What have I been up to

I didn't do a lot of art over the summer.
I did a lot of talking to people, and I started making sure that my body was okay from the sorry state I was in during the school year.

I started a job as a Tour Guide on my campus, which was wonderful and fun and nervewracking and awesome.
I got to be a homework mentor for my school's precollege program, which means helping and hanging out with 15-17-year-old comic book geeks. That worked out pretty nicely.
And lastly, in the week before school I was part of Orientation again.
And I started feeling like.... maybe I'm just not that good at doing art. I mean. I'm okay.
And classes started and now I feel like.... this is what I'm doing and I can do this forever.

I cooked. I prepared food and ate healthy and started doing beginner work-outs and walking miles. I feel great.

So as a last note on the summer, I got much better at talking to people, I gained a little more independence, I dyed my hair bright pink. I came into school knowing a lot of people and mentally prepared for the year.

I'll add drawings when I can scan them.

Aquarium Visit #1

Watercolor fish sketches in an aquarium. It sounds like a good idea. Until you figure out that the halls are dimly lit so that the children can scream "I SEE NEMO!" because they have a better chance of seeing fish with the tank being lit.

So when all the colors look like they're mud, I was working with basically no light.

Fish and some abstract... underwater.... coral? rock? background?

   

plants!

They grow up so fast! morning glories in my window, with some dying cilantro.

Summer ^_^

art history, and a story of internships

Today I've applied to my 6th internship (it turned out that I'd applied to the same one twice). I've gotten amazingly better at writing cover letters I've also contacted a couple (but not enough) places on campus about summer jobs.

Halfway through April, and I'm still at a no-go for summer.

But my backup plan, my last-resort plan, is still to work on my own art all summer and build up a portfolio. But it's a last plan. A nothing-else-goes-through plan.

Besides this, I need to finish my 3 animation pieces. Each is 30 seconds.

But I'm almost done with my art history essay, and it's not due till Thursday. So. There's some hope?

Beethoven's 7th, mvmt 2, Allegretto

As I listen to more classical music- mostly from the Beethoven symphony compilation on my ipod- I would love to play bassoon again, just for the sound. Just enough so that I can play bassoon with a recording of the symphonies and play along and become even closer to music- just like singing along with an other song.

Right now, this is one of my favorites, Beethoven's 7th Symphony, 2nd Mvmt, the Allegretto.

But my art! Last semester feels like years ago as the weather brightens. I have a strip of sunlight coming through the window and warming my face every morning, begging me to get out of bed.

Last weekend was I-CON, which just was a mess of transportation, but I got to meet the nicest people and didn't spend nearly as much as I thought I would. And I survived without a jacket, too.

I have 1 month left of school. In that time, I have main projects to animate, I have 3 papers to write (one due each week starting next, and I've barely started them), and I have finals in the same classes.

Then, summer.

backtoschoolbacktoschool

As the summer comes to an end, an end for the college-bound, I am so glad to get out of this place. I've done my own laundry, other laundry, and a ton of cooking all summer. I still have all my towels, bedsheets, and winter clothes packed. Most of my clothes will be able to fit in a luggage. I have a few bins.

So now all I have to do is finish cleaning out my room, fanticize about grocery shopping and write my initials in the books I'll bring. (There's a lot more work than that but I'm not worried.)

I'll miss being in constant contact with old friends. From school, I became more conscious about my appearance as I met more people and had to make new acquaintances. I became a lot lazier about that as I was home.

So I guess after being so anxious about not doing anything, not doing anything didn't kill me. It's not happening next year.

Fashion. I don't know.

I've been looking up fashion. I'm not... the internet educates. I want to learn where no one can judge me. Isn't that pathetic? That we become creepers on online magazines and blogs, where everyone can read everyone else's opinion? Just to find out what our own opinion? But after everything, fashion is opinion. There are high-ups, who sell t-shirts for $200. I don't research them. I want to know, as a plus-sized young woman, what I can do to just look a little nicer. I'm just trying to explain this to myself. Because I'm still trying to understand plus-size fashion.

I'm trying to understand if it's about complementing and adding to a body or about hiding what you don't want people to see and excentuating the nice bits. It's probably both of them. And it's confidence.

I don't think, at the Macy's level, fashion is specifically about personal expression. There is one plus size section for anyone from 15 to 80, and more often than not, I feel like I'm sorting through clothes to find a blouse that doesn't look like a midlife woman giving up.

Would I feel more confident if I wore clothes that fit well, complimented and excentuated my body? Yes. Could that be as simple as wearing lucky socks? Maybe. It just sounds like there are ever-changing rules in this game of first-impression changing.

Daily Practice discoveries

I'm up to daily self-portrait 85 or so, and I haven't been posting them because I've been home all summer without a scanner. But I wanted to take some pictures and post some of the drawings that are in a style I'm beginning to see more of. It's made of straight lines and curves, and is very very geometric. I want to see how they translate into more three-dimentional drawings, but I like them so far.
#41 Lizy-Doll, #55 Bthing Suit Try-On, #77 Geometry trying to be more interesting, #79 Sitting on my hands, #80 Happy July 4th! (fireworks are scary)

Emotionally, most of these faces are hiding for one reason or another.


 

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.

mroe summer

Still more summer. But I'm gladly busy with my quaint (at the worst, pathetic) goals. Like watering my garden in the morning, and I'm still trying to make the best pancakes ever. So far, they involve cornmeal.

And I guess that's what I look forward to: food. Not fast food, not out to dinner, I want to make it. It's a fantasy of failure and having to try again. It's an occupation of time. I want to find some creative way to mix flour, butter, sugar, and milk. It's precious.

I painted half the livingroom, rearranged the furniture, and packed a full garbage bag full of stuff from a sideways bookshelf.

I'm still doing my self-portraits. I don't know when they'll ever be online, but they will. I should probably put an adult-content warning. Nothing explicit, but as a project inherently about body-image, and clothes are unnecessary.

Keeping Busy.

It's been weeks, and everything is still a mess, except, for some reason, my head. One month till my birthday, another and I'm at school. I'm keeping busy:

Gardening. I borrowed a rototiller and cleaned up a plot in the backyard. It's midway through June, but mom already bought the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. I even consulted my books (what's the point of having them if you don't read them?) to get the spacing and planting right. I love the work. I hope that some day I'll grow my own vegetables.

Painting. I have the paint, I haven't painted my room yet.

Cooking. I'm trying to make the core recipes for next year, make sure I can make real healthy food in a short amount of time with a few ingredients- how much can I do with flour, eggs, butter, sugar? Would it be cheaper to bake my own bread?

Asking Questions. I want to know how businesses and politics work. I love learning about it. What laws govern businesses and religion and politicians and real estate and how they are interpretted. I've become increasingly interested in corruption and I want to be able to understand the economy better than an art student stereotype. I want to have intelligent conversations with people. I'm also preparing myself for the upcoming presidential election.

So, tomorrow, I'll wake up early and make french toast ravioli.
http://www.newlyweds-blog.com/2010/09/23/stuffed-french-toast/.
I probably don't have ricotta, but I'm thinking of putting something else in there, like eggs or PANCAKE BATTER. Pancake in french toast. THIS is what summer is about.

A little catch-up

STACnight. Congrats to the kids who put on an amazing preformance. I heard a lot of "I wish I could have done that" from my fellow alum, and overall, it proved to the parents and the visitors what a compassionate group of kids can do.
It was one of the best, if not the best, STACnight I've been to. It's also my fifth.

At the show, I was asked "are you happy at Pratt". I'm not happy at home. I'm happy when I'm busy. I don't miss the smokers and hipsters and film majors (sometimes all at the same time), but I miss the work.
I'm up to... I think today is #55 of my self-portraits. I don't think I've really seen improvement, but I know that I have to do it every day. I finished a small first sketchbook and started on a new one, which I dislike because felt-tipped pens seep through. I don't think anyone else actually cares about that.
The self-portraits give me 10 minutes a day to think about forming a positive and healthy relationship with my body. To believe, when I am alone, that I am beautiful, or quirky, or interesting, or that I just have big eyes. But I rarely feel ugly. I get down if a pair of jeans doesn't fit the way I'd like it to, but I have a lot of jeans, and I have time.
I have time. I don't know what to do with it. But I have it.
If that was the description of an object, I would throw it out.

I keep going back and forth on my personal religious beliefs. It is very hard to develop a religious opinion without the help of media, ministers, and parents. I don't like religious politics. I like moral lessons through ancient example. I like looking past and understanding context of texts. I hate when religion and politics cross in America.

#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.

A Deep Breath and a Cup of Tea

Summer, and I always feel like I'm going to do something great and then something blocks the way. okay. I'm not that sick. I just feel lousy. A snot-nosed kid. Doesn't that make me an artist? Being scared by dreams, worrying over nothing, flying from one obsession to another? Does that even matter?

I was recently asked how well I know FinalCut. Is there a way to respond to that? I don't know how to measure how well I know a program, except with a quantity of time/experience and a example of quality. I wish I'd learned by a universal guide.

I've been playing Advanced Wars, Days of Ruin on DS. It's become a personal obsession that reminds me of how much I loved Fire Emblem until all my characters died.

When I was cleaning out my desk, I found a ton of drawings that reminded me of how raw my artwork was in high school. Raw, but so interesting. If I ever get my computer back together, if I ever get a desk to put it on, I'll scan those in. They'll be reprints, but they're still interesting. And I found a poem, too.

So after about 9 months of intensive training, what do we do now?

I don't know. I'm going to finish my tea.

some arts

it's about time I got some art up here. These are still lifes with flowers and patterns, based on Matisse. Nice-quality watercolor set, but the purples were difficult. The top one is better, but the idea behind the second is more interesting- a silhouetted bouquet against the sunlight outside.

summer plans

It's been forever, and I don't know if I've done anything spectacular. I've learned InDesign and Illustrator. I've attempted crosswords.

I've worried about my summer. I don't have a plan. I've sent out applications to 8 possible internship opportunities in New York. I don't want to volunteer when I could get credit or a stipend or even some money. I'm not even asking much. The growing nothingness of summer is so much more scary than any assignment I get.

fin

LIZY is surfing on a picnic table, through the flooded mud marsh that once was Herricks High School field.


LIZY is getting water and milk for herself and ZACH.


LIZY and ZACH talk about something, and LIZY ends up spilling water exactly in ZACH's lap.


LIZY runs to get paper towels. ZACH runs upstairs to change. LIZY fights back stupid tears that she fucked up again. ZACH comes back down. LIZY runs into the back room after cleaning up the mess and tries to hide in a pillow.


The pillow smells like vanilla oil and soft things, and LIZY watches Law and Order to stop thinking about all the events she was never careful about. By the time ZACH comes in, LIZY has settled down. ZACH offers himself for a hug, LIZY tries to hide in his armpit.


LIZY
"Sorry for blowing up like this."
ZACH
"It was only a glass of water, Hun."
LIZY
"But it was, like, the breaking point of everything. Sorry for falling apart like this."
ZACH
"Hun, stop apologizing, it's okay."
LIZY
"Sorry. Oh. Nevermind."
ZACH
"Now, help me with the pots?"


LIZY gets off the couch and starts putting the pots and dishes in the dishwasher.

It has been forever, and I've been spending most of the summer complaining about how there's nothing to do. I try to keep myself busy, and I've played videogames and watched tv and worried a lot.


So I drew this with crayons and a (very) old sketchbook that was (literally) laying around my room (which is not yet clean).


It started as 'tired', moved into 'black eye', and ended in 'superhero'.

I haven't been here for a while, mainly because I found facebook, and I'm busy fretting about not doing anything.

But, I'm a bit worried for college. It's uncertain, and that makes me nervous. Today, I cooked potatoes, baked brownies, drove, went on an exercise bike, and tied yarn around clothes hangers. I'm still nervous, so I've started marking my brush collection with nail-polish. If this is not enough, I'll continue making a new sketchbook, or I'll paint, or I'll continue weaving a friendship bracelet.

All I can do to keep me from pulling my hair out. Hand-repetition calms me. I wish I could make a job out of that.