Sunday, November 28, 2010

Sketchbook Dump

So above are recent paintings from color theory class....it's super hard to finish a full painting in less than 3 hours, and she gives me such a headache every time she walks by. I dunno, I rather liked my drapery study but it's "not finished" according to her. Oh well, turning it in as it is anyway, because when I feel finished with a painting, it means I'm finished. The full still life was just a disaster...
Then there was imaging systems, where we had to do a still life, first as a line drawing, then with values. I liked mine pretty alright.
In life drawing we've been doing longer poses. I turned in my only decent ones for marks, so I can't show them at the moment. This is the only drawing I have from the past two weeks of extra life that I actually kind of like...ever since NPD I have been in a slump. I just don't know what to do....I also haven't been going as much, because of NaNoWriMo. Which I just finished. Hooray!
I have decided that the novel I wrote this year is pretty awful, but it sets up for a really good story, which I think I am going to write next year. So it was a learning process I suppose.
Anyway, for your enjoyment, here are some sketchbook pages from the past few weeks I have liked. I managed to go about 40 pages in one week, so hopefully I will be able to send two sketchbooks in by the deadline.





































































As for the rest of my life....

-I am driving home for Christmas break with my mom, who is flying out to come back with me. I actually am kind of looking forward to this, for several reasons. First it is a good excuse to go out to dinner on the road. And considering my whole two different meals that I know how to cook I am really ready for some variety. It is also good because it means I will have a car to go to work for during the break, and I can also take a little more time with my portfolio because I don't have to worry about taking it on a plane. Yay! Also I get to spend some quality time with my mom, which is cool too.
-Unfortunately I will not be able to get back to work until after Christmas due to such a hectic schedule, especially because I am driving out there and I have family coming from out of town...so now I have to make that phone call and I have the irrational fear that they are going to hate me or fire me or something....Gaaah I hate thiiiis.
-This week has been incredibly dramatic, I think everyone is kind of reaching a breaking point. It's really irritating. My parents are playing tug and war with me, my boyfriend is being a drama queen about EVERYTHING, and on top of that I went to a party friday night that was mostly one of those "lets just get drunk and tell everyone how we really feel about them" kind of things. I kind of sat around being the referee until about 20 slutty girls showed up and everyone I knew high-tailed it out of there, because no one knew who they were (seriously...where did they come from??) Anyway...the week has taken a lot out of me because I have had to mediate and participate in all these different fights between people. Ugh.
-On the bright side we got to tinfoil everything in one of my classmates room while he was away in Chicago for Thanksgiving. I can't wait to hear about his reaction.
-Oh yea...I totally missed Thanksgiving. It was super depressing until my neighbors invited me over for a steak dinner and wrote me (half of) a thanksgiving poem. I put it on my fridge.
-Nanowrimo! I spent 6 hours in a coffee shop yesterday pushing to 5,000 more words with one of my new friends and a friend of hers. It was a good time. Bonus: delicious waffles.

Anyways, that has been life of late. It's getting a bit crazy, and we are starting on all of our final projects so the pressure is on.

Friday, November 19, 2010

A lots has happened this week...

Here are some nicer pictures of the final finished product of my head, in a nice pretty format.
WHOA. TOTAL DE JA VU.
Anyways. I think I'll be including that in my Calarts portfolio, it came out rather nicely.

Also, I decided to redo Queen of Awesome Page 1 in a hard copy format, and I like it a lot more with the copic markers. I also redesigned the page, added a panel, redid some poses and writing.
I am much more excited to do the next page.
I also finished my sketchbook. Upon the advice I received at NPD last week (more about that later) I am deciding to include another one, which I will have to race to finish, but hopefully it will show a little bit more crazy, expressive stuff. I started doing that a bit in the end of my old one.
I also did some animal sketches, because I know they like those.

I crumpled up each page several times, each time adding a new color to the tops of the wrinkles. Then I flattened it out and found an interesting image. I guess I was in a caricature mood, because that's all I could seem to see


I also did some work where I closed my eyes and moved my pencil along to a song. I went back and colored it a bit. The following are "Hard to Concentrate" and also "Don't Forget Me" both by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
They took a lot longer than you think. I spent maybe 1-2 hours on the 2nd.
And also, here is my finished fall emblem project for 2d design. It's not perfect, I messed up a few values, and you can't fix gouache once you put it on the illustration board :( I didn't really mean to do pink, I was thinking red, but it came out very, very pink instead. Oh well. October is Breast Cancer month. That works with it, right?

I didn't really do any figure drawings I liked this week, besides some gestures in class that I need to turn in next week. Next week I will get some more done, but I think I like what I have in my portfolio right now, for the most part. I am going to go back and cut some out and compose them on colored paper to brighten up the portfolio a bit.
So last weekend, highlights were:
-Christians Birthday party in his condo in Mississauga. All his friends came up for it, and I got drunker than a hillbilly. Whoops. I guess that is what happens when you don't drink for over a month. Anyways, that was bad because my ride left randomly in the middle of the night while I was asleep. Thanks.
-National Portfolio Day! Ok so, interesting experience. Last year I went right after homecoming, and this year I was in very much the same state as I was before. Hardly any sleep, feeling very sick. I got sick several times on the way there. It made me feel very trashy. Anyway, we went with Christians friends Brian, Dylan, and Alicia, along with Brian's mom, who drove us to Yorkdale where we could take the subway into the city, which we did. Then we walked to OCAD and stood outside in line for about two hours. It was cold. And miserable. I kept saying I was going to die. Because that's how I felt. Anyways, the door finally opened a bit before noon and we went straight upstairs where I hopped right into the Calarts line. It was in the same room for Nova Scotia CAD, so the line was long, but a lot of people were there for that school. I was the 2nd person in line for calarts, so that was nice. Libby was the rep again. She didn't recognize me at first, and it took her a little while to realize I had applied and met her last year. She mostly told me that she thought, A.) I had a competitive portfolio B.) She recommended composing some of my drawings, cutting them out, arranging them, etc C.) She talked a bit about caricature and expression of the human form in my sketchbook. D.) She talked about being creative and experimental with media. She said I should have more color in my sketchbook and to try to include that however I could. I only had about 20 pages left in the one I showed her, which is why I am added a 2nd, hopefully. I didn't have any of my 3rd part put together yet, so she didn't have any comments about that really, besides explaining that is was my chance to include anything else that didn't fit into the other categories. Afterwards we made our way back to and I got dropped off at Christians, where I crawled into his bed and slept.
-The next day I realized I really had no way of getting home. Urp. So I had to take the GO bus, which dropped me off at a carpool lot 6km, about 4 miles, away from Sheridan. And I spent over an hour walking home on the shoulder of the road, past farms and such. It sucked.

This week:
-3d we critiqued and began talking about our next project, which will be to design and build a sort of armor for a human "frailty"
-Life drawing we did more of our basic shapes drawing, which is basically just using different techniques with sticks and plumb lines and such to get proportions and angles correct
-Drawing Systems we are working on a simple still life of 3-4 objects. It's due next week. I'll post it once it's finished
-Color Theory we are continuing painting still lives in class quickly. Last week it was a full color still life. Mine had a hard hat and some fruit. It looked terrible, so I turned in my lemon assignment instead. This week we did drapery. I'll post that too, when I get the time
-My mom announced to me she is no longer going to pay for my cell phone and I have to either buy my car from her or take it home so she can sell it. It's some dealio between her and my dad that is really annoying, but I'm really upset. Hopefully my dad will help me buy it, otherwise I will have to quit my job, and thus I won't have any money, which means no freedom or independence :/ Which I really value. I like being independent, I like providing for myself.
-2D I believe we are starting a new project today about designing a logo for a non profit organization.

Yep. So that is the latest with my life.

LESS THAN 1 MONTH TIL I SEND IN MY CALARTS PORTFOLIO. AAAAH.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

NPD looms ahead


Some drawings I've spiced up and thrown into my portfolio for National Portfolio Day this Saturday. Hopefully all goes well. I really hope I don't get lost in Toronto....




I've got about 30 drawings to show the Calarts rep and I'm also taking my sketchbook to show as well. I've never had a sketchbook critiqued before. Urp. Very nervous
Still, I've come along way from last years NPD: http://merisartendeavor.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html, which I am glad for.

Cross your fingers that they tell me something good, or maybe helpful. I feel very much on the right track right now. With enough hard work, maybe I'll have a decent chance at this!

I'll have a sketchbook/school work update later....eventually...

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Weekly ongoings

Thursday extra life. Sat in a corner all by myself, tried lots of new things.
The frustrating part about being experimental with figure drawing is that you end up with a lot of bad drawings. But the ones that hit the mark really hit the mark, if you know what I mean. I am reminded of a quote by Sir Ken Robinson that goes "If you are afraid to fail, you will never come up with anything original." I try to live by that.

In color theory we did a still life exercise in class. She spent the first half of the class murmuring quietly at the front of the room about impressionist painters and history. I heard maybe 10% of lecture, so it was a huge waste. Then she allowed us 2 colors and black and white, depending on which object we were seated around (lemons, peppers, or bananas) and we were given 15 minutes to mix as many possible colors as we could. Then for the last half of class we painted. Here's mine. I think it looks like a dinosaur head.
In drawing, we finished up our contour drawings with foreshortening. This is mine. Not my best work, but eh, it's ok I suppose. She handed back our atmospheric continuous line drawings, mine was "an excellent start" but she wanted more contrast and detail in the foreground. We're allowed to resubmit them for a better mark. I tried my best to fix it up, but you can't add what isn't there in a still life/figure drawing very easily. I got a 7.7 so it won't be the end of the world if the mark doesn't go up.
In 3d design we were working on cardboard self portraits. Here is mine, I think I'm gonna call this sucker complete, although I'm sure she'll want me to fix a few small things next class. It's a little lopsided, due to the fact that I did build up the inside hardly at all before starting. It's all on 2 pieces of armature. I also didn't draw the chin long enough.


For color theory I decided to redo the assignment this morning, this time on a lemon, because the people who did lemons turned out a lot better. I think I can agree that this went better, although I'll probably get marks off because it's a bit dark.
Here are some paintings I did over figure drawings from monday night. I am putting together my National Portfolio Day portfolio for next week, they're already in the case. I like how it went for the most part, these oil pastels and water. I already know they're going to suggest more color in my portfolio, these stand out like a sore thumb.

In other events this week:
-On tuesday we attempted to go see Jackass 3D, which I really didn't want to see nor pay $16 whole bucks for. I was happy as a clam when the projector at the theater was broken and they gave us a refund and a free movie pass for another day. We made a pact to come back next week, although I think I'll skip out and do some homework, saving my movie pass for something I actually want to see/spend gas on.
-Thursday I really began to dive into my novel. I'm currently 6,600 words in, so I have a lot of catching up to do tonight. I'm feeling a bit down about it, it's somewhat of a depressing storyline, so I have to be in the right mood to write. I should have done something a bit whackier, something sci-fi again. Oh well.
-Friday we went to monaghans for some dinner after class, then watched Curtis and Jake wrestle on the grass platform outside their apartment. It was about 30 degrees out, so it wasn't very pleasant. Afterwards we hung out in their apartment, Jake singing and playing guitar, all his own improv stuff, he's absolutely hilarious. Then we came back to res to watch The Royal Tenenbuams, a great movie, and then I went to Mississauga for the night.
-Saturday I sat in a great big hole of unproductivity, which was impossible to get out of
-Today I'm going to bed bath and beyond, as I have a gift card! Woo!

So, that's life as of late.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Step One

So I had a bit of a really intense artistic moment tonight.

Recently I've been thinking very hard about my calarts portfolio--it even keeps me up at night. I know my work needs to be more expressive, it really needs to say something about who I am and what I'm trying to say. So today I told myself I would go in and try it out. To encourage myself I brought along my colored pastels, determined to break them out and use them.
I finally did at the second to last pose I stayed for. I was drawing, and I really liked it, but I knew it was missing something. Here at Sheridan in extra life for fundies students stay very conservative. They draw in conte usually on newsprint, tending to aim for either realistic or animator style figure drawing. There's little experimentation. When I reached for the colors I could feel my heart pounding very fast. As I started using them I could feel the eyes next to me glancing over at the bright yellow and orange all over my page. It felt embarrassing, but also exhilarating. I wanted to laugh out loud, I hadn't used color in drawing in a really long time, probably not since before I turned in my calarts portfolio. It felt very nice. And while this piece above is not anywhere near what I want to give to calarts, its a step in the direction. Step one. :) Tomorrow will be step two, and the next day will be step 3, up until I turn that sucker in.

Anyway, here's the rest of the stuff from today. I was feeling very loose.








Last weeks extra life







Nanowrimo began today! I haven't written a word yet, so I need to get started! Woo!