I Need The Beast!!

Comp and Color Digital Notebook

2012-01-11T09:21:00.000-08:00

So for my final project in Comp and Color class we had to put together a digital notebook of all the work we did from the semester. Since it was the most challenging and most fun class I had, I thought I would post it for all the world to see.

We had to do a crash course in basic page design for this, and since I'm no designer, I went with something pretty simple.

Also, this isn't all the work. A lot of these we had to create many, many images. I included my favorites. Also also, some of these were in class exercises, which is why they are kind of crappy.

I would like to say thank god I had a digital comp and color class. I saw the traditional ones and they got to reproduce painting after painting after painting. It was much easier to learn the principles on a program like illustrator, rather than trying to mess with painting techniques and so on.

(In class exercise)

There were 12 of these we had to do...and answer all 6 questions for. It took foreveeeer.

(In class exercise)

(In class exercise...I've been meaning to redo this project because I had some cool ideas but was too limited by the time to pull them off the way I wanted. Also my tablet stopped working in this class.)

Dumpy dump dump dump

2012-01-11T08:36:00.000-08:00

Oh yea! This blog. Forgot about this.

Well I didn't take any pictures of my longer pose figure drawings or of my three week still lives. But it's ok, you are really not missing out on anything spectacular.

Here is stuff I did last semester that I do have pictures of.

Here is an illustration based on one of my unfinished nanowrimo novels from last november that I never finished and probably never will.

Sculpture! 5 weeks. Ultimately earned me a B overall in the class when I had an A :( Had some trouble with the thicknesses and such.

Figure drawing final. Was supposed to take a photo of someone I knew and reproduce it in charcoal on 22x30 paper. 12 hours. Pretty pleased, for the most part.

Fanart I drew for skyward sword over break because I wanted Link and Zelda to kiss because they never do! D:

Fanart/illustration for The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness of the Chaos Walking series. Interesting books. I won't be able to finish the last one until I get my kindle replaced :(

Parody of a Calvin and Hobbes cover I started during finals week because I wanted to pretend my life was like Calvin and Hobbes instead of the miserable anti-social mess that it is.

"digital painting" of the open space by my house in Boulder for photoshop class.

The only picture I took of anything I did in my fundamentals of drawing class this semester. It was just a master copy for homework but I put in the 4 hours and I think it shows. This was about where I started to "get" charcoal. Finally.

Yep! Tune in next time for my entire notebook of work for comp and color class!

2011-11-07T14:09:00.000-08:00

Ladida...not much to say this week.

Painting of my brother for photoshop.

Painting of trees for comp and color
Drawins of two characters from the book I am writing
Aaaand some figure draw-uhns. We've started doing tones. It's weird. I hate charcoal. Too messy.

Schoolwork Dump

2011-10-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

Sooo I finally got around to getting some images put together of stuff I've been doing in school this semester. Let's dive in, shall we?

The following are 4 hour gesture sculptures. I gotta tell you, I wasn't sold much on sculpture until we started doing the full figure. Much more enjoyable, to say the least. Also we got free pizza on our make-up class on saturday, and only 7 people showed up. It was much nicer to have some space to work.

I do wish I had more time with these...they're not nearly as developed as they could be. It's obvious some views I pegged down better than others. 4 hours is not enough! I can't wait to delve into longer poses. Right now we're doing a 2 week pose, next will be our final 5 week pose. It's miraculously made me want to take more sculpture classes, which I never expected myself to say.

Before we did the full figure though, we did a 5 week portrait. I hated this. It didn't help that the model had very...rotund features, which are even harder to nail down than you would think. Easy to draw, hard to sculpt.

However after all these projects I managed to get an A- and be one of my teachers more favored students...wtf?

Ok anyway, photoshop. I love the teacher, hate the projects. They are just painfully boring so far. It's mostly been making selections and manipulating photos. Sigh...I guess its important to know.

Here's a really creepy head swap I did with my roommates friend Gabe. I just look like I am wearing a yellow tshirt, and while that is uncharacteristic of me, not that special. Gabe on the other hand has some creepy neck hair thing going on, as well as bra straps. Attractive.
This is our latest project, where we are supposed to make something look like it's been graffiti'd with our personal work. I used really old drawings of mine circa 10th grade. It looks kind of cool, although I'm not sure quite how believable it looks. I did everything my teacher suggested... the problem is he never demonstrates anything super, he just shows us what he considers "decent" work. Its very hard to determine what he wants.
We also did this cyborg manip that I would post except I can't find the jpg and I also used a lot of images off the web without permission, so I really shouldn't anyways.

Here's some of the more creative assignments we've had in composition and color. I love that class. I love illustrator in general, actually. Vectors are full of win. Also my teacher is hilarious, and really good at teaching. He breaks it down extremely well. Finally, someone who knows what they're doing.

One of our first assignments was to create images demonstrating the principles of design using only the letters in our full name. Thank god there is an I in my name...I don't know what I would have done without it.

Our latest project consisted of creating a propaganda poster (without using any real language) and explore different color relationships. There were 7 in total, but there were my favorite 3.

2011-10-15T00:11:00.000-07:00

7 weeks of figure drawing class...not a lot I'm pleased with. Frankly I'm just really sick of doing it, and also hearing the same shit over and over again for years on end. When do they teach me structure?? I've been a bad art student and only going to class, no weekend workshops for me.

2011-10-04T21:08:00.000-07:00

So it's October and I bet you all are wondering "Meri, where are those super amazing drawings you promised us over a month ago???"

The answer is: I don't know.

Have I apparently dropped off the face of the blogging planet?

According to my standards: yes.

Don't ask me why, or I will disappoint you again my friends. My mind is scattered today and I feel lost for words so I will be brief.

I really love it here at LCAD. Laguna Beach is super pretty, as long as you pretend there aren't all these other people here around you. The school is full of awesome teachers and legit classes. The weather is downright pleasant at worst. I like it here, and I don't want to move again, so I will not be putting together anymore entrance portfolios. I am staying.

What do I seem to be doing these days? Cutting a lot of things out in photoshop, and arranging lots of rectangles in illustrator. I'm sure the actual art bit will come eventually. But I am learning things, mostly. Well, not in figure drawing (big surprise) but everything else is worth my time. Oh ho ho, don't even get me started on figure sculpture. It hurts my brain.

Let's not even mention the going to the beach every weekend, preparing for NanoWrimo (which will be epic and decent this time around), looking for job (had an interview with coldstone today), cooking, cleaning, exercising several times a week, and someone who makes me feel like a stupid shy blushing little 13 year old girl again, not that that's much difference from the stupid, shy little 19 year old that I am. Whoops, already did.

BUT I have managed to do a bit of art here and there, so enjoy what you can, if you can:

1. Because I am a dork and have decided to fangirl hardcore about something because The Hunger Games is so totally worth fingerling about. Finnick4life!!! <3 So here is some fan art, for the first time ever. NEVER BACKLIGHT ANYTHING AGAIN.

2. Because the idea of Raindance Maggie is so sexy I can't help but draw a super implicative pin-up.

3. Because astronauts are cute AND NO I AM NOT A HIPSTER. But I am apparently a noob who types in all caps and talks to myself. Yea...it's bedtime.

pretty art things up and coming

2011-08-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

so!

I got done with my summer job and vacation, got a new mac, and moved out to california, where I will be starting school at laguna college of art and design in just a few days. I had orientation yesterday and not only did they have spectacular catering, but I also met quite a few cool people and staff as well as saw the campus and got all the loose ends squared away.

I am so ready to start drawing again, this small hiatus/art block of mine has gone on for waaay too long but being back at a school makes me so excited to start things up again. And this year I actually get to start animating! Woohoo!

So expect pretty art things in the near future.

druheeng ah meez yew!

2011-05-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to draw anything, for the life of me, since I got back. I hate it! I really want to do stuff, but I just can't! I feel like a lack of private work space is partially accountable for this (i.e. I have no desk anymore, besides the tiny pink and white one meant for an 8 year old...) but also my daily routine is so fucked up right now I can't seem to get anything in order. So I guess this is what an artist's block feels like.

IT SUCKS.

what do I dooooo?

Throwback

2011-04-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

Well I'm home again. It's weird to be back. I miss all my friends back at Sheridan, and I miss my room too. It was so much bigger and well organized! My room here is a mess, as is my life.

Anyways, let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time in 8th grade I had these characters I drew, and I had personalities for them, and a whole world set up (they were basically just geometric shapes with faces) And I had this notebook in which I wrote up whole scenes and scripts about stories that took place, and I had an overarching story about taking over the world involved even.
Anyways, this notebook became lost to space and time somehow, probably because I was making it around the time my parents got divorced so it was very tricky, especially with all my stuff because it was moving all over the place all the sudden. And now I greatly miss that notebook. Because I am convinced that everything I wrote in there was completely hilarious (as I thought at the time) and it is probably some of the funniest stuff I've ever written (probably not) On occasion I start thinking about it and go on a man-hunt to find that notebook, but I always fail. It's probably been thrown out, but I can't quit looking, because there is such a multitude of STUFF in both my houses that its just impossible to give up hope.
Today I thought maybe it got mixed in with the schoolwork boxes my parents kept (unfortunately they did not keep one for the year I wrote it, due to the divorce) but I checked my 7th grade box anyway. I did not find it, but I did find all the art projects I did that year. Oh what fun. They're pretty bad. But here are some self portraits I did in the middle of my 13th year of life that might entertain. All I remember is that we had to do them ON a mirror. Tricky.

Sad part is...I still have all those clothes.

Anyways, here's a portrait I did for class awhile ago. Proof that being hungover makes you try new things because you're really not even thinking about it. It's not perfect, but I liked my color work.

Anyways, I hope to one day find that notebook and laugh at how awesome I was (seriously, 8th grade was an amazing year for me creatively speaking) In the meantime I can keep myself entertained with all the other things I wrote (I'm a writing maniac...I'm sure my blog doesn't help disguise that at all) and hopefully write more things. I'm becoming increasingly interested in comedy. Although I've never found myself a very funny person. I'd like to work on that.

Mermaids! For Snowboards! Yea!

2011-04-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

My final 2d project. I was just having fun with these.

Anyways, I've kind of been neglecting my 100 themes challenge in lieu of trying to finish everything up for the school year. Basically everything is due this week. Bleh.

ALSO I'm a little unsure of what I want to do next year.
I want to go to LCAD, but my Dad is telling me I need to commit to a school and thus give up hope on Calarts. So it's either go to LCAD or stay at home and hope I get in. Which is not really a guarantee, especially because I find it more difficult to progress in my work without an artistic infrastructure around me. So...I don't know. I've been stuck on this for awhile now. I'm about 75% sure I'm going to go to LCAD. I will apply to Calarts no matter what, and if I get in, well, that can be another battle. If I don't, I can stay where I am and be happy, right?
It's just hard. I think LCAD will be a great school, but it's Cal fucking arts, pushing students to their fullest potential. You get to make a film every year. And all the fucking guest lectures! And all the companies that come just to Calarts, every year....sigh...I can't just forget about that so easily :/
BUT I do want to get on with my life, and start working hard and being in animation and stuff. Oh man, I am SO TERRIBLE at big decisions.

100 Themes Challenge- Week 2

2011-04-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

9. Doom- see comic here. Warning: Very awkward if you know me. Also very large image.

10. Garden
11. Sadness
12. Confusion
13. Freedom
14. Inevitable
15. Idle...hippies are idle right?
16. Vampires....living in Canada has made me pretty much look like a vampire.

In other news:
I got accepted to Laguna College of Art and Design. With some money. Yay.
I decided not to appeal my Sheridan portfolio. I talked to a student and she said I just didn't have it...oh well.

I'm not sure what next year brings. I might go to LCAD but my Dad wants me to commit to a school and the only place I want to commit to is Calarts. So I may take a year off but that idea scares the poop out of me because I really like being in school and can't imagine anything else.

2011-03-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

From color theory class last week. I'm kind of sad he didn't want to keep mine, but I got an A so I can't complain. I really like it, it was a fun assignment. I also felt like I learned a lot from it. I realized this as I was working on my new painting this morning.

Today I woke up not sad at all about Sheridan. I'm mostly just irritated that everyone else is getting in. Sheridan wasn't my dream school, but I'd like some validation, especially for all that work I put into it.

Anyways, there is something thrilling and enticing about rejections. Sure, it's scary and I don't know what comes next, but that is also the fun part. I could do ANYTHING if I really wanted to. So much potential. Even though I hope I get into LCAD. I keep having daydreams about living in a groovy apartment I can't afford and learning how to surf in my free time.

Here are some drawings from tonight's life drawing that I almost like, but not quite

Another Rejection

2011-03-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

I got rejected to Sheridan's BAA animation program today. :/

I want to blame it on the fact that I'm an international student, and that my chances of getting in are significantly lower than my friends...when I compare my portfolio to theirs I feel we are evenly matched. But I can't really say anything until I see the scores.

It just makes me wonder....what the hell am I doing wrong?

SO many people tell me I've got what it takes, they expect to see me succeed, and then I fail. Am I just bad at putting together portfolios? What is going on?

Ugh, I'm really hoping LCAD will accept me now. I need the ego boost, and one of my close friends is going there next year and trying to convince me to come with...I am tempted...but I need to get accepted first, a thing which just isn't happening for me these days

What Makes a Great Teacher

2011-03-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

Above is my most recent project from drawing systems. I honestly don't think it's super stellar. It's not bad, but I could have taken it so much further. I still got perfect marks on it. I guess you could say my drawing systems teacher likes me a lot. That's ok, I like her just as much back.
My drawing systems teacher, Sayeh, is incredible. She has so much devotion to helping her students. And I don't mean just in class. Sure, she'll spend anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes with us in class to talk about our work and what we should be doing individually. That's great, she really takes the time to make sure we understand the assignment, we are doing it correctly, and we are gaining something from it by pushing us. But she also cares a lot about our applications to other programs. This is a teacher who set up not just one but several sessions with animation and illustration students to take a look at our work and give us feedback. Did she have to do that? Not at all. But she wants to see the students that work hard succeed, so she did anyways. She gives us lectures not only about perspective and our projects, but about life and the wisdom she has gained from it. She passes on her knowledge, and I think she is very wise, constantly reminding us that no matter how talented we may be, we have to put the work into it to succeed, and that sometimes we still fail, and that's ok. I think it's rare to see a teacher with so much passion in a program like this, or in a college at all. I am really grateful I've had her as a teacher for even just this semester. I wish more teachers could be as dedicated as her.

100 Themes Challenge- Week 1

2011-03-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, I've been complaining a lot recently at about how incompetent I feel with digital art. So I decided to take the 100 themes challenge (see here for more info, I am doing variation 4) and use each theme as my start for a quick sketch a day.
So, without further ado, here are the first 8.
1. Life
I wanted to start with a photo reference just to get a feel for things. Unfortunately, a glass of water (supposed to represent life) is really hard to paint x.x
I guess this just goes to show how bad I am at this.
2. Youth
3. Content
I couldn't really think of anything good for this...so I went with my old stand-by of a naked lady. It's kind of like mature content...get it?
4. Change.
I've always wanted to do Doug Walker fan art
5. Dreams
This is how I've been sleeping a lot lately
6. Pessimistic
Ok, here I downloaded the REAL photoshop (not GIMP) and started playing with cool brushes and shit. It was fun
7. Pirate
8. Novel

Like I said, these are QUICK. I spend maybe 15-30 minutes on each of them. I'm not trying to create masterpieces right now. I just want to get comfortable using a tablet and all the tools. Maybe eventually I'll take some of these themes and do cooler stuff. But for now, yea, I feel like this is helping a bit. I'm also hoping this will spur some illustration skills and stuff.

Oh yea, I started a writing blog for the novel I am working on. Yay.

Moar! Yah!

2011-03-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

Sketchbook pages I did while bored during presentations in drawing systems. Trying more of that compositional stuff.

^---Lol. Cam sits in his chair really low and it makes me laugh

3 minutes each

Warning: I'll probably be updating a lot more. I feel like I have hoardes of art to show, I've been very productive lately, and haven't been showing much school work.

2 minutes

2 minutes
Kind of how I feel a lot lately

Figure as a compositional tool study #1 for color theory. About 50 minutes. We were only allowed two complements and an earth tone

Figure as a compositional tool study #2. About an hour and ten minutes. I think it was coming along nicely, too bad I ran out of time. The background has issues though.
I can't wait to show what I did in color theory class today! I got a lot of great feedback on it, and it looked super epic. You'll see what I mean soon enough ;)
Have I ever mentioned how much I love figure painting now??

I really want to learn how to do outdoor painting. Like, nature and stuff. I always try but I feel overwhelmed by all the color and things that are happening.
So much to learn!!!

Life drawing dump

2011-03-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

5 minutes
(Is it me or did I totally disney-fy her hair?)

5 minutes

So today hasn't been the best day ever.
I guess I'm still feeling a little down about my rejection. It's hard to constantly keep your head up. I mean obviously I'm going to keep trying and never give up, but there are just days when you ask yourself why you are doing this when there are so many people out there who are already better than you. I mean really, what do I have to add? I feel like no one ever taught me how to actually think. People taught me how to follow the guidelines and rewarded me for doing what they wanted. But to be a truly great artist you have to think for yourself...something I don't know how to do.

3 minutes each

I'm also really curious as to why I didn't get into Calarts. I mean, I don't think I'm some amazing artist or that I should totally be their top pick, but I did feel fairly confident, especially after improving so much after one year, and I actually liked my portfolio. So what was wrong?
Well I emailed Libby, twice, because I'm so anxious to know. She got back to me today saying she was too busy to give me my notes right now. If I really absolutely had to know I could call and she could say a bit, but if I wanted more thorough advice I should wait until May 1st. Ugh. How many notes could there have been?? I guess I will wait though, because I do want the full story. No more of this "just keep at it!" crap. I want real feedback this time, dammit.
Calarts never ceases to surprise me. Sometimes in the good way, but often in the bad. I'm really surprised at some of their decisions this year, and it leaves me feeling as clueless as when I started. I get mad sometimes, when I see people who are obviously good at drawing and could probably succeed in the program get rejected. This year must have been tough, I'm seeing some really talented people get crushed.

Personally, I feel as if my supplemental section fell short, as well as my sketch-book. I honestly think my basic figure drawing skills are decent enough for an entry level animation student (of course I'm not perfect and have tons more to learn, but you catch my drift) I lack in illustration skills. A lot of people apply this to their figure drawings, which I need to figure out. But also just in my fine arts stuff. I included a lot of random shit, including some boring school assignments, and none of it was super stellar.
Also my sketchbooks are full of lots of random shit. I always see these sketchbooks where every page is an amazing composition.
So I guess there are two things to work on.

3 minutes

So I guess I'm gonna go to every life drawing I can while I'm still here. And I'm going to experiment with style and composition in those, really explore, be very loose. None of this stuff really counts right now anyways. That is what I was going for tonight. I think it's showing a bit.

I'm also starting a challenge to do something quick in GIMP every day for 100 days so I can keep at the digital painting goal. Hopefully there will be some improvement, and maybe I can develop a style of digital art I'm happy with.

2 minutes

Still, with all this reform and hope, I am really tired and sad all the time. I've been trying everything. Improved diet, exercise every day, regular bed times, balanced social interaction, reading, structured days...and none of it seems to be helping. Sigh. I just want to go home at this point. I'm a bit interested to hear from Sheridan still, but gah, who knows. Just...who knows.

2 minutes each

2 minutes

These are a bit old....facial studies from Color Theory. About 1 hour each. The bottom two got displayed ^.^

2011-03-19T15:01:00.000-07:00

A project I did for 2D Design. Supposed to be about the contrast of the land of canada

These are gestures I did when I was opening GIMP. There were some skateboarder outside. I feel like a huge creep. I also feel like I draw like a 5 year old when I use a tablet.

I have a lot of life drawing I've done recently, but I need to photograph it. I don't really like any of it anyways.

Getting Rejected, Round 2

2011-03-17T08:04:00.000-07:00

So, the latest turn of events hasn't exactly been the best. I was rejected to Calarts character animation for the second year in a row yesterday, and well I have a lot to say about it so I'm just going to say it all.

For those that aren't aware, yesterday was my 19th birthday, and in Canada that's a pretty big deal because that's when you are a legal adult and can drink and all of that. So I was pretty excited about it. I had plans to go out with some friends after class and get our drink on as soon as possible. We stopped by residence so I could drop off my stuff, and as we were leaving I checked my mail out of pure habit. I don't like not knowing whether my mailbox is empty or not, but I really did not expect to get a letter yesterday of all days. And so of course, I got it yesterday. I peered into my mailbox and was surprised to see a white envelope from behind the tiny little window. I didn't actually know what I felt next, but I remember thinking "oh god oh god oh god" kind of like I do when the rollar coaster slowly goes up the first hill (I hate rollar coasters) and not actually believing that it could be it. I quickly hoped it was from my bank or something, but I could see the neon orange letters that said calarts on the envelope right away and my heart sank. I quickly ripped it open, read the first line, and stuffed it back into my purse.
Then I headed out with my friends to the pub across the street and spent the next few hours downing a couple pitchers of beer and excusing myself to go to the bathroom very often so I could look at my letter, cry a little bit, and come back out. But I was quickly taken by the beer as I had had nothing to eat that morning because I forgot to set my alarm and woke up 10 minutes after my class had started. After sitting in the pub for a few hours, we left, took a pit stop at the grocery store so I could down a large toblerone, and then decided to walk to the liquor store and get "supplies," and besides I wanted my rite of passage. That's when I finally managed to admit to my friends I had gotten my letter. So that happened and we came back to my place to watch movies and hang out and use our "supplies" copiously. I don't honestly remember much of that part of the day, and then around 9 I went back to the pub across the street with more friends (another rite of passage, as people underage are not allowed in after 9) to eat nachos, play pool, and have a few more drinks. Afterwards I bought a large bucket of ice cream and came home to get on my computer and do a little damage control, i.e. talking to people to make myself feel slightly better.
So basically, I tried to forget about the bad news of the day in the best way possible on your 19th birthday in Canada, and it worked for the most part I suppose. But still, it was not a pretty sight. I have always imagined if I would hear from Calarts on my birthday, seeing as it falls in the middle of the month they send out letters. It was my dream come true to be accepted on that day (honestly, what could be better) and my worst nightmare that I would be rejected on that day.
Last year when the news reached me I accepted it silently and got on with my life, but this year is going to be a lot harder. I think the worst part is that I really felt capable of it this year, and I worked my ass off on that portfolio. I had a lot of people tell me it was good work, and my chances of being accepted were good. And most of all, when I compared it to other accepted portfolios I'd seen, I felt fairly confident. My work spoke of me well, and I thought I had a decent grasp on structure as well as expression, which was my main goal. I really thought it could happen, and I've been fantasizing about being at calarts all year long. So I guess reality is a bit harsh.
It's hard sometimes, seeing everyone else you know from high school go on to college and university easily. They all got accepted, went to school, and are studiously working towards their degrees. I want so much to be like that, to be working my way forward, but my direction is all zig-zagged and kind of fucked up. This is the only school I've ever really seen myself at, because I know it can squeeze the most out of me, and it's frustrating to know that I'm not ready, or even to know that I feel ready, but the portfolio reviewers don't agree. And when I think about it, there are so many other fields I could have pursued with my life and been successful at it. Many other animation programs, art programs, art schools, or even universities have and would have accepted me. I could be great at any one of them. I'm hard working, good with facts, and determined to do my best. I could have been a scientest or a lawyer or some shit like that if I had wanted...I could have done anything! But no, I chose the only thing I suck at (besides maybe physics...I really don't get physics at all) Dedicating yourself to the thing which is the biggest struggle is a huge commitment, and it is always my biggest fear I will regret it one day. I don't wish to regret pursuing my dreams and passion.

I'm really sore from yesterday and my restless sleep last night, but there's no use wasting time, I'm setting up a new game plan as of right now. Even though it hurts me deeply, and I'm so depressed and so sad it didn't work out again. It's humiliating to be in there, involved and showing your work to people, to being a part of things and for people to even expect you to get in and you get shot down. I'm always so embarrassed when I think I can but I cannot. Like when you raise your hand in class to answer a question and you get it wrong. I stopped raising my hand a long time ago, but I thought it would be worth it for this.
Anyways, the game plan.
Well first of all I am going to wait to hear back from the other two schools I applied to, which were Sheridan and Laguna. Sheridan should tell me probably within the next two or three weeks at the latest, so it won't be a long wait. I'm not sure about Laguna. I sent them my portfolio a few weeks ago, but I don't really know how long they take to get back to you, or even if they have received it yet. I don't really care much though, I don't have a strong desire to go there. If I am accepted to Sheridan, I will probably decide to attend seeing as it is a good school and affordable as well. Laguna, well, I guess it's good to have options. However, due to my latest set back I don't have that much confidence in my work. There were over 1000 applications to sheridan and only 120 spots. So when you think about it, to get in you have to be better than 900 other people, which is a lot. I certainly don't feel more skilled than 900 other people.
If I am not accepted to either school of my choice, I will return to the USA. I know I could take another year to continue my foundational studies at Sheridan, but I'm tired of throwing money at anything but a degree worth having. It's too expensive to keep doing this. This year has been amazing and very, very helpful. I learned so many things I feel give me all the tools I need to be an accomplished artist. I'm grateful, but enough is enough.
Anyways, this potential return is riddled with a lot of possibilities. Number 1, I go back to live with my father in Colorado, work a minimum wage job somewhere, and put together a new portfolio. Number 2, I go back to live with my mother in South Carolina, although I don't think that would be the best option because there are no life drawing venues where she is moving to. Although she is getting a puppy, so it's a tempting idea. Number 3 is just an idea, and I haven't brought it up with anyone nor would I know whether or not its ok, but I would like to move to the LA area. I have an Uncle out there who has a nice, mostless empty house that his two teenagers have vacated and gone off to college from, and I think I could get a job, pay a small rent fee, and have a lot of life drawing options, as well as the closeness of calarts to help me. I mean, I've made a few friends out there over all the years of being involved in the forums with all the applicants who eventually made it in, and more than one have offered to give me whatever help I need. A very kind gesture of them, and I wouldn't mind taking up their offer. I'd need to clear this with my family obviously, and it would be tough to move to a new city where I don't know anyone or have any friends, but I think if I had a job I could make it by.
Besides, I am vowing from here on out my new best friends are pencils and paper and nothing else. I can't keep getting so distracted by my social interactions with other people. When I hear about all the most successful artists, they did nothing but draw, all the time, 24/7. And I feel ashamed in knowing that I do not do that. How can I expect to be great without putting the work in? I need to buckle down, focus, and breath in drawing on a constant basis. Living in a new, art-focused city full of strangers would probably help.
Anyways, those are my options and we will see how they play out. I'm really, really bummed calarts is still unattainable to me. I know it's just a school, but really, the acceptance would have meant a lot. I have come so far from last year, but it still falls short, and that's a hard reality to face. :(

Photography

2011-03-03T14:49:00.001-08:00

Today two things happened to me.

The first thing was my friend came over to borrow my camera so he could photograph some of his portfolio work. He asked if I had one of the "DSR-thingy" cameras, and I told I did, much to his surprise. When he asked me how to work it to get really good light, I told him I didn't really know, I never really figured out a lot about it.
The second thing was I found a deviantart of a really great nature photographer in Colorado (check it out: http://kkart.deviantart.com) who really inspires me

These two events reminded me of how I used to want to be a photographer. I grew up in a place, in my opinion, that is one of the most beautiful places you can live in. At least, in the USA. I suppose there are some really, really beautiful sights out there I've never seen. I used to go into the mountains all the time, and my mom, being well, my mom, used to drag me and my brother to all sorts of mountain town galleries. I used to stand in awe over some of the photography I saw.
When I was 14 I bought with my own money a DSLR camera, in the great hopes that I could become a better photographer. Many hours of babysitting went into buying that camera! It is probably, to this day, the most expensive thing I have bought with entirely my money. It was a Nikon D50 and I used to use it all the time. I have so many old photographs on my external hard drive I don't know what to do with them. I experimented with portraits, still lives, and nature photography.

From there I don't know what really happened. I never got into a photography class at school because in my freshman year I put it off for another year, my sophomore year I transferred and they couldn't get me any electives besides all the reject ones, and by 11th grade I started IB and didn't have room for fun electives anymore. Also by then I had decided I wanted to be in animation and focused all my attention on drawing.
Somewhere along the way I stopped experimenting and playing around. Now I only drag my camera out to photograph my drawings, and I don't even bother to do a good job at that. This make me sad. Photography really inspires me.
I really miss doing photography for fun, I think I'd like to perhaps take it up again, perhaps this summer when I'm at a camp for three whole months.

Two photos I took for an English project in 2007 nearby my house in Boulder, CO. I always looks at these to remind myself how lucky I get to (got to) live where I do (did)

Sheridan Portfolio

2011-03-01T13:34:00.000-08:00

So this is my entrance portfolio for Sheridan Animation 2011. I figure since the whole deal is done and overwith, I suppose I should share my hard work. I turned this in Tuesday morning.
I won't know for awhile know whether or not I got in, but I will update this as soon as I do, for reference.

Edit: This portfolio was not accepted to Sheridan's BAA animation program. It scored a 2.84 overall, and for the 2011 fall intake class at least a 3.00 was required. You needed a 2.90 to 2.99 to be on the waiting list

Section 1: Life drawing.

I went with a lot of gestures for the figure drawings, knowing that they are probably stronger than my longer poses, and hopefully they will help me stand out since 5 minute, super structured poses are more popular submissions.

Life drawing score: 2.6

Animal drawing score: 2.6

Hand drawing score: 1.83. Ouch. This was my worst category.

Section 2: Character design

Ok, so this character design isn't exactly what I turned in...I redid the hands in the rotation, as well as the sad expression, plus minor touch-ups. I don't really feel like rescanning and putting another sheet together again, but this is basically what I submitted.

Rotation score: 2.8
Action Pose score: 2.75
Expressions score: 2.88

Section 3: Storyboard

Storyboard score: 2.78

I wasn't very happy with this section. I feel like I just don't know enough about story to do it right. Also, I hated the characters and the premise they gave us. So boring! I'm sure even the graders get bored with it.

Originals-

Section 4: Layout

sorry the quality on these suck. The sheets are too large to scan and the see-through quality of the paper makes it difficult to get a good shot. I've tried like a billion times.

Household objects score: 3.0

Room Line Drawings score: 3.33. My highest category
The following drawing is the only one that I only had to do once...minus touch-ups and the chairs and table in the background (which I are different from what I originally drew, and what is actually there)
Section 5: Personal Artwork

Personal artwork score: 3.13

"The Dragon Inn"

Bone studies- I feel so unoriginal D:
Sketchbook collage
Self portrait

Yep, thats it! I feel pretty confident about my work actually, but I won't know for another month whether or not it's any good, so the waiting game it will have to be.

New Beast

2011-02-28T16:36:00.000-08:00

As much as love the good ol' Beast from Disney, he's not really my character so I finally got around to designing something original for my banner. Tada! My own beast. Probably one of the nicest looking things I've ever made on the computer. I don't know why it looks so crappy in the banner though, I'll have to figure that out and fix it.

Anyways, it's reading week and I'm bored out of my mind and I am turning in my animation portfolio to sheridan tomorrow and I am so nervous. Eeep.

2011-02-24T19:47:00.000-08:00

Portfolio pieces ^ and v I will post the whole thing once the ordeal is over and done with.
Also, I found this among my old drawings from october. I must have missed it entirely because I never even took a picture of it. I want to shoot myself because I think it would have been great with for calarts. If I don't get in, I'm blaming it on my oversight of this drawing >_>... just kidding.

Things that are happening

2011-02-22T20:42:00.001-08:00

I had a very intensely vivid dream this morning where I was accepted to calarts and I was super happy and was beginning to cry when I asked myself the ever-so cliche question of if it was really happening, of course then, my mind clicked and I knew something wasn't right and I woke up and was super disappointed. Uh, so, lets just hope this is one of those awesome future telling dreams, right? (I had one of those once, it was really trippy) Because then I was imagining myself getting a rejection letter and trying to face that future just seems...bleak. Sometimes I think about it and I can't imagine myself anywhere other than Calarts. I know that's crazy. I know that a school is just a school and it is what you put into it that counts, and I could be perfectly successful at many places where I have been accepted in the past or may be accepted in the future. But it just feels...right. Like one of those things you just know you have to do.

Anyways, I finally got to go to class and have some real social interaction today and then I talked to a wonderful 4th year animation student Jamie Metzger again who helped me immensely with my sheridan portfolio, and now I'm ready to sit back down again and readdress some issues with it. Only one week to go. I'm dying to get this over with. I also can't wait to have more free time to work on my film again, as I feel guilty putting time into it when I know I have improvements to make with my portfolio.

The highlight of the day was that Chris asked to go to the movies to see I Am Number Four. Sometimes having a car when no one else does has its perks because people actually invite you to shit knowing that they can't go without you. Anyways, the movie was so-so, not very exciting as far as story goes, but entertaining nonetheless. I was just happy to get off campus for a few brief hours and be a part of like, the real world. I also haven't done anything social or fun in a really long time. Also, tuesday nights are the discount nights at movie theaters in Ontario, so it only cost $5. That is just my price :)

Anyways, that's my life that I felt like sharing for no reason at all today. Yep.

2011-02-21T16:01:00.000-08:00

Iconographic image of the Quaking Aspen for 2D design, with a corresponding typeface.
Two self portraits for Color Theory. The top is along the theme of roleplay, I was trying to make myself elegant and whatnot. The second is for the uniqueness and history of my face (and hair)
I like the second better.
Studies of Aspens for 2D (scientific, shape, line)

I've also been recently playing around with TVPaint, which has been a fun and informative experience.
I think next semester I will going back and polishing and reanimating most of my IB art film, because it's been sitting around in desperate need of some work, and I really do like the premise for it, but the animation is just so shitty and everything. Plus, with a portfolio out of the way, what else am I gonna do? My social life has gone to shit. I haven't spoken to anyone in days over this holiday weekend...once portfolios are done I'm going to be smack dab in the middle of reading week wondering what the hell to do. I'd like to go to Ottawa or Montreal but I've got no one to come with me and I'm not brave enough to go to a new city alone. So yea, animation seems like a good choice instead.
I've got very little to distract me from the anxiety of hearing back from calarts. I pretty much have a running background noise in my head going "ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease" 24/7, and it keeps me from sleeping a whole lot. Fortunately I am very optimistic about this summer as I have gotten an awesome position at a girl scout camp as an arts and crafts specialist and I haven't been this excited for something in a really long time. It's going to be an amazing summer!

Some Figure Drah-uhns

2011-02-12T21:57:00.000-08:00

After showing some potential figure drawings to a few animation students and whatnot they told me I had good gesture but needed to show more underlying structure...Unfortunately I've always tried to draw decisively and not clutter the figure with all that construction nonsense. So now all my drawings look messy and I lose a lot of the gesture of the pose because I get so distracted. Gah, I don't know what to do about it. I also sent most of my favorite work off to calarts, so yea, that kind of sucks. I've got pictures of most of it though.

About 2 weeks to go...I'm kind of wishing it were sooner just because I'm so sick of redrawing things over and over again after showing them to people for critique. I've drawn my hand in a specific pose 6 times now.

I look at past accepted portfolios and feel fairly confident, and then I see other peoples work around me and feel like there's no way I'm gonna get in. So confusing.

I really, really want March to get here so I can hear back from Calarts. I'm absolutely DYING.

2011-02-08T06:41:00.000-08:00

Not so pleased with the shading job. I should have done something with the value of the sky. Maybe I should have stippled instead of using lines? Or a smaller pen? I don't know, but I would like to color this at some point.
This is for drawing class, and turned out rather well in my opinion. It was about a 5 hour pose. It'll probably go in my portfolio, even though they don't want to see rendered drawings. I think the structure works very well here, and I've been told a lot of my drawings are "too caricatured." I guess that's what you get for doing drawings all meant for Calarts for two years

Yesterday I went to talk to my drawing systems teacher about some of my portfolio work. She was very helpful. I also think she rather likes me and wants me to get in because she asked what I felt the weakest in, and I told her character design. She promptly found a 3rd year animation student during our class right after that and let me go out and show him my work so he could help me. And helpful he was. He had a lot of useful critique on my character, and after class I sat down to go about redesigning him. It looks a lot stronger now in my opinion, although I will have to redo all that work I've already done.
I'm also going to talk to another 4th year student today as well. I'm loving all this help, it's been incredibly useful.

2011-02-05T21:57:00.000-08:00

Here's that thing I mentioned before that we did the first day of drawing systems this semester.
And here's a stamp design from 2D, with donuts....mmm...makes me hungry. Everyone thinks it's a reference to Tim Hortons, but they forget I'm American, and in America we buy our donuts from grocery stores like normal people.

I've found it really hard to get stuff done because I've been really depressed lately. :/
Today I woke up and could not get out of bed. I kept berating myself in my head, and also encouraging myself at the same time to do it. It seemed to cancel each other out. I had managed to keep asleep until 11:30, but I finally had to wake up and eat something. But then it was right back into bed, just sitting there for hours, willing myself to fall back asleep and to skip the whole day. Every time I took a breath my heart rose and dropped like a stone into water. Plunk.
I finally managed to get myself up after a good cup of chai, but I'll be damned if it isn't tempting to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head and make the whole world go away. I really need to get this sheridan stuff done though. Everything I do I end up redoing like 3 or 4 times. It sucks.
I don't know what to blame this on. The time of year, the stress of this portfolio, the change of my class, my diet, my lack of going outside....it's probably a combination really.
I'll get through this, I always do. Until then, everything is sort of at a stand still. Personal art, social life. It's all frozen, just like everything outside right now.

Some Work I've been Working on

2011-02-02T08:48:00.000-08:00

Besides portfolio work of course. I won't post any of that til it's all done and sent in.

Went to extra life painting....sigh...I love painting.

This below down here is from last semester drawing systems. Never got around to posting it I don't think. 'Sok I s'pose
Here is my latest from drawing systems...still need to shade it and add some detail. I just realized my obsession with dragons. Also trees. You can't see it here, but I've been drawing a heckuva lot of trees these days.
Drawing class we did that annoying charcoal thing you do with erasers. I hate it, it's so messy. Bleh.

3D has been pop-up books...I could have put more effort but it's portfolio crunch time and I need to make priorities. Mine is based off Mary Oliver's poem "Rage" ....my 12th grade english teacher would have loved me if I had done this in her class....bet it would have gotten me an A too, she was a huge fan of the fine arts.

A yep.

It's a snow day and I have a lot to catch up on...so I'm gonna go do that now

Whatsup in Painting Class

2011-01-26T10:48:00.000-08:00

^--Oh hey, look who got a 4.5/5, the first A I've ever gotten in color theory. Booya.

I enjoy painting when it comes out mildly the way I thought it should in my head. Well, not the last one, but still

Hark! A real update!

2011-01-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

I am loving my drawing systems assignment....I had to take a picture of a building (a cabin I grabbed off google images) redraw it (as seen above) and then totally change it up and make something different...still a WIP but I managed to kill 2 hours working on my modified building today when I should have really been doing some homework due tomorrow...oh well.
Now that we're past all the boring "draw boxes in perspective" crap, I'm really enjoying this class. Our first week our teacher gave us an in class assignment to do a quick composition of buildings on a sheet she gave us, we all had to vote which ones were our favorites and mine was one of the ones that won ^.^ Yay extra credit!
But yea....layout is kind of like solving a math problem, except that I actually know how to do it. It's fun, it's challenging, and yea....I like it, even though I'm only kind of mediocre at it.
Some sketches of cats and random animals I made up over break. Got a white china marker and brown paper. I love it, but this was my first go at it and I think I kind of went overkill with the white
Our drawing class last week had the same pose for an hour and half....this becomes really tiresome when you're only doing line drawings. Sigh...We start value this week and I am excited.
I have only gone to extra life once in the past two weeks *guilty look* I'm kind of burnt out on it, but I really need to go and get some drawings for my portfolio, although I have quite a few I still like but couldn't fit into my calarts portfolio from last semester...We'll see. I'm not terribly worried about the life drawing portion of the sheridan portfolio, that's probably what I'm best at actually.

I painted this cat in gouache. Maybe to add in as a personal work...if not I'll frame it and give it to my mom. I bet she'd be thrilled. I was thinking of her and our calico cat when I did it anyway
Aaaaand another random sketch. Of no one, just effing around.

I did some really cool painting in Color theory last week that I really really wish I had taken a picture of it, because it was headed in the style I've always really admired. I'm so happy I have a new teacher this semester, he doesn't scare me or stress me out nearly as much as my last teacher, and his technique is very different, it's refreshing. He's been showing us a lot of paintings by Lucian Freud, which I am really digging.
I also did a cool pop up in 3D during class last week. I didn't take a picture, but I'm sure I'll get it back soon. I have a really great plan for our pop-up book assignment and it might turn out really nice if I actually work at it.

Ayep.
I have been way too preoccupied with socializing and being sick lately. I guess I missed my friends and stuff, although it has been kind of weird not having classes with any of them now. Going to class is rather mundane, now that I have no friends. I am hoping to make new friends in my new class, but I'm struggling a bit. Half our classes we're not supposed to talk in because we have models or a really crazy teacher (coughcoughdrawingsystems) and yea.
But I have been in three alcoholic-party like settings in the past week and it's been very distracting...and last weekend I got super sick and sat in bed all weekend reading Harry Potter....which has also been very distracting since now I'm on a mission to reread the whole series in lieu of my renewed/remembered love of fantasy novels and the fact that I'm going to start rewriting some old stuff I had.
I really miss the days when I did nothing but read all the time. I ate fantasy novels like I eat pasta. It was great, and reading Harry Potter reminds me of how much an escape it is. It spurs my creativity and motivation to be so much more....It's wonderful. Everything feels simple when I'm reading.
42 days til the sheridan portfolio is due. I never thought I'd care so much about it, I mean, after all, it's calarts I really want to go to...but sheridan might be nice too....ugh. I don't know anymore. And a little part of me just wants to run off and write young adult fantasy novels for the rest of my life....It's very confusing.

Help!

2011-01-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

So, I posted this in my DA journal, but considering no one really reads that, and I really would like some help, I thought I would post it here too, in case any wandering soul can help me:

I really, really, REALLY want to get better at digital painting this year. I was wondering if anyone had any tips, or knew any good tutorials out there for me? Whenever I open GIMP and get out my tablet it's like someone stuck a pencil in my hand for the first time ever, I swear. It's embarrassing, what with everyone I know pooping out amazing paintings all the time. Besides, it's something I've wanted to be able to do since maybe 7th grade...and I still have no idea how

Also, I got this really neato brush pen for christmas. It's a Kuretake brush pen and it looks super cool, it's straight from Japan. Which is sweet and all, except everything written on the box in in Japanese and I've never used a brush pen before, so I have no idea how to load the ink. Does anyone out there know??

2011-01-10T16:30:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated in what feels like ages. I know all 1 and 1/2 of my faithful readers are really upset. I have a lot to say about the past few weeks, but I don't have any drawings to post so I'm kind of holding out until I do.
I'm also feeling the pressure of portfolio crunch time for sheridan, since it feels like everyone in the world is applying, because pretty much everyone in MY world is applying. Literally, every other kid I see in the hall is my competition. I don't do well with competition. Ugh.
And it's winter, and I always get a little depressed in winter and today was discouraging to my emotional health for other reasons. So yea.
I'll have art to share soon enough though, I've got some great things going on in my head.

Sent in my Portfolio Today

2010-12-21T14:50:00.001-08:00

This is pretty much what it looked like, except that I left my good camera at school and had to use my pocket one, which made everything look really smooth and strange looking. That's what you get with a $70 camera.

And then the supplemental section

Along with two 100 page sketchbooks of different sizes.
Yea! It feels good to be done, although I still have to submit the application online, because I need my father to surrender his credit card number to pay the fee >:3

And now I must begin my sheridan portfolio....after finishing all these christmas present paintings and stuff

Drawing With Feet

2010-12-09T18:59:00.000-08:00

I was drawing things with my feet today...Just doodles, nothing from life.

I'm pretty unhappy right now. Things are sort of falling apart and I'm just ready to go home and stuff my face and see all my old friends.

Revised Artist's Statement

2010-12-03T09:45:00.001-08:00

With the advice of one of my old teachers, I decided to rewrite my artist's statement to be a bit more formal and aimed towards the objectives stated on the calarts website.

"Please use this statement to discuss the issues and concerns that inform your artmaking practice, your reasons for applying to CalArts and your artistic goals"

*******

One of my favorite forms of art is graffiti. I don’t just mean the big colorful pieces that we envision when we think of graffiti in our minds. I mean all aspects of it, from the simple black tags that line the streets of a city to throw-ups, pieces, and legal works. There is something about the type of people who do graffiti that makes me really respect them as artists. To be a graffiti artist you must devote your entire self to what you do, it must become your life and who you are. To be respected in the graffiti world, you must be willing to draw outside the lines and go where no one has before. You must be original on top of your dedication. This is why I love graffiti.

I try to apply these principles to my own art making. I feel if I work as hard as they do, and I give it as much thought and practice, I may be lucky enough to find myself creating work as beautiful as theirs. I value their passion, and I wish I could be like them. Unfortunately seeing as I grew up in a suburban community, I was never really given the opportunity to be a graffiti artist. But I found that there was an alternative practice that required the same values as a graffiti artist needs, and that was animation. Animators work incredibly hard to complete their “pieces,” and only a truly gifted and thoughtful animator who works this hard will come out on top. I respect animators just as I do graffiti artists, they are artisans unlike an others.

I lack a strong voice in real life, often mumbling and stuttering over words, but hopefully I can develop one that people will listen to with their eyes, and hopefully it will truly affect them. I am drawn to any expressive media or subject matter. I believe the more I delve into my art the more I will be able to convey on paper. I want people to stop in the middle of their busy lives and take a moment to look at what I create, just as they do with graffiti on the streets.

Meredith Burgess

Character Animation

******

Thoughts?

Final Working Portfolio

2010-12-02T18:07:00.000-08:00

This is what my drawing teacher would call a final working portfolio...Feedback would be very much appreciated!

Also, I am really, really sorry for the poor image quality. I wanted to get it up as quickly as possible for feedback. When I post the final one it'll be good, I promise.

I'm going to add something really super duper extra awesome to kick ass at the end...but I just have to think of it and then do it first....

Sketchbook Dump

2010-11-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

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.

A lots has happened this week...

2010-11-19T09:21:00.000-08:00

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.

NPD looms ahead

2010-11-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

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...

Weekly ongoings

2010-11-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

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.

Step One

2010-11-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

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!

Queen of Awesome Intro

2010-10-31T13:28:00.000-07:00

I present to you the first page of The Queen Of Awesome.
I'm semi-happy with this. I can't figure out how to efficiently add borders on gimp, so I kind of just gave up on that idea. I'm mostly unhappy with the poses, they always turn out really stiff once I've drawn them on a tablet a couple of times over. That and I feel that my backgrounds and coloring are lazy. Gotta work on that!

The next page is already in the works

Actually looking at this, there are many things I want to change. I'm undecided whether or not I'll put the effort into going back and redoing most of it....hmm...or just keep moving forward? Tough choice.
I also forget a header o.o And the boxes (hyopthetically) are cut off because of my dumb camera.

Also...HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Influence Map

2010-10-30T23:40:00.000-07:00

I saw this in someone else's blog and just had to do it myself. Rather than putting down artists that influence me (because there are so many even I can't keep track of them) I put down other things that inspire me and things I keep in mind when I try to create something. I just realized I didn't include as much animation as I should have. If I had remember, I would have included work from Pixar and Miyazaki probably. I would have also put in Rhapsody in Blue from Fantasia 2000. That short is what I would pinpoint as the work that made me want to be in animation.

1. 90s Nicktoons
2. 90s Cartoon Network (remember cartoon cartoon fridays? me and my brothers used to wait for that all week long!)
3. Other people's sketchbooks
4. Kurt Vonnegut
5. Indie Rock
6. Sci-fi, space travel, etc
7. The coming of spring
8. Elfwood.com
9. The human form
10. The Colorado Rockies (or just nature in general)
11. Felicia Day, Ellen Degeneres, Tina Fey
12. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
13. Road trips, travel, adventures
14. TED talks
15. Student Films (examples here are Pull, Crater Face, and Work. Some of my favorites)
16. Funny comics
17. Steampunk
18. Graffiti
19. Street Art
20. Random ass silliness, like Flaming Chickens
21. Pretty much every other page in Illustration Now
22. Fantasy art. Elves, fairies, dragons, etc
23. Video game art and animation. Legend of Zelda is one of my all time favorites

Yea, definitely should have included Rhapsody in Blue....
Actually, just looking at this, I can think of a zillion other things. Oh well. Perhaps I'll make another some other time...when it's not 3 am...

Ouch

2010-10-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

You know that feeling you get when it feels like someone is pressing their fingers into your temples really, really hard and it feels like your brain might pop out your skull? Yea, I've totally got that right now.

I went to my boyfriends apartment in Mississauga with the intention of staying one night and it kind of turned into 4. So there was a lot of work I didn't get done this week that I was going to do. I guess that's what happens when you get to be an adult for the first time and don't have parents that make you come home or kick you out of your boyfriends apartment. :( Sigh, another lesson in responsibility. Whats even worse is that I left my sketchbook there, and I was going to do the majority of the work I needed to do in there.
So that leaves me with all the photoshop work I set for myself, and a cardboard head to make. Neither of which I really want to do.
Guuuuh the more I think about how much time I have left (about 7 weeks) and how much I have to do, and when I look at past portfolios the more stressed I become. I still have to get 2 recommendations as well...I asked my art teacher from last year, but I'm clueless as to who to ask for the other. Is there anyone else in the world who has the authority to tell calarts I'm awesome and knows who I am??

Graffiti Figure?

2010-10-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

Sketchbooking a lot. I had this great idea about incorportating figure drawing and graffiti, I'm thinking it could make a really cool portfolio piece. I just can't figure out how to do it right...turning the figure into its own piece makes it seem very cubist and odd, but including it with words seems extraneous and out of place. I am having trouble finding an inbetween spot. Opinions?
The one on top below is just a word ^.^
Also...having issues with character design. I want to peg down the character for my portfolio this week, but I just don't know where to begin, or what they expect to see, or anything. I guess I should look at the rubric again.
I've also been mapping out and writing the first few pages of Queen of Awesome, so I can hopefully finish up to 4 pages and include that with the calarts portfolio...also gonna do a page of hands and possibly some longer pose stuff. I'm also planning on including the graphic novel piece I did in IB art last year, some of my sheridan portfolio, maybe some paintings (if I ever sit down and do any) or digital paintings (if I ever do some I kind of like). After that, all I have to do is fill my sketchbook up, and the portfolio should be set to go. 1 month and 3 weeks to go!! Ahhh!

As far as Sheridan portfolio goes, this week I hope to achieve some character design work (maybe begin the rotation), do the hand portion, and also begin the line room drawing.

On top of that, I have to do a 3d cardboard bust of myself, research and an annotated bibliography for a report on graffiti, and I'm planning on going to extra life 3 times this week.

Ahhh so much to do!! It's hard to be organized, I write lists and set goals each day.

Reading week

2010-10-23T22:03:00.000-07:00

This week there haven't been a lot of new projects, so there isn't much to say school wise. Above is a paper bag painting I did in class for color theory. I chose to turn this one in over my grey scale box painting from last week, I think this one looks a little more interesting, although I had to rush the shadows, and they look very flat. I don't like having to finish entire paintings in a two and a half hour time limit, it is very stressful, especially with my crazy teacher running around and yelling at everyone. Plus, we're not allowed to listen to any music, which makes it terribly hard to get in the zone for painting. I get really distracted.
Extra life didn't go super well this week. Most of these are from a batch I forgot to post last week. I forgot how well they went. I did a lot of quick blind contour work, then went back and put in the final lines darker. It led to some very exaggerated figures, which I liked a lot. I should try it again some time.

I did eventually decide to start looking and drawing though. It went well, I think the blind contour was a good warm up exercise for me. Sorry this pictures are at a bit of an angle. I'm not the most determined person in photographing my drawings professionally, there are just too many!

This is my favorite, although I did a little doodle off the side and I'm really mad I did >_<

This stuff is all from this week on wednesday. We had a terrible model on thursday, I didn't get anything worth posting from her.

Highlights from the week:
Tuesday was ribs night at the local sports pub. 1 rib for $1.70. Drink required. 3 ribs and a coke for less than $10. I will be going back, that's for sure. Later that night I went on a late night walk down to the lake with Tahini and my friend Josh. We talked about many things, and enjoyed the stars and the moonlight on the lake. It was very nice.
Thursday night me, Tahini, Mike, and Christian planned on going to see the midnight showing of Paranormal Activity 2, but there was a mix up and the theater went to that was supposed to be showing it (acccording to the internet) wasn't. So we saw Case 39 instead, which was alright. I don't really like horror films much, not because they're scary, but just because I don't think they're very interesting in the end.
Friday night I enjoyed some drinks and company down the hall with my friends and our RA. We hung out and talked. It was nice. Tonight was much of the same, except with a few less people and tacos. Then Bryce gave me 2 gigs of music from his computer. I will be compensating him with some from mine tomorrow. Most everyone has taken off, since we have the next week off. This is known as reading week, which is supposed to help us catch up on homework/a time when teachers can give us super big projects. I don't really have any, nor was I given anything big. I considered taking a trip, but I will be staying here and working on my portfolio a whole bunch instead, although I may go for a drive later in the week somewhere to see the fall colors, maybe do some landscape sketches. I also want to visit the zoo to do some sketching, although the price is a little outrageous. $23 to go to the zoo for the day, how ridiculous.
Other than that, I will be doing more photoshop experimentation, as well as real painting and experimenting with other media. I'm really looking for a factor that's going to set my calarts portfolio above the rest. I also need to do some comic book/storyboard work for my portfolio, caricature investigations, and filling up my sketchbook at the mall. Besides that, I want to begin my sheridan portfolio, so I'll be working on the character design portion quite a bit, and maybe the hand and room drawings too. Extra life is still on this week, so I'll be doing that too. Sounds like a lot of work, but I'm looking forward to all of it!

Digital Art

2010-10-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

Been photoshopping it up.
Above is a pony, that's really ridiculously cute.
Below is something I was messing around with, one of my recent drawings. Didn't finish, don't think I will
This one I did directly over an old picture of mine, rather infamous in my mind. I wanted to do some painting with something of a better reference. It was supposed to be a split complement color scheme, but my exhaustion and bad lighting made me go with yellow instead of orange...oh well. Looks nice, but I think color theory is getting to me.
Every time I browse digital art, I'm always amazed at how many different styles people create. I can only figure out one way to paint on the computer, but I really want to try more! I guess I should keep messing around. It's a nice medium mostly because of how clean it is. The paints never dry out, and if someone knocks on my door, its not a problem for me to get up and talk to them. But there are just so many things I don't understand, the whole process feels oddly unnatural to me. My hand doesn't feel anything...so odd.

Sketchbook Updates

2010-10-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

See? I told you my pencil sketches were better. I've been doing some character design research/practice. I'll need a really solid character for my sheridan portfolio.
Above, left to right: The Queen, Mae, Popsicle
Below, left to right: Bears, Magee, Sally Mustang, AJ, Jet Sinister (I'm undecided on his hairstyle atm), Aya

Sound familiar? Thats because I came up with most of the character concepts in July 09. In fact, the sketches are in one of my posts on this blog.
Here's some other sketchbook work from recent

SOUP GUY FOREVER! <3

In 3D yesterday we had to make a giant cardboard shoe. This is what my group did in 2 and 1/2 hours. Not bad, although I don't think she was pleased that we chose a flip-flop, which has very little form. But we destroyed the detail on the strap, so I think we should be a decent grade.
Whats up in drawing class? Here's what!
Gonna do the refined piece for this next week:
Extra Life Drawing yields:

Last weekend we went to a haunted house emporium. Basically a bunch of walk through thingys where people in costume do their very best to freak you out. I only made it through 1 of the 5, because Christian freaked out and we decided to sit out the rest of the night. I had an awesome time watching all the performers walking around the lines scaring the crap out of people, even chasing some.
Also of note was a party I went to friday night which was EXACTLY like the halloween party in Mean Girls. It was uncanny. Weirded me out. They even had the same music.
Yep, so thats been life lately. Been very busy arting it up. The more I do it, the more I enjoy it and get into it. I'm loving this!!

Photoshop skills fail

2010-10-18T20:19:00.000-07:00

HA! Told you I would do something for fun.

Ok, story time.
So if you remember last May I got accepted into Ringling College of Art and Design for computer animation, but the main reason I turned it down was because a rep during my visit told me they do EVERYTHING on the computer, even figure drawing. I SUCK at tablets, photoshop, etc. So I opted for a more traditional program. But, after thinking about it, I'm probably going to need those skills in the future for my job anyways, because virtually everything is done on the computer these days in animation, even a lot of the 2d stuff.
So, I'm taking it upon myself to start doing some comics and such on photoshop (gimp, actually)

As you can see here, this is going to be a lot of work (my sketchbook designs in pencil for this were MUCH better, I'll post them later so you can see) It doesn't help that this pose is full of fail.

Artist's Statement

2010-10-14T21:20:00.001-07:00

This is just a working draft. I might trash it and go in an entirely different direction. Then again, I don't think it really matters. But I did think it might be interesting to post here.

Two years ago, my junior year of high school, I made the tentative decision to pursue animation as a career. That’s right, I didn’t always dream of being an animator. There were no childhood moments watching a Disney movie where I went home thinking “that’s what I’m going to be when I grow up!” To tell the truth, the idea had never even come across my mind.

I clearly remember an AI representative coming in to our art class my sophomore year of high school and presenting on a number of art majors. One of them had been animation. And he told us “to be in animation, you have to draw all the time. You have to do dozens of drawings day.” I can remember thinking how intimidating that was. I never considered myself very good at drawing, nor did I really like it all that much, mostly because I was bad at it. I was into photography and graphic design. It was something I was good at. I was planning on studying advertising design, I thought it was fun.

In fact, I can’t recall exactly when, why, or how it was that I changed my mind. Looking back, it all seems like a blur. You might say that it was just a series of random events that lead me into looking into animation. The next thing I knew, I was attending a free figure drawing course for teens at a local high school. And so it began.

At this point, I think it’s important to know that I am an overachiever. When I want to get something done, I’ll do it. I made straight As throughout middle and high school. I always gave it my best, and I always was one of the best in most of my classes (save perhaps gym class and physics). I don’t mean to say this to sound arrogant, just to be honest. I was good at being an academic student. I had just the right balance of intelligence and work ethic to be exactly what public schools want their pupils to be.

I was terrible at figure drawing. I had no idea what I was doing, I had never been instructed in drawing the human form before. I didn’t grasp any of the ideas very solidly. The simple concept of a gesture for example, didn’t make sense to me until months of study and practice. I felt incredibly intimidated. But, instead of getting frustrated and giving up, I only wanted to improve even more. Over the summer I had friends come over every week and model for me. I went to public places and drew people. I scoured the internet for whatever information I could. I checked out dozens of books on drawing from the library. I found uninstructed sessions to attend. I did everything I could to prepare a portfolio that would send me to the ever so exclusive “calarts,” the school guaranteed to work me harder than I ever had before, and deliver me to the world as a trained animator.

I worked myself crazy. There were emotional breakdowns every week. I was exhausted. And when March came, I found myself sitting on my bed with a plain white letter explaining why I could not be accepted into the school of my dreams. I never foresaw myself ever getting rejected to any school, art school or not. I was the perfect student, but I was not the perfect artist. I had expected myself to have a huge mental breakdown if I had gotten rejected, but strangely I felt oddly passive to the fact. Perhaps I had been led down such a path of insanity I had completely lost all sense of rationality, or perhaps I was relieved because I truly hadn’t felt ready, but there was only one thing to do: move forward.

I told myself to do my own animation, my own short film. I made a vow to myself that if I could finish it in time for my IB art examination at the end of April, that I was meant to be an animator and that this wasn’t a foolish choice. I cracked out my animation books, and I spent the next month going without sleep to complete a 1 minute film. Miraculously, I found success. I made a film. I felt dead inside, but it was the good kind of dead inside. I guess you can say I found hope, and that now I continue on to study animation in whatever way I can, although with some luck, hopefully it will be at a decent school, like that of Calarts.

So, how did I switch from photography and graphic design to animation, complete opposites on the spectrum of art? Why didn’t I just give it up, even after all the obstacles I found? After I couldn’t draw, after seeing everyone’s amazing portfolios, after being rejected, after slaving away at a terrible film that will hopefully never again see the light of day? I have pondered this fact many a time, and here’s my explanation: I crave the challenge. It’s not fun unless there’s something I have to figure out. Why would I pursue something that is easy to me, why would I bore myself for the rest of my life, when I could be constantly tearing my hair out, staying up until the sun rises trying to get an animation done? I like working hard. It’s in my nature. Calarts is one of the only schools promising to kill me repeatedly each year with work. And animation is the only subject that I have found to be so difficult that I’m not one of the best goddamned students out there. It is one of the only subjects in the world worthy of being my “bitch,” if you will. I’m not going to give up on it until it is, which could very well be the rest of my life.

OR I could go with something a little more straightforward in response to their prompt...here's what I'm thinking

Issues that impact my art-making:

Food mostly, I like to eat a lot. Also those hairless, skinny, pasty freaks out there in the world we like to call “people.” I guess if you want to sound arty you could say they inspire me.

Why I am applying to Calarts:

I love paying 37k and up for advice on how to draw better, and I’ll be damned if I don’t know someone who doesn’t.

Artistic Goals:

To rule the world, duh.

Homeworkkkk

2010-10-13T21:43:00.000-07:00

So....last weekend was Thanksgiving here in Canada. I spent the whole thing holed up in my room doing homework. Literally, 8 hours a day of homework. I didn't get ANY personal artwork done, like I promised myself. BUT SOON.
I DID do some pumpkin carving. You can see mine on the right up there, a pumpkin saluting the world with a martini glass (it was supposed to be a beer, but the martini glass got the idea across better) We did these carvings at maybe midnight on Saturday. After some consideration, and the realization we had nowhere to actually put our pumpkins (the hallway??) we decided to go have a little fun and leave them around the school. So we did just that.
My friend Curtis (who incidentally looks exactly like Zac Efron, just for reference) did most of the work (kudos to him). His first choice location was on a ledge over the door to the SCAET building (which houses all of the computer animation and film classrooms) Of course, the SCAET building is made completely of windows...and a spot for one of the security desks. Actually, you can see it in this picture above. He jumped up there, a security guard appeared behind him, and didn't even see him as he jumped down and we ran off. We came back later to do some adjustments to the pumpkin, as it was meant to be puking. Me and Tahini's pumpkins landed in a similar location by the A wing, although in an area with less windows.
The pumpkins are still there too :)

Last thursday I went to extra, didn't get much I liked though. The model had some intense black dreads (extensions) that got in the way of a lot

Here's some handiwork from my other classes:

Drawing-
This is the continuous line/atmospheric drawing we started in class, which I finished up later during the weekend. Still some kinks to work out, some things that aren't angled properly, little details I need to add. She is a wicked hard grader, I don't expect much from this, but I am trying to pay more attention to line weight and sensitivity here.

2D Design-
Our latest project is about rhythm in architecture. Here are some thumbnails of old photos I took (Left to right, bottom to top: denver art museum, san diego convention center, the arc de triumphe, my basement, florida beach house, the golden gate bridge, music experience museum seattle, sheridan) I like it because it reflects all the trips I've been on over the years :) I do love me some traveling
This is the final I did, 8x13 on 10x15 illustration board in gouache

Color Theory-
Finished the DAMNED motifs. Turned them in today
Also got assigned this "fridge" assignment, which I adapted to my pantry. We were to mix swatches according to the items in our fridge. Mine sucked, but I still got 8.2 out of 10 on it...which apparently in Canada is an A? WTF mate. (its messy, I know, I glued everything down an hour before class)
In class today we did our first still life (finally, REAL painting!) It was dreadfully boring, as it was all white objects. The only thing that bothers me about this is how unstraight everything is...she forbids us from sketching it out with pencil first. It's all in paint. (this is SLIGHTLY bent over in the picture though, I'm not that crappy at it) I kind of felt crappy about this work, but whenever she came over she never had anything to say (and trust me, she always has something to say) At the end of class she looked at it for a minute and asked "have you painted before?" I told her I took a class (well I did....two years ago) and she said something about how it worked and blah blah blah. I think that means it was good??

Drawing Systems-
More perspective. This is the toy I'm designing out of shapes in 2 point perspective. It's going to be a race car :D
Some shapes in 1 point
Aaaaand in 2 point.

So that's what I've been up to.
I keep seeing all this crazy cool work online, and it really makes me want to break out and just get really creative, some time really soon.
Reading week is in two weeks. As for right now, I'm just staying here, maybe driving to Michigan one day to get my noodles and company fix, or maybe around upstate New York to see the fall colors, but mostly I'll be doing homework (we are supposed to get assigned extra work over the break) and hopefully portfolio work, and some fun stuff (that still contributes to my portfolio). You know, comics, illustrations, and the like. That'd be good.

Recent Thoughts

2010-10-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

So here are some drawerings, from recent extra classes. This model was friggin AMAZING. Totally hilarious. The first thing he does when he arrives is go up to the black board and where it says "our model today is:" he writes "some guy"

All kinds of props. Also gave me free food. Win :D

In Lieu of my new residence, I found his pose very patriotic
Same model as the first week again tonight. Not as good this time, must've been tired. Can't blame her.

The more I look at this one, the more I like it

I've just been doing some thinking today. I thought I'd write about it a bit.
First of all, its reaaally nice to look down at my work and not want to rip my guts out in sheer agony. I finally feel like I understand what the hell I'm doing. I'm not the worst at this, and I'm no longer embarrassed to try and be an animation student. Hell, sometimes I want to KEEP looking at my work for a moment after the model changes pose. It feels good, I guess, to have some confidence in myself.
And that goes for other aspects of my life too. It was only recently people started regularly pointing out how nice I look sometimes, or how much they enjoy my company, and damn, I mean, its just so great. :) I didn't know you could ever feel this good about yourself. And even though sometimes I still get down, it's not as hard to get back up again and tear myself out of the cycle. I feel like this really fuels my work as well. When I get depressed, I become completely non-functional, and I've spent a lot of the past 4 years that way. So now I can finally sit down and BE productive, I can do the work I've been wanting to for ages.

On another note, I find myself stuck in a bit of a predicament.
Even though I feel as if my work is really coming along (going to figure drawing 12 hours a week really helps...I already have as much work from the past month as I did collectively over the fall/winter of last year!) I still look at accepted Calarts portfolios and feel as if there is no way I can do that. It's all so out there, so experimental. I sit down, and I just want to draw the energy, the structure, the movement of the pose. Thinking about medium and style and how I can make it "special" is just so hard. I tried doing that last year, it failed me! I like this a lot better. And after all, thats what they want in the animation industry anyways. Why should I try to go out on weird-ass limbs, when I feel like I learn a hell of a lot more sticking to what I know? So I'm not sure what to do, what direction to go in. I can't wait for NPD, so I can hopefully sit down with a rep and talk to them about it. Hopefully they'll tell me something different this year, something useful. Not just "This is a good start. You're headed in the right direction." Oh yea, real helpful.
Speaking of portfolio work, Sheridan's portfolio is so comprehensive. I forgot about the whole thing. There's so much to work on. I can't believe I crammed it all into what? A week or two last year? There are so many things I don't know how to do!
I also need to start thinking about personal artwork. I forgot about doing that kind of stuff completely until today. I guess I find classwork satisfying enough as it is. Forget my own self expression! So I need to start doing that, this blog is nothing but classwork right now, which is so boring! IB art feels like a hundred million years ago...
Actually, everything from a year ago feels like a hundred million years ago. The first time I stepped into a figure drawing class feels like the beginning of TIME itself! All the drawing sessions I held in my own backyard, trips to the zoo, even the studio 132 nights feel like ancient history. Getting into art school has been such a PROCESS. And I'm not even in yet. I am dying for the day where I don't have to stress about it. One day, when my concern will be finding a job. That'll be fun. At least I won't be paying for that.
I'm glad it's all working out for me, finally. I was so anxious about this year, and it's not so bad. I mean, I'm not in my dream school YET, but even if I don't get in, I feel so satisfied doing just any kind of art right now, it doesn't matter. It'll work out, somehow. Truth be told, I'd just love to be part of some television/movie production process. Shit, it doesn't even have to be animation, I just love it all so much. But really, all of this, this is so much better than the way it was. There's only one point of unfinished business left, a piece of history that's been dangling over my head, plaguing my thoughts for years. Once I get that out of the way, I think things will suddenly become a lot better.

Anyway, here's a list, because I love making them, of things to work on:
-Faces
-Caricatures
-Character design
-Hands
-Filling up sketchbook
-Gestures
-"Finished" pieces
-Storyboards or comics or something
-Original artwork pieces and such

Awesomeness, all around

2010-10-03T16:06:00.000-07:00

HOKAY! Lots to share from the past week.
On monday, I had 3D design. We began our foam cor sculptures. Here's mine, above, which I finished up this weekend. It was a pain in the ass. I don't think I'll do very well on it. But good news? I actually got As on both the plasticine and wire portion. Wow, wasn't expecting it.
After 3D was life drawing! Woo. Here are the warm up gestures we did

She made us do this one with our non-dominate hand. She said it would be the best gesture we'll do all day...I do like it a bit
After warm ups, we did a contour exercise, where we construct the entire figure with ovoid shapes. It looks super lumpy x)
Then we began on the next assignment, which was a continous line drawing, focusing on the entire room, not just the model. I'm not exactly sure what this assignment is supposed to teach us, she put a lot of importance on having foreground, middle ground, and background?
Also, this model got a boner in class? o.O weird...I didn't see it from the side though
Our homework assignment was a hand exercise. We are supposed to draw some 5-6 hand sketches, pick one, and construct the bones underneath. This is my big hand, you can kinda see the bone drawing below it
And here are the bones...this assignment was tough because she didn't talk about it at all. Maybe it's not actually due yet? She's vague sometimes, she'll say a million things in class so you forget the important stuff, like what we're actually supposed to do
Here are my sketches
After that I stayed for extra!

My friend Mike said he liked these....Now, Mike is probably the most talented guy in class, so I like sitting next to him to see what he does and such, and occassionally, when he's not feeling like an asshole, he'll help you :) I didn't really like these, I dunno what he sees in em

On Tuesday, I did some sketching in my sketchbook in the cafeteria. I need to do this more often, my sketchbook is empty empty empty and that deadline is racing toward me. Yikes. Gotta get to the zoo sometime too
I had imaging systems on tuesday as well. We started perspective. This is what I did all class (bad pic, my apologies). It was super boring, and god, I hate making those ellipses.
Tuesday I didn't go to extra, I went to yoga instead! Ahhh it was so nice.
Wednesday was color theory. We did more motif work, after giving my presentation on process color (which went fairly well). This week was the complementary and analogous color schemes. I worked all day today to finish them. I like my analogous one a lot (I hope I did it right though) My complementary....not so much. It's messy, the colors are kind of off. Maybe I'll redo it. But each one of these takes about 4 hours, so thats a lot of extra effort on my part. We'll see what she says next class.
Wednesday extra life yet again!

On thursday, no class. But I did start doing some head studies from Burn Hogarth. I suck at faces, I'm trying to take steps at getting better at them.

Thursday afternoon I went with Christian (my new boyfriend....oh man thats so weird to say!) to Mississauga (yes, the famed Mississauga) We went to Chapters, as I'd never been. It's just like Borders, by the way. Then we went to Square One, this giant mall, and walked around a bit. After that I went to his condo, which has a stunning view on the 24th floor (24th! Buildings in Boulder don't get taller than 5!) The sunsets are beautiful there. But, we hung out so long I missed extra life. Never again! Although he finally did kiss me that night, so I guess it was worth it.
On Friday I went to 2D design. She handed back our last project, so here are pictures. Sorry the final picture sucks. I got one of the highest grades in class, mostly because my thumbnail work was well done (below) I guess the process is very important to her, which will teach good habits.

We are starting our next project, which is a rhythm in architecture design thing...we spent the whole class walking around campus and taking pictures. I haven't started any of the thumbnail work yet though.
Friday evening me and Christian and Tahini walked alllll the way to Lake Ontario from Sheridan. Its 2 miles each way! Bleh. But when we got there it was very pretty and nice out. We sat for awhile and then came back, right as it started to get super cold! Goodbye, summer. When we got back I warmed up and ate some food and called it a night.
Saturday I did some homework, then we all did some errands in my car for our international potluck. I cooked Beanie weenies (american), Chris and Bryce made poutine (Canadian), Amy make perogies (not really sure haha), and Tahini made chicken curry (well, thai curry. it was supposed to be chicken curry). We didn't sit down to eat until 10 because it took so long, but it was soooooo good. I ate a lot. Kind of a weird mash up of food though. After that, some of my classmates (Curtis, Pat, and Jake) came over, as they had just moved into an apartment across the street. We went to their apartment and had some crazy conversations on the floor, since they don't have any furniture yet. It was...an interesting night?
Today was all homework, actually, just color theory homework so far. Gonna start my 2D work after some dinner and maybe a shower and then go to bed for my long day tomorrow.
I don't even feel like I'm in school. It's just like...awesomeness. All around.

Time is Flying

2010-09-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-09-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-09-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

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. :(

Busybusy

2010-09-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

so...yesterday I had english. It was easy and made me feel smart. Then I had 3d design. The teacher, kirsten abrahamson, breezed over the course outline and got us started on the first project right away, which was a simple sculpture no large than 10 inches tall. We have to use platiscine, which never dries, and have 3-5 objects, with 3 repeating objects and 3 textures. We had til the end of class, so about 2 hours. This was really stressful for me, because I've never taken a sculpture class in my life. Some of my classmates made some AMAZING stuff during the time we had. I made....well, what you see above. Not so amazing. I tried to model it after Boulder, since I really didn't know what else to do. But yea....sculpture is going to be hard. We'll be making this out of wire and foam core in the next few weeks. So at least it's simple....

After that I had drawing, with Brenda McCrank. She spent awhile talking about the class, blah blah blah, I kind of didn't listen very hard. Then we did a blind contour of the model. Mine is silly, its all in the same spot. I didn't mean to draw so small.

Then she taught us about how to find the center point of our paper, and divide it into quadrants, so we can get our proportions and placement better. This is the exercise she had us do...we had to place the hands, feet, and head as ovals on the paper where they should go. I actually had a lot of trouble with this, mostly because we did it in conte. I've decided I don't really like conte or charcoal at all. I think I am allergic to conte as well....bleh.
After that, we had to do a negative space exercise. That was interesting. We only had 10 minutes, so I didn't finish...It's a little off too, but not bad for my first try.
Finally, we got to a 5 minute sketch. My first real male model! He was old, it was cool.
After class, I stayed in the room for extra life drawing, which is free as long as you can get a spot. A different model came in. We did some 1 minute, 2 minute, 5 minute, and 10 minute poses, along with a 20 minute pose at the end. I didn't label them so I can't remember which is which, but here's some of the best stuff from last night.

the one above is actually one of my favorites...I think it was 2 minutes.
I am surprised at how much easier it is for me to draw clean, non-hairy lines when I use waxy pencils, such as colored pencils. I don't know how it happens or what makes it different, but I really like them.

I spent most of the time just trying to get proportions and anatomy down and such. I'm not feeling ready to experiment with new mediums or styles, I feel like it will mess up my work. But I know I should. My drawings are good (for now), but they're not interesting enough to get me into calarts I think...

I almost left before the last pose, but I'm glad I didn't, because it came out rather well.

Today I had drawing systems. We started our milk carton project (I bought a correctly sized milk carton minutes before class...a smart move. plus it was delicious!) I was kind of nervous at first, and cautiously put a few lines down not really knowing what I was doing, but soon it enough it became easy. Next week we'll be drawing it isometrically....so I guess that means with perspective? The scale is 1:1 in case you were wondering.
Anyway, yea, I think I am going to try to go to extra life once more this week. That 13 hour day was tiring, but it felt sooooo good. The extra life session made me feel just so much happier. I like being proactive about my future, and it also reassured me that I haven't forgotten everything I learned about figure drawing over the summer.