and learned from other people's expression. I want to be an artist so that I can help other people understand themselves. And maybe, I'll understand myself.

Soppy ending. I think I've written it for at least two essays.


Also, War of the Worlds, 1953, is amazing.

what i have learned.

There is a blurry line between what I've learned in STAC, artistically, and what I've learned elsewhere. There are also the things I've learned in stac that don't directly connect with what we learned as a class, like meeting new people, and trying to teach if called on for help. My experience has been about Luke pushing me down the right rabbit hole. I don't have a problem with this; I feel that a lot of stac is about learning things yourself.

This year I've been against a major evil in my own life, which has come back to haunt me. This is the sameness monster, and it showed its face in august as I was preparing for school. It's why I changed my room around, and what I'm fighting now. And it's no one's fault but my own. And I should listen to Rilke. I am efficient, prepared, but that leaves me a lot of extra time that I'll need to fill. Luke said, "Why don't you just make a movie?", so I've resolved to teach myself animation after college portfolios are finished. It can't be that hard. I've learned everything I can without actually doing it. And by the end of the year, I'll have something.

I keep hearing shouts of "the trees were brown, but now they're every color", "I was blind, but now I see", and it's a beautiful thing to see people around me learn. That day of color helped me with color saturation the most, especially when I needed to figure out colors with AP art projects. And the movies we made were about movie-making, certainly, and group-work, but we got something amazing out of it: we felt together. We all had the same assignment, we worked in groups, and at the end, we laughed together. It was probably the most wonderful feeling of the quarter.

I've met so many new people, and that's something I needed to learn, especially for college. I've learned a lot about projections and attitudes, and about how to appear ways by projecting characteristics on other people.

I've learned pointalism, but not in stac. I'm trying to learn how to be okay with being looked up to for things. I have two younger siblings, but I've never had that seniority.

I don't know if I'll ever understand praise. I know it's goodwill, and an acknowledgement, and a social connector, but I'm still not okay. Part of it is that I'm pretty hard on myself. I hold myself to DaVinci and Kathe Kollwitz. And I've learned another thing. Make art for yourself, and not for people around you. Make your own decisions.

I am a senior, I am 17, and in many countries and times I would be married with a family. But the people in my class are still treated like children in many places, and it's not what happens in the real world. This year is a debriefing from school. Teachers aren't perfect, some people are mean, and aren't we old enough to make decisions without asking if it's okay?

I started stac when I was 15, and I hid behind Tommy and Glenn in the back of the room. There were some serious and terrible times in stac, and I didn't talk much. We went through personality problems, and we had to learn things that we should never have had to, like having to forgive as a group, and being in a group with someone you have no respect for. That won't happen this year. We have passion for what we do. This is a damn good group of artists.

the beast is awakened.

Luke asked us what we would do if we knew we would be good at it. Not hard for me, because I don't think about if I wasn't good at animation. Then we spoke about making sure that you take your time, and that you use all your gifts, and that you make sure you're happy in life.

I can do so many things.

"Why don't you just make movie." And why the hell not?

At that point, I just sat and stared. That point before you have the pain in your throat from trying to hold back tears. I can do that.

A one-minute animated film, by stac night. perfectly manageable.

Then, this giant green monster called college portfolio stomps around my head. Next week, though, I'll learn where I am with that. National Portfolio Day- real college people looking at work, and asking if you can have a bit more of this or that. It's not 'oh I'm not good enough'. It's 'I don't know what they want, and I don't want to lose because of something stupid'.

thief and the cobbler.

The Shadow, the Pusher from Kontroll, is the negative thing inside people that make them jump. It's also the train that kills you. No one sees it, it's always moving, it's always there. I truly believe this is what the Shadow is. I believe in Bulscu!

Rilke said that you cannot blame the world around you. Blame yourself. For YOU are not artist enough to see its beauty. So that's what I have to do. Be fearless. Be comfortable with being alone. Thanks, spiritual guide.

I've been working on a still-life containing a woman's torso, a dog skull, a nose, and a wooden toy train. I had had the idea to add clouds in the background. a few days ago I decided that while some of the clouds are clouds, another may have a wooden texture. Another may be rock. It made perfect sense. I was thinking about this before, and I was wondering what it means to consider that many options, options people would label folly.

#201

This is a celebration of a day. This is also post number 201.

I drew some nice, extremely realistic objects today, and I'm realizing that I have extremely separate 'cartoon' drawing and 'realistic' drawing. There are just so many options, and I need to get a basic structure. Start from the beginning, develop the stick figures, move on.

I'm figuring out college processes with my mom because I'm so lost.

I got to see my grandparents today. They're in their 80s, and my grandma is forgetful. It's not Alzheimer's, but it's still kinda sad. It's almost like being in the twilight zone. She'll repeat parts of conversation over and over. We still answer, for politeness, but it's still sad.

There was a character in my brother's show, "Street Scene", who I really like. He was a taxi driver, and a bully, but he also wanted what he couldn't have. And he knew why: because he was a taxi driver and a bully, and that's all he knows to be.

I like that 'knowing you can't have it because you know you're a bad person' idea for a character. Very Beauty and the Beast.

Everybody's got the right to be happy....

Been listening to Assassins today (Everybody's got the right). The musical covers the motives behind presidential assassinations, and it's just so interesting.

Tomorrow I continue working on the pointillist piece (now that I have a middle green thanks luke), and I'm hoping to present it to STAC.

After Romanticism, I was going to work on a Romantic art piece with Hansel and Gretel. What's more Romantic that putting them on a path in the woods with a lantern and scary trees visually blocking the path at every end? Hopefully quill and ink.

Thumbnail and other doodles. The thumbnail isn't the first, it's planned. Cept the fallen tree should be more scary. Hansel's dropping the shining stones... I don't even know if he does that. The path is on the side of a slope, up on their left and down on their right. The pic doesn't really show that.

"Pilfered Waistcoat". Girl getting clothes from the remains of Princes... from a lot earlier in the year. The prince-killing princess. On the right is a version from last summer.

tomorrow is Hobbit Day.

Still thinking about 'Surrealism, the point of connection between two different circles of reality.' And the middle of the realities don't touch, just the edges. I feel like that's important. This also changes the idea of 'what is surrealism'. It doesn't have to be anything other than different realities touching at the edge. I want to use this in art.

STORY TIME:

There once was a King who had a beautiful Queen. She was faithful and of noble birth. He loved her for years, but she became ill and the sickness ate her up until she died. The King mourned and left the castle, as was the fashion of the time, to search for a new queen.

The Queen he brought back was just as noble the first, and almost as beautiful. All the courtiers agreed that she was a fine catch for the King, and that now balance was restored to the throne. But the new Queen found life dull, and soon found love with a younger man. They stole away in the night, leaving a letter for the King.

The King mourned and left the castle, as was the fashion of the time, to search for a new queen.

The Queen he brought back was a fair and faithful girl from a poor town. All the courtiers agreed that she was a fine catch for the King, and that now balance was restored to the throne. Soon her belly began to grow, and one morning the King was told that his boy-child, his prince was born. But alas, the mother did not survive the birth.

The old King mourned and left the castle, as was the fashion of the time, to search for a new queen.

The Queen he brought back was from a far away kingdom, an aged duchess, who loved the King the second they met. All the courtiers agreed that she was a fine catch for the King, and that now balance was restored to the throne. She was not a pretty woman. She helped raise the Prince, and the alliance helped economic issues in the King's land. But as good fortune looked upon them, a hard fact came to the King. His Queen was seen in the kitchens over a cauldron, bewitching bad fortunes.

The law would not allow it. She was taken away, and the King refused to listen to the verdict. He mourned for his love, he mourned for the loves that came before. His heart broke clean in quarters, and he did not wake up one morning. So the Prince became King.

The King had a beautiful Queen. She was faithful and of noble birth.

pg. 150. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pip are out of the Shire.

Found this in my photobucket archives. Iron Giant. This is about the same part of the movie as the coffee scene. After he wags his finger he does this finger-circle thing on "you need a challenge". That move is so important. Animation.

listening to winnie the pooh songs. The original movie that the clip is from may be the cutest thing ever. I watched the Jungle Book again yesterday, and I think I realized why it's so amazing, story-wise. Mowgli rejects the Call the whole time, and Bagheera and Baloo have their own different quests. It's really amazing. Besides the animation- that's another god altogether. Connection between the movies? Winnie-the-Pooh and Kaa have the same voiceactor.

The City is a weird place. I never want to live there, but I love all the crazy people. There was this guy who looked like John Lennon + Waldo + 10moreinches of hair. I went in today to join a studio for figure drawing, which is essentially understanding how the body works by drawing/painting/art-ing the nude figure. I don't really have a problem with naked people, but a lot of people do. I wish people, especially teenage girls, could accept bodies more.

There are 2 mins, 5 mins, 20 minute pieces. Used marker, ebony pencil, crayon. 2 models.

There are more at this Photobucket Page.

I like being able to draw faces.

RED and VEST and a human St. George.

Listening to Peter Paul and Mary. Mary Travers died from Leukemia on Sept. 16th. I've been to their concerts every year, and in New York all the kids would bring her sunflowers before Puff the Magic Dragon. After a whole day of repeated music, I feel like crying and joining an anti-war march at the same time.

Tomorrow I'm going into the city to join an open-studio figure drawing session. I'm a little scared. I've gone to the city alone, and I've done figure drawing before, but some of these people will have had 20+ years of experience more than me.

I am not a poet. I think I've had to read too many bad poems in grade school. It's not something I read normally, and not something I particularly care to work on. Nothing against poets. It's just not for me.

This is based on the poem "Little Tear-Vase".

I've started reading a color-theory book that's above my head. I was trying to take notes with watercolor, but things didn't work out. I started doing more Klee-impersonations. Red and Vest ('Blue' was not an option. What if we were taught that this color was called Vest?). They are full 11 x 8in usually.

I also had the feeling of a painting. a Drawing. Art that you need to look at but cannot because of an emotion that is private. I started writing out my limitations, which make ideas flow better: Big Emotion, Colors, The whole thing should be made of simple shapes, simple colors.

I wanted this to be a knight. Knights kill dragons (St. George), and I thought about it, and what happens if there's a baby dragon? He'd really feel like crap. And the little dragon won't really know what's going on and start following him around. I'm trying to use color and simple shapes here. Tried spacial awareness. It's mostly about the feeling from the colors.