Brandywine Trip, Spielberg, and Missing Friends

By God it's cold. There was one short day of wonderful weather, and it's been freezing since. Random snow, and even though I do enjoy looking out the window and imagining ash is raining down on Pompeii, I am wishing for some warmer weather. Heating costs a lot, and my apartment building is skimpy in that area. So is Jason now that he found out how much the heating bill was.

Been some time since I updated. 18 credits is a lot to juggle and try to have a social life at the same time. Jason and I are back together, since early January. I have doubts and hopes at the same time, and I tend to experience extreme highs and lows in this relationship. We shall see. So far I've been able to handle the school work with only some slight losses (skimping on my Ethics homework, sorry Achtermann, the art classes tend to take more precedence then Kant or Plato). I'm the only one I know that still has 18 credits, and it's kinda daunting that everyone else is dropping a class. I'm not the best at time management, and work's hours have been cut, but once they pick up I may have more of a problem.

On Tuesday my History of Illustration class went to the Brandywine River Museum. Saw some great stuff, and some things that didn't really interest me, though they were like the best of American illustration. Saw a Nancy Ekholm Burkert piece, of the evil stepmother having created the poison apple. It was watercolor and colored inks and I loved it, I want to try out the technique. Example of her work, but not as detailed as the piece I saw:



Trisha made an improvised bento boxes for herself, me, and Christine (Christine drove us, thus we were able to go). They were nom nom indeed, though my onigiri tended to fall apart while I was eating it. We went to McDonalds and Christine and I bought Shamrock shakes to go with the bento. :D


I bought an Edward Gorey book in the gift shop, and I'm savoring it. :x I may have found a new artist to add to my favorites, who I learned about today, Paul Klee. My favorite piece of his is called "The Twittering Machine" thus far. The simpleness but creepiness explains my interest there. :P

Art wise I haven't been very good at scanning or photographing much. But I did have to scan in a project for Alternative Illustration to put it on the school's server, and now I can show it here:



Yay Steven Spielberg. He's part of two projects of mine, so I've been drawing him a lot, and have various watercolor paintings of him. I should get around to putting them on here. This is a collage, using ripped up magazines, acrylic paint, and pen, and printouts of info on movies he did. There's about 10 hidden images in his shirt and coat and glasses, but it's very hard to see here, but ah well.

I'm going through bouts of lonely-ness, considering my best friend since high school is currently in Budapest, and is a horrible e-mail correspondent. I've also just managed to lose a friend, over reasons I'm not entirely clear on. There seems to be a habit of people coming into my life, establishing themselves as people who are planning on sticking around, of being there for me, and then they leave, either physically or just never talking to me again. I'm sick of this occuring but can't ever seem to stop it from happening even though I take precautions. :/ I've written to my friend, apologizing for what I can, and asking questions. I knew it was possible he wouldn't respond and said I'd leave him alone if if he didn't. He hasn't so far, and I fear that he'll never talk to me again. Not sure that there's anything else I can do except accept that the friendship is over. Meh. Still have hope.

I'm currently at Jason's and he and Chris are giggling over a Ghosthunters episode. Been missing most of the show, since I needed to update this. Guess I'll tune in now, since somehow I managed to get the homework done for tomorrow all ready. Yay cable I can not afford.

Oh yeah. Should say I didn't fail my portfolio review. Got chewed up pretty well, and some of my favorite pieces apparently suck according to some teachers, but hey. Can't please everyone. :/ Right?

Robby the Robot is Fun to Paint

Been awhile since I posted...figured I should, what with the possibility of being booted out of art school and all. Okay, that's not entirely true, but all the Jr.s had to submit a portfolio to be judged. The fine artists had to have a crit, with things said directly to them about their work. Illustration majors don't get that. We just drop them off and listen to the rumors and stress out until we come back from break (the 9th of January). That's a long time to stress about being riped to shreds under the guise of a helpful critique. I'm not saying most of us don't need a kick in the pants to really hanker down and care about our art, but I'm just not looking forward to 6 of my best and favorite pieces being deemed as trash.

One of the things we're hearing is that we are all terrible editors. None of us picked our best pieces and some of us put in too many (6-8, but some of the 2 there apparently sucked and dragged down the whole portfolio). Um. I only submitted 6. What does that mean for me? Probably nothing good, that's what. And those were my best. If I have to resubmit a portfolio I don't know what I can show...those are my best, I didn't not include anything. So I'm screwed. Oh, except for one watercolor painting, which wasn't finished in time to put in the portfolio:


It was the final for my illustration class, the genre being 1940s Sci-Fi. (weird flash on this photo, btw) I grew up with these movies (so I didn't need extensive research and re-watching of these films in the limited time we were given to do this painting combined with all the other classes that a certain teacher seems to think doesn't exist, take that Fowler!) Sorry. The man irritates me extensively.

I told myself I wasn't going to think about the portfolio review over break, but what with the nightmares and all it's kinda hard. Anyway. On to other things. I'm getting 40 hours at work this week, yay. Today I have a day off and I have plans after 6:00 today, but for now I think I want to work on some of my unfinished watercolor pieces (some featured in one of my previous blogs). Like the Frodo one. Hm. More coffee and I think I'll get on that...

Oh yeah! Saw the Golden Compass. Not sure what to think. It was pretty and all the actors seemed to fit. I thought the girl who played Lyra did wonderfully. But the script for the movie seems to be making all the characters black or white...but really a lot of them are a mix of good and evil. Like Lord Asriel. They ended the movie before you could see a major character twist. He's not a good guy, he just happens to be on the "good" side in the pursuit of knowledge...But it's his obsession, he'll do anything to achieve his goal...and they ended it before we get to see the fate of Roger. Which makes me wonder if they're just not going to make the characters have any real depth, besides Ms Coulter and Lyra. Like the Master of Jordan College. They didn't have him being the one to try and poison Asriel, because he's one the "good guys". Well that just makes it kinda boring doesn't it? The world is full of gray, and especially in a movie based on such a controversial book series about sin and free will, you'd think the characters wouldn't be so plain. I just hope the next one follows the book just as much, but includes the depth and meaning.