Karl Workshop

I liked being prepared. But the signatures I made were too big, so I cut them down (it's hard to sew through 3 pieces of watercolor paper, but near impossible to sew through 5 pieces). And I felt like the book was getting to be too thick, so I halved the amount of pages, and I'll make two books. One in the workshop, and one out of school.
     I get mixed responses from teachers- I should be totally prepared and working on my own stuff, or I should ask permission before starting. I'm not used to asking for permission, but I didn't think I needed it, anyway.
     I'm making a page for the blog with the steps for bookmaking.

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.

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".

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.

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.

economical clown.

I was in the front row for a lecture about the correct uses of credit for buying expensive things. And I started drawing with my V7 Pilot, the smoothest pen that ever came close to a felt-tip. Part of the clown came from a painting in the Art section of the Times, which had an ad for Tim Burton at the MoMA.

I like the single lines that make up the suit. I like the cheeks. I'm not too fond of the hands, because I had to figure them out on my own, but I like the hair. I don't know what this style is. It's was made with Burton in the back of my mind, but some Schiele line quality. Is this the 'talking about art' part?

   Magazine making. I feel better that I have work to do. We should argue more.

I kept going and got this.

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.

magazine-making.

Cathryn workshop today. I don't think I've ever felt so unprepared for a meeting. Or, contrarywise, she was incredibly prepared. Making a magazine is going to be a lot of work, and I really hope we make it. We better make it.


We tossed around more magazine names. Skip, and then, Jump. I went with jump for designs, since 'J's are better than 'S's, when making a design. I don't know if that's a rule, but it works for me, personally.
'Jump', 'Hop' (bunny gag than real consideration), and 'Skip'.
What else? I like the 'one big word with an explanatory tagline' thing.

palate knife

it's late. im over yesterday. not totally, but enough. i just dont like working hard for things when other people dont. not much drawing.

finished the workshop painting. i really like how it came out. i fully plan to use the texture-painting in the future- it's simple to do and it looks interesting. my painting came out as it was designed. if anything, the painting didn't have the same quality of shape/line that the drawing/color test had. But that's okay, cuz i got to learn how to paint with a palate knife.

pics from cathryn:

whole thing

the shoulder/collar area

the face area

SHADES of BLACK. like my soul lols.

workshop with Cathryn: today i learned that i really reallllly need to stop and stand back for a second. this also comes from the specific vs. general. Specific is when you have to paint a part a specific way. the general, when you stand back and see the affect and the shapes and the colors. it's a very good thing to balance.

while writing my paper i came upon more than one problem with general and specific. In history, i usually do not attempt to distinguish between the two, except for the 'Major Themes' that each kids gets pounded into their brain. Like the 'containment of communism' theme of Cold War. But I cannot, for ex, tell you that the Tet Offensive was less or more important than the fact that women in WWII would draw lines on their legs to represent stockings.

on painting: i loved the video yesterday by Margaret? just the method of painting is so decisive- one layer after another after another. if something doesnt feel right, it doesnt feel right. just do another one. or flip it over and consider it that way.

circles in the shades of black: one of the visual themes of the PANdemic mural is that eventually all color lines transition into black tiles, which are filled with squares of 'shades of black'. It seemed too much, too much of the same. There's no transition. So I added a circle right in the middle of the page and added the dark tiles around it. I think it really lets the tile, and hopefully the mural, breathe.

invisible castle's hostile takeover

i saw star trek again, as celebration for the end of ap biology. there were 4 groups in the theater, about 10 people. i took notes. most of them were along the lines of 'i didnt think things could go boom in space.' and other comments on impossibilities, like firing photon torpedoes when the shield is up. i didn't know that was possible. i also got to draw some of the shots- some of the large spaceship shots were amazing in terms of shapes and colors.

workshop: i feel like cathryn and i are on different pages, but both see the same general picture. learned a very valuable technique- dry brush painting. it really brings out texture and is really nice for blending. i also like working at the larger size. at least 2' x 2'.

i've had a few ideas for the art show. i feel like any ideas i have now require more time, and that rushing them through development would be bad. a few thumbnails for the Invisible Castle idea:

top left down, top right down: invisible castle. invisible castle, under attack. invisible castle, conquered (normandy's flag). invisible castle falls to ruin. invisible castle, rediscovered (archaeologist).

i think i like the second one best, the normandy takeover. but this is a concept thats conceivable. it's also an excuse to learn basic landscape techniques. but it's not a good idea to learn that much in such a short amount of time.

painting, being sorta messy, and planting

cathryn's workshop! more later, and explanation first:

i'm partially person. my handwriting isn't neat, my clothes aren't quite folded in their drawers, my books are in their own piles on the floor. painting works well for me because i can nudge it in the right direction to make a painting and i can get messy.

painting in general is an action of mess- i don't really know what's going to happen when i put a brush on the paper/or/canvas. sometimes something coherent comes out and looks decent. sometimes painting results in a fruitless mess, but that's okay, too.

in the workshop today i made such a mess. but i definately learned a lot about palate brushes, and i have an outline and underlining texture for my painting. its a good design, too, i think. the coloring was interesting, and i got to use negative space (!) to connect the face with the background better. <3>

this summer's garden is turning into a medicinal/culinary herb garden. with the tomatoes and radishes on the side. i even found chocolate mint at Hicks last weekend, and that should be interesting in tea. That, and peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, chamomile, anise, parsley, sweet basil, chives. so far. the chives and lemon balm grew back from last year. the lavender and rosemary did not.

story vs. game:

the protagonist of a story is a character, a separate entity. the protagonist of a game is a person. people learn from example from stories, and learn from experience in games.

arts

the workshop face design (sorta a yucky hairstyle. <3>

metropolis post-it (drawn after the movie in a resturant):

princess and the frog

PRINCESS AND THE FROG CLIPS.

this is a movie i would wait outside a theater in the rain for. lasseter seems just a little overwhelmed... at least, he looks like he has another appointment. whatever. it looks great. i must see it more than once.

the Cathryn painting workshop. this should be an interesting workshop. hope to learn a lot, yada yada yada. . . i want to experiment more with acrylics in general. perhaps that's next year's thing. or this summer's project. this year i learned watercolor, and ive worked with acrylic and charcoal extensively for the first time. and ink, although that's still on the 'to Learn' list. I realized today how much i don't like prints, and that prints especially don't work for textured drawings. You get the feel of the art, but it isn't the same.

i've been reading the Imagineering Way, a little book about developing ideas with a group, making ideas a reality, the nature of ideas, and opening yourself to all possiblilties. i looked for quotes (ive highlighted most of the book) but none of them really work in this context, without their story. and some of them are just like: There's nothing you can screw up that can't be fixed. well, if people in stac followed that, they would make decisions more, wouldn't they?

not tomorrow till i say it is

finished batman beyond: return of the joker. once regular and once with commentary. actually went frame-by-frame in a few places, just to understand 'punch' and 'kick' and extremely fast facial expression changes. i liked the Mr. Freeze batman movie better. Freeze is so much of a better character than the batman beyond batman.

the nick workshop. i got to organize things, hopefully the email was sent out with what everyone was doing when. i feel ready for this. i just need an old man.

too late to start up the scanner.

i can hear the rain through the roof of the house

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsx0uF80n8U

the world is a great, great place. anyways this was done by Craig McCracken, who also was the idea-head of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Dexter's Lab. He went to CalArts. I've been trying to do my research, and im trying to get a set of questions for the people there. i still need to find out when im going over break, and try to film SOuL CANDY before that. after that i have editing to do (i would like to find some downloadable version of PC final cut so that i can edit at home) and ill have to get together with mike about some sorta scoring for the film. i think i can do some of that myself, though, and ask him about things. he's going to be busy with other things. i'll only have to learn music theory and how to score movies ^_^.

overall, a productive if not painful day.

learning from experiences

listening to: Holst's the Planets, Jupiter. it was stuck in my head afterschool.

today was exhausting mentally. 7.30-8.15, essays on evolution, then- salsa dancing, WWI, Beowulf epic music, power struggle themes in english, turning swirlies into shapes into a theme in art, and trying to understand what art i need to work on after yevgenia, and how i'm going to take what she says and use it in such a way that i can learn from it.

i have to work on background, putting characters into scenes. a lot of that is spacial awareness, and mapping out where the character is before things go on paper. there is also the use of color and design of the illustration or picture by tone. identification at least somewhat complete. now, i have to figure how to start and learn about this.

my mom's trying to figure out a visit to CalArts during break. i would have to set up for a tour and to meet with the people there. ive been getting a little better at those things- calling for pizza, speaking up to order food. its easy to hide behind people when there are three siblings around.

i need to decide how the music for my nick film SOuL CANDY is going to work. i don't have any experience with music-writing, so i'll have to listen to the soundtracks i have. i have an idea of the style. http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/corteo/show/video-music.aspx. excerpts from this show are much more serious than my film requires, but the style of it is amazing. I saw the Corteo show summer 2006, and it completely changed 'circus'. these people don't have elephants or glitter. they are clowns, people with a story to entertain, sad or happy. they have wires to fly and ladders to balance and poles to walk. it just made Ringling bros look so stupidly americanized.

no drawings here on account of the work load of the week. catching up and studying and writing worksheets. not fun.

by 'today' i mean 'friday'. days should be broken up by sleep, not by As and Ps.

the nick workshop was mildly uneventful. im glad he's back, but i need to be where i was when he left. i need to know my film backwards and forwards, revise the script if it needs it. it probably will need revision. two films at once is a little overwhelming, but ill get past that.

ok, so 4 events happened afterschool.

i passed the first party i didnt belong at.

i saw Milk

i passed the second party i didnt belong at.

and i passed the third party i didnt belong at.

the first party had a few friends in it, but people who were enemies of some of my other friends. they were going one way and i was going another. i said hi, and denied their invitation. but i was invited somewhere, even if it could have caused social tension.

i saw Milk with the other friends. i felt like i should have known a lot of the history of that movie. I should watch it again now that i have the history, to get a fuller inpact. i loved being able to see the little directions in the movie- how one character would follow the other out of the shot, the use of mirror-shots in general were amazing.

i was walking home from walking a friend home, and i passed a party that was finishing. it seemed to be a harmless, rowdy preteen party. but people were shouting on a suburban street at past 11, and getting up on bikes to go home in the cold. it was a little scary. preteens shouldnt be out at all hours, even for a party. party here = 10+ people.

the street i live on has four families with teens living on it. my neighbors are the partying type, and there were girls sitting on the porch talking about other people. and boy did i want to be a part of them. not the clothes, but just to join in a conversation. to listen and observe them speak. but i kept my head forward and crossed to my house. i dug out my keys and kept my head down. it sometimes worries me that my mom doesn't call.

theres this interesting thing about walking past an orange streetlamp. first, things just get bright and you realize you're walking through the shadows of the trees in front of you. then your shadow appears beside you, quickly migrates to the front, and gets longer oh so slowly until i disappears into the sidewalk. then its dark. then you see the upcoming light again.

misty day

yay for continuing the yevgenia workshop! we really needed the extra time to figure out illustrating. im not quite sure what she means when she asks if i can use the style that is my own, rather than cartoon. i guess i have a very wide definition of 'cartoon'. i originally wanted to illustrate the story like scenes in a stained-glass window, but i'll have to add the integrity of my usual style. back to character/costume design.

got to work on some shading with watercolors. the contrast between the dark and the warm colors. and i needed practice drawing caps. also a failed Neil Patrick Harris attempt. ooh i forgot to color his ear... and eyes and brows and hair oops.