public transportation

I learned how to take the bus.

I learned how to take BART.

The best part is sketching all the people. <3

don't fall in love with resin

Sorry that I've been ignoring all you readers I don't have. But hey! Recently, I smashed a clock and poured in resin to keep the shards looking shattered in the clock. =)

Using resin was kind of thrilling for me, since it's super toxic and it's how Eva Hesse (<3 <3 <3) died. My sculpture teacher was like, "PLEASE DON'T FALL IN LOVE WITH RESIN...it's not a material to fall in love with." Hahahahaaa...

I really miss having classes during break. I miss the rooms and the instructors and the students and the time structuredness and being artistically exhausted by three-hour critiques. Critiques are kind of painful to sit through, but I get to find out (hopefully) what to improve on.

So far, at CCA, my favorite class has been every class at different points in time. This semester, I took:

2-D Color Translations: Sydney Cohen
Sculpture 1: Terri Friedman
3-D Hand Production: Mie Preckler
Life Drawing: Elizabeth Sher
Intro to Modern Arts: Celeste Connor

I'm not going to even think about talking about the classes a lot until I graduateeeee. =)

Next semester, I have:

Illustration 1- Barron Storey (=DDDDDDD)
Illustration Tools A1: Digital Tools-John Hersey
Introduction to Printmaking: Gregory Piatt
4-D Action and Interaction: Chris Sollars
Contemporary Native American Art-Tressa Berman

Yay four studio classes watch me die!!! =)

I get to take the lovely shuttle to SF for 4 of 5 classes....including the six hours of digital tools.

For a while I wasn't sure if CCA was the right school for me, but when I think about it, most of my favorite contemporary illustrators are CCA alumni. I think. I hope Illustration 1 is AMAZING. I hear it is and I really really really hope it's more intense than core classes. And the students are super excited about their own work. =)

Now...I need to go write that MOMA paper due tomorrow at 1:40 in the afternoon. yay Monet! (it rhymes!) and Lichtenstein (doesn't rhyme in case you didn't notice)...

stuff to keep in mind

http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/979706728/what-advice-would-you-give-to-a-graphic-design-student

random stuff

In ten days...

I will be in college. woaahhhh. Even if majoring in Illustration forces me to spend lots of time on the computer, I still promise that I'm going to paint/sketch my fingers off my hand.

Learning About Spray Paint

Yesterday, I sprayed my eye with petroleum-based, black spray paint while trying to put on the cap. I'm okay, but that was really stupid.

A Giant Octopus

MMkay...so. This morning I tried out spray paint for the first time! I had red, black, and gold. Because I thought they would be good basic practicing colors, but the gold was weird. Metallic, but it looks kind of like a shiny white...O_O

My mom decided to let me spray paint-ify the yellow fences (heck yeah, built in highlights!) around our backyard, since I don't live in a city and there's no public place to practice. I wonder where other people practice. Or if they practice at all. Hmmm...well...something to think about.

At first, I tried doing this model's face, but proportioning was difficult and the whole right side of her face was full of random sketchy marks. It like an ink spill, because guess what? it was. So I took a chance with my subject choosing skills and decided to paint a giant red octopus attacking her face. =D

I drew each tentacle one an a time. I wonder if it would have been more efficient to draw outline the whole thing in black first. I've never seen anyone do it, which would be really helpful. So I'm going to go on YouTube and wade through shaky visual and bad sound quality. I shaded with the black and red. And left the yellow of the fence for highlights. I want to continue working on my giant octopus, but I ran out of black.

A couple of times, I held the can the wrong way and covered my hands in red paint. Looked like BLOOOOOOD. =]

Note to self: the side with the little white thing is where the paint comes out.

Also, if there's a slight breeze going perpendicular to you, you might waste some paint, but the lovely toxic smells gets blown into your neighbors yard instead of hanging around your working area.

JOE DEH-MOH

On Monday, I started to learn how to use Illustrator. So many possibilities! Illustrator has the weirdest, awesomest tools ever.

And my Graphic Design teacher has great funny quotes, which as scrawled all over my sketchbook. Not only after my notes, but in the margins and between the holes where the spiral goes, and on the inside of the back cover. It's insane.

To my teacher, I probably look like a good student, taking lots of notes, but really I'm drawing his face, sketching people's feet, and writing down things like:

*Illustrator tools*
"pucker, bloat, pucker...the person who made this must have been on drugs..."

"Dr. Suess on steroids..."

"where is everyone? Probably that heat wave we aren't having..."

*answering phone*
"hi. I'm teaching."

"This is not Dr. Phil. This is fill."

"in Illustrator, you can blow something up to billboard size and there's no fuzzy!"

"okay? okay? Anyone awake? Good morning."

"press esc....from no man's land"

"weird stuff tools...it's like when you got to the mall and get girly earrings. it's a girly earrings tool."

"funky stuff tool"

"keep puckering around, guys!"

*symbols*
"you can make sushi and Dr. Seuss-y kinds of images"

"see that meshy thing there?"

"imagine how much fun Picasso would have with this."

*editing a map of the US*
"I just gave you a tributary. it flooded."

"I moved a mountain."

*singing*
"Cry me a riverrrrrrrr...hey look mom, I moved Wyoming"

"the black arrow. bumbumbumbummmmm."

*additive color mixing*
"What happens when you add RGB? Come on! what do you see when you die?"
TA: "They haven't died yet."

"shut up. eat your spinach"

*trying to lecture over the HUGE computer screens in the room*
"where are my low water stilts?"

"in this class, we gonna do a lotta copyin' cuttin' and pastin'.

"I have electric bunnies now---green bunnies! blue bunnies! Oh!"

"you guys are like molasses running up a hill!"

*singing*
"happiness is goodness and goodness is everywhereeeeee"

*points to himself*
"Stupid when I was young."

"which came first? the chicken or the egg? you choose!"
*explaining different methods of changing values on Photoshop*

*narrating our thoughts*
"Yes, Joe. We're with you. We wanna go home have slushies!*

*using the scale tool*
"Look mom, my tree is growing bigger and bigger!"

"pigs can fly."

"Look mom! I'm making layers!"

"Just gonna spray on my field of flowers..."

*about Illustrator*
"it's like Peter Pan. A bit of stardust and you can play for dayssssss!"

"pentagon. sexagon. oh, hexagon."

*paths and such*
"the biter tool"

"it took a star bite. it's like Christmas. The grinch stole the star."

*narrating our thoughts*
"what the hell are you going so fast for, Joe?"

*rotating tool*
"now my birds are dive bombing"

"can you see me behind this box of nightmares?"

"I'll call this file...Joe Demo. Like JOE DEH-MOH. it rhymes."

=)