part tue- 6:30- 9:20 pm

this was due for class today, we started it on tuesday. we did rubbings with charcoal of texture we found around the classroom/halls of our building. then we found a picture in the newspaper we wanted to work with. mine was of girls in the miss america pageant, i think, in the 1950s? the actual picture is up there, in three parts: the girl in the bottom left corner, girl on the runway on the right corner, and then two girls half-way up on the right side. there was also an announcer man in a tux, speaking into a microphone, and with his hand pointing up.

anyways. we were supposed to do 4 studies of the image. so the sketch of the girl at the top left is one of those studies. and then the bottom part that fades from yellow orange red to blue was another study. that one i just did a blind contour of part of the drawing, and then later, cut that part out and colored it. some of the orange part is actually the pointing man. haha. um, so yeah, we used the studies, if we wanted, and then did collage. mine ended up being really collagey, but i like it.

i feel like the top right corner is still a little jumbled. i was looking through some collage papers i had and a magazine and kept finding things related to dresses, and so i just went with it. it was fun to do, i'm not really sure if it's what the teacher wanted us to do (sometimes i feel like she isn't clear), but i at least feel like it's almost to where i'm happy with it. i feel like some parts of it work well, and others might need something different.

(ps: i hate our camera..everythings fuzzy!!)

tues- thurs 6:30- 9:20 pm

here's a few things i've done in my drawing class recently. i've liked this class and also sort of hated it.

this is what we did tonight in class, and i think the process was really fun, i want to try it again sometime. first we listened to music and painted with watercolors, just thinking about color, shape, and the mood/energy of the music. this was to instrumental violin and other stuff, not classical, but classical-ish instruments. i had fun making the paint drip. ha.

then our teacher put up a slide of this weird guy who was holding up an animal skull thing with horns, as if it were a mask, and behind him there was another man in a dark blue plaid shirt leaning on a station wagon, which had the trunk open. so we drew from that slide, but all the lights were off, so we couldn't really see our papers, and so i mainly just did semi-blind contour. then she changed slides, but we kept drawing on the same paper. this one had two parked cars on a road/side of the road, and it was snowy, and one man was standing between them, and then the car on the right had it's side door open, and you could just see someones feet, like they were getting out of the car or something. this one also had a treeline off in the distance.

after a while, the lights were turned back on, and then we just changed things how ever we wanted, but sort of with the goal of clarifying the image. i'd drawn with charcoal so i made some area darker, like the shadow, and just started deciding what areas needed chalk or ink wash. in the top right corner is a section from a magazine, i'm not sure i'll use it, i just tacked it down to see what it would look like. the magazine seems really shiney compaired to everything else.

anyways, this project was really interesting to make, and it would be fun to try it again on my own, with different music and old family slides (we have a couple hundred from my grandparents...) i love blind contour drawing because it has a freeness to it. and you can see in the drawings where definite decisions were made (like to change direction in a line, or something) but yet it has this distortedness to it. i love the right hand of the skull guy.

this drawing is so different from anything else i've ever made, but i really like it. also for some reason it makes me think of my friend mick, or art he would make, so i'll have to show it to him and see if he likes it. this picture is due next tuesday, so i'll work on it a little more, but i think for the most part i like it. yay! drawing can be fun sometimes. i have so much homework for this class in these last few weeks though.

spring

yay, i registered for spring term today and it was easy cuz i knew what to register for this time!

i have to take another drawing class, so i'm taking that, and it's not an evening class (yay!) and is early enough that i could go to women's group (yay!)... though i'll have to figure out transportation.
i hope i'll have my liscense by april, but i've actually not driven for two weeks, so i don't know when i'll get to practice. i really need to work on parking. and maybe read the book again, cuz i think i did 2 years ago. but, even if i have my liscense there's no way i'll be driving downtown and paying for parking every day for school.. hmm. and i'll have my big portfolio. art locker? hmmm... we'll see.

i think after this class i can start taking some printmaking? there's a list of other classes i have to take too, but this one seems to be a prereq. for a lot of them, so i'll just take it. "alternative drawing" yeah... not sure what that means, but it makes me think of alternative rock. i haven't hated my drawing class this term, but it has been a lot of work, and i did hate that it was a night class and made my schedule really annoying. i feel like the teacher doesn't always communicate well what she actually wants us to do.

also, i need one more junior year requirement for psu general requirements. so i know some people say rock and roll history is hard/weird, but i'm going to take it because i've loved the jazz history class, and my friend is going to take that one too, and i really know nothing about 60s music, or anything else... it does say it's writing intensive, so i wonder what that exactly means. like a paper every week? i guess i could probably do that. ha.

then.... i Really want to take french. i'm not sure if i'll really minor in it, but i'd like to take more french, at least 3rd year or something. i mean, i think i do want to minor in it, but i'm not sure what it takes to do that. i took the little online test that tells you what level to take, and it said i was good for 301, but i guessed on half the questions, and i know that i'm really out of practice, so i signed up for 203, because if i wait til next fall and take 301, i'll probably have forgotten even more. eep. (PS: i do have tickets for france during spring break! finally! and i barely remember french verbs..)

like the run-on sentances?? hehe. yeah, spring term i'll need to find a job! hmm. so at least my schedule is way more open for that! yay! but this term did end up being more homework than i thought. so it has been really nice not to have a job because i don't know if i could have done it all.

i'm excited for our concert, and i practiced for a bit last night, and i did well, and had remembered stuff that i'd just learned a few days ago. basically i'm learning to play my songs in an easy but great way so that i won't be worrying about chord changes as much while i'm trying to remember the lyrics. and abbi and i practiced on saturday and it was the best time we've ever practiced. we didn't get frustrated with each other, and we got through the songs and said "let's do that again!" so it felt like a real band practice. hahaha. so i hope we'll be able to practice together more soon.

les carte-postales

for zion's b-day.

just a few post cards that i've sent to some friends. i think it's funny that there are tri-met post cards in the first place, and that a bunch of them ended up at scrap and so i bought a couple.

scribbles and diagrams

alissa and i were talking about hourly comics, and so i tried to make a comic on the bus home from school a week ago or so, hahaha.

this is probably at least a year old. it's sort of diagraming the abbi valentine song.

this one todd drew most of. it's also from a long time ago. and it's for the number 44 song. i think it's really funny.

belated...

they weren't actually belated.. haha.

this one is in french, norwegian, spanish and japanese.

i'm not sure if the french is right on that one..

49th

i drew my closet. i think it's a fair likeness.

hehe. blogging is fun. this is my 49th post. woo. (i thought it was 50.. and got excited. haha)

i finished a pair of socks for brianne! finally!
and she finished the Norway video! yay!

LAKE

this is jason's cat.

this is lake. the show was amazing. and i got a cassette and a 7" (ashley and eli) that are both very good. and they played with the online romance, who wore white jeans, light blue shirts, blue socks, no shoes, and white neck kerchiefs. haha. i got their 7" too, and i love it. having "hey abraham" on vinyl just makes life better.

let's just say the show was very inspiring, and i'm going to sit down and work on practicing my songs because i want to play shows with them, and it's amazing that they want to play with me. who would have thought?! yay. hopefully i can do that this afternoon.
but i have to go study for a midterm now, cuz it's at 2pm. and have breakfast, things like that.

lately

hey, sledding?? (this was under a tree, so there was more snow in other places)

we (my sister, dad, and i- there were some neighbors, too) got about 2 pretty good times down the hill, and half a dozen not so good times. and i managed to jam my finger while getting a running start on the sled and it's all bruised and cracked a bit. and it hurts still. hmmmm.

these gloves are crazy. and also were really fun to make.

before and after sizes of a bag/purse i felted this weekend. the green one is the "after" size. and the blue one is how big you have to knit it originally. wet wool smells weird, and my cat is always really interested.

so my face isn't quite right, (faces are hard!!) but i got really into the soundwave/cat/casio part of it. and i think i Finally know how to draw braids right. i mean, i braid my hair almost every day, but draw braids? but i think after doing like 12 self portraits in the last weeks, i've got it down better. (ps: the flash made it look all weird..)

this is Minna kitty, all snuggley. cats are great!

mix it up!

my first mix for the mix exchange. it was so much fun to make! i used a stencil i'd made for one of my other paintings, and then hand colored the tape with colored pencil

i love these songs! i can't believe i handwrote 15 copies of this. it almost drove me crazy.

here are the backs, with hearts of course..

and it gave alissa and me a great reason to hang out at the post office on a saturday and giggle a lot about sending mail! (she took this picture!)
so far i've gotten 4 cds in the mail and i still need to listen to one i got this week. this is so much fun. and perfect for me because i love making mixes. yay.