Saturday, September 25, 2010

Time is Flying

So! It's been a crazy week. Time has been FLYING.
On monday was english. Easy peasy. Then 3D. We had to turn our plasticine sculptures into wire sculptures. HARDEST THING EVER. We again only had 2 hours. I took a picture, but I forgot to upload it >_< It didn't look that great anyway, you're not missing much.
After that was drawing, my favorite class. We talked about gestures. She wants us to put a lot of energy into areas of weight and force. It's hard to explain what she talked about, but I tried it, and I didn't like my results. Me and conte are still at battle, and I'm not used to doing full page gestures. My gestures are little. It's a lot harder to get anatomy down on a full peice of paper, not sure why.


After that we did our critique of our blind contours. Most of them were terrible, a lot of students spent maybe 5 minutes on them before class. I put in a good effort for mine, but she gave us all the chance to redo ours, so I decided to do it anyway, since she mentioned mine was too small.
Then we did the class assignment, which was more outline drawing. It's due next time, but I already finished in class. She stressed the importance of line weight, meaning if the line is the outline of say hair or clothing it should be a lot softer than the line for the easel or the heater.
Then it was time for extra! We had a young male model. His poses were good, but he moved a lot. I tried to do more of what she instructed us to do.

It still frustrated me, so I moved to pencil
I've been thinking a lot about the way I draw. I really need to wow the portfolio reviewers, with something original and different. I dunno, I just want to be more creative than just drawing the figure. So I've been messing around a bit.


Of course, old habits die hard.


Tuesday we had imaging systems. Spent the whole class doing the isometric drawing. I should probably color the rest of the label, but I'm not sure how I want it to look
Tuesday I did not go to extra life...I went to yoga! It was fantastic, and some of my friends also happen to be in the class! It felt good to do something that helped me clear my head :)

On wednesday we had color theory. The assignment was this: we got into groups of 5 or 6 and were given a color painting in black and white. It was our job to repaint it in color together. To do this we split the painting up into piece and were each assigned a grided portion of the painting, and we all used the same color tones to do it. Our group had a really cool painting, some sort of castle on a giant rock in the sky, I forgot who/what is was. We spent a lot of time mixing the paint, and had to super quickly paint it all in the last half hour of class, but it looked pretty darn good!
I went to extra again on wednesday. I finally started to get along with conte pencils I think





I liked the model quite a bit.
On thursday I did not have class, but I spent most of the day doing 2D Design homework and trying to get shit all figured out. I also went to a Zumba class, which is like a latin cardio dance fitness class. I broke quite a sweat! It was a good workout.
Then I went to extra yet again :) I love all this life drawing.
The model was cool, and by the second half there were only 4 of us left. She was super tired, but chill. It was so odd to interact with a model so much, usually they hardly say a word.



In this one I tried to mess with perspective. There are a bunch of examples in the hallway outside the drawing room, so I thought I'd try it. I think it came out ok, except for the hands, which are all fucked up.


Thats my favorite of the week ^.^ The lines around her head were an afterthought, but I think they add a lot

On friday I went to 2D Design, a little late since I had a doctors appointment, which was a 30 minute wait for maybe 3 minutes of face time with the doctor. So silly. I forgot to do pictures of my final composition, I was handing it in just as she was walking out the door. Gouache is tricky in such a small scale, when I'm trying to be so precise! But I had a lot of people tell me mine looked good, and that I had really good thumbnails. All those years of doodling weren't for nothing :)

After class on friday, me, Christian, Tahini, and Mike went to McDonalds for dinner, then headed down to Toronto. We walked all the way up and down Queen Street, then met up with Mike's old friends from Max The Mutt. It's some animation school in Toronto which I've never ever heard of. But Mike is fairly skilled from his 2 years there, and one of his friends actually interned with Pixar, whom I met. We all went to a pub, first pub experience ever! I was so disappointed I didn't have any cash (my bank here is RETARDED. If I try to cash a check I have to wait 5 business days for it to clear...wtf?) because they didn't card a single person. Totally could have gotten a beer if I wanted one :P But Mike's friends were HILARIOUS. So many nationalities at one table! I sat with Tahini (Indian), Erik (Greek....also sings constantly. who needs a stereo when you have him?), Andres (Columbian. Super talented guy I mentioned earlier), Alejandro (Mexican, and um, super attractive ;) ), and Christian (Asian). And me, who is American. Those guys were a ton of fun, I definitely want to hang out with them more. After a bit we parted ways and headed back home.
This weekend there are a few things I need to get done. I'm redoing that portrait, I have to do some hand sketches for drawing class, work on my presentation for Color Theory and yep, thats about it. It's so weird to have such little work to do!

Anyway, Canada really suits me I think. Life told me to come here and I'm glad I listened.

Sunday, September 19, 2010


Last thursday I went to extra life yet again. I was having a really bad day, on account of the fact that I had gotten nothing done, and I also didn't get the job. I didn't like the model much, or maybe it was just me, but I just wasn't doing it. These are the few things that turned out decent...I also left early.



Yea, nothing too special. Maybe this next will be better.

So last wednesday I had color theory again. I didn't get much in class, but I completed the first part of the assignment this morning. We were to take our 6x6 motif and repaint it in a greyscale. It took me 4 hours T.T Besides some warped shapes (I have a really unsteady painting hand) I think it came out pretty good, eh?


I also did my drawing homework today. Well, I actually did it awhile ago, but I decided to redo it today, because it was pretty obvious I cheated. The assignment was to spend 1 hour doing a self portrait blind contour. My first attempt I gave up quickly, because I knew it was too small.
The second time I went way too fast. It took me about 5 minutes to do whats below, which is the majority of the work.
The third time I finally spent a good 35-40 minutes (close enough) working on it, and it turned out alright, but I ended up peeking a lot, and I feel like you can tell. Still, I actually kind of like it as a general drawing though.
Finally, I went back over an attempt I had given up on earlier, and completed the whole thing in about a total of 45 minutes. So yea.
Our other assignment for drawing was to trace a picture of a skeleton and shade it with the light coming from the right...I don't know why?

On friday I had 2d design. Still the most fun class, because its just so laid back, mostly because of the teacher. I took pictures, but forgot to upload them. We're just working with black gouache and doing lines, shapes, textures, and then we have to make a 4 piece abstract composition. It's due by the end of next class, so there are sure to be more pictures.
Friday night I went to a nearby pub with some friends from class. We ate and chatted and it was nice. After that I came back to res and hung out with some other friends. We drank a little, talked a little, and played some video games. Somehow, people kept coming over, and it became a party. My two guy friends, well one of them mostly, is very popular with the ladies, and when there are girls, more guys will show up. And when there are college kids on a weekend, there is booze, and thus a party is born. I bowed out early, 2 am (hardly) because, well, I got tired!
On saturday I was going to do some work, but my friend Tahini invited me to go out for lunch. We went to burger king and I had poutine for the first time ever. It was yummy, but sooo fattening and disgusting. Definitely never eating that again, haha. Especially not from burger king. After that we went to the mall with Chris and Bryce, where they did some shopping for stuff. Then we came back to res and had our movie night after playing some pictionary and charades (we watched zombieland) and then we sat around reading comics and listening to some awesome indie music and eating nachos. Yea, I love being in art school.
Anyhow, today I mostly just slaved away at homework, then I actually cooked! (pasta, grilled peppers, and olive oil. Oooooh yea iron chef here I come) And now I'm doing this. Tomorrow is my long day. Boo.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Went the extra life again last night. The model was super fantastic yet again, she had cool dyed hair and a very pretty face. Unfortunately I barely got to see it, since I was on the side. Anyway, we did a lot of 30s, 1 and 2 minutes, and a few 5s and one 10 at the end. Here's some of the highlights.
At first I didn't like these, but then I noticed the progression on the paper of the movement. The model obviously thought about all her poses before taking them, because she would simply glide into the next one in one fluid movement. Very nice.




It's so nice to have a model that really puts a lot of thought into each pose, and a lot of movement as well. It turns out some really interesting and dynamic drawings. I think this is the most dynamic stuff I've ever done!

One of my favorites of the night. Even the guy next to me, who attended two years of animation school said he liked it ^.^





The final pose almost always goes well :) I always push myself to stay til the end.



In other news....I applied in interviewed for a job with the student union today. Well, I applied yesterday and got the call 2 hours later.
It went well I think. The interview was short. It's for a position as a promotions coordinator at the satellite campus down the street. It's the trade school center, so they want to get the students there more involved. There's only one thing that didn't go so well. They asked what kinds of events I might plan for the campus, and I couldn't really think of anything good. They kept trying to help me. The executive VP asked me if I could draw anything from my CIT experience. I was thinking "dude, I planned activities for 7-12 year old girls, not 18-25 year old guys!!" Of course, as soon as I walked away, I remembered how I wanted to plan a game of zombies vs humans....that would have been the perfect answer!!! Grrr, why didn't I think of it sooner?? There were probably over 3 dozen applicants, and I probably just lost the position because of that. Gah. It sucks too, because there aren't really any job opportunities left on campus, the only place I can work due to my international status, so this could leave me jobless, and penniless, for the next semester. :/ boo. The job sounded like a lot of fun too.
It was odd though. The guy before me had like a suit and tie, and the girl after me was in sweatpants and flip flops...At first I was all "wow I'm so underdressed" and then I thought "wow at least I'm not wearing sweatpants and flipflops." Gah...I only applied yesterday but I really want this job. :(