Alternative writings

We had to make a poster based on a certain design style for my graphic design class for an event in Los Angeles. I chose the Great Train Escape for our local NaNo region and art nouveau style because I like making things difficult for myself.

It's supposed to be 11 x 17.

( homework )

I'm proud of it.

The Fool was hand drawn, scanned in and colored in photoshop.
The "great train escape" was hand drawn in photoshop and it nearly killed me.
The lemur was drawn over a photo of a lemur.

I'm taking an animal drawing class over the summer. We have go out to the LA zoo abut once a week for class and live animal drawing. It's really kind of cool.

Today was our first class at the zoo and we were doing primates. We went over to the orangutans first (hello Librarian). It's a nice exhibit area and they have this one place where there's a glass (probably actually plexiglass, but whatever) window and a ledge where the orangutans can get right up close to you. Just the window in the way. A few of them were in a hut doing nice poses so we set up "camp" there and started drawing.

They noticed us.

They came over to us.

And they posed for us.

They knew what we were doing and they'd sit very still in the same position and watch us. For two hours we did this.

The big male seemed to be having the best time of it. He just sat there and watched us. And watched us. And watched us.

The zoo keepers were amazed at the behavior saying that the orangs don't usually hang out that long.

One of the students in my class was painting the orangs. It caught the eye of one of them and she spent a good deal of time watching him paint.Apparently that one also likes to paint when given the chance. She knew what he was doing.

They told us to show them the pictures on occasion so they could see what we were doing. They actually looked like they were studying the drawings.

It was really, really, cool.

There wasn't even a half a foot between us and them.

I'll scan in the pictures I did later. Once I get the motivation to clear all the crap that's accumulated on top of my scanner.

I do exist! I realize I haven’t been updating much at all, but nothing really has been happening and I’ve just felt sort of dead.

It’s Passover now and going nicely so far. We had a good Seder last night, just the four of us. During the reading of the section about the Jews being slaves in Egypt there was a line about how the Egyptians set upon the Jews cruel taskmasters and yet they still multiplied exceedingly. A short discussion ensued about how could inflicting suffering make it so you wouldn’t multiply as much. My dad suggested that they were all accountants and they were multiplying mathematically as opposed to people wise.

That sort of ended that discussion.

During the afikomen hunt, my dad got all giggly. He really likes hiding the afikomen and watching my brother and I search for it. His rules are it’s hidden so you don’t have to move anything to see it. Admittedly you may not have to move anything to see it, but it’s just a tiny sliver showing so you still kinda have to move things to see it. This year it was under a dustpan on top of some binders. I lifted up the dustpan to peek into the binders and there it was. The most frustrating year was the time he planned ahead. There was a space between the stove and this small, wooden cubbyhole thing. He taped a clothespin onto the side of the cubbyhole and then stuck the afikomen in the clothespin. It was basically defying gravity.

BUT I didn’t have to move anything to see it. So it was technically still legal.

There was no Passover Coke anywhere this year because apparently there was something wrong in the formula to make it kosher for Passover according to California law and so the stores couldn’t carry it. The kosher store we went to was the only one we found that had the soda because they probably got it out of state. But you can’t find it in the supermarkets anywhere. Which is sad. I like Passover coke! Coke Cola says they’ll have it fixed and ready for next year. Huzzah!

I’ve started using Illustrator in the graphic design class. Vector art is frustrating. ALL THE PIECES. And making sure they fit and then making sure they stay together. O_o We had to trace a cartoon character using the pen tool; I did Rainbow Dash, because I’m awesome like that. But ohmigawd all the curves! I should have gone with Batman Beyond. Less curves has he.

Still jobish hunting. We contacted a place that helps disabled people find jobs. They said I was the highest functioning person they've had, but they're still going to try and help me. So here's hoping.

Hey look! Fishies!

Hee.

So, yeah. This is my first photoshop drawing I've ever done. I realize the table is floating, but then again there are two fish outside of the bowl, so I don't think that should be too much of a problem.

And yes, that one fish up in the top left may in fact be on its last fins. :O

The assignment was to 'copy' a picture of a fishbowl and the fish to learn how to do certain things and brushes. It's a lot to take in but I think I did okay.

The assignment was to do four 'frames' going through the Getty Center. We took a field trip there. The first frame had to be an outside view of the Getty Building from one particular point. The second frame was a landscape view from one of the terraces. The third was an interior shot with the painting in frame four visible. And then we had to choose a painting to copy.


( Final Project )

I have been irritatingly productive the past two days.

Yesterday I got my car smog checked, did all my laundry, washed the pile of dishes, took out the trash, took a walk, got my homework done and did 4,000 words for NaNo.

Today, I balanced my checkbook, put in a new shelving unit thingy in my closet and rearranged it, cleaned off my art desk and regular desk and have yet to start my NaNo writing but I'm sure I'll be writing fantastically. I have this weird sort of bubbling energy in me. I don't know where to put it.

In the mean time: Book covers!

For my graphic design class. The assignment was to draw a book cover with a close up and with at least two people standing. I figured why not do covers for the books I've written/am writing? Easy enough right?

( two book covers )

Meanwhile the cat is yowling at me to feed him because he doesn't understand the concept of Daylight Savings time.

More graphic design stuff!

The first four of these are just circles, cylinders, ellipses and cones over and over and over again. That was what the assignment was. :|

( CIRCLES, CYLINDERS! ELLIPSES! CONES! )

These are the exercises from the perspective class. The Free Sketch took me FOREVER. Cat loves it. plenty of crumpled balls of paper to chase around.


( drawings below )

Next up. Cubes. Which are different than boxes.

Guh.

Honestly, I have no idea what I was thinking when I did this beyond sentences that ended in :D :D :D which is, I can tell you, never a good thing when it comes to my head.





The picture I did of Alec as an Air Pirate got put on the board as an Example of good color use. Last week she hung up one of mine too. So that's a good thing. NOW onto perspective. Which gives me a headache. BOOOXES. Or cubes really.

This is probably me just being, I don't know, old or set in my ways or maybe just out of touch with Modern Day Practices, but some of the students in my class are really irking me. They don't do anything wrong, persay, in how they do their homework or anything like that but it's what they do with their camera phones.

After the teacher's written up notes they go up to the notes and take pictures of them. They can't be bothered to write the notes down by hand. They just go up to the board and take a picture.

To me, that's just lazy. Is it so hard to write down the notes? Especially since some of the things they were taking pictures of was something they needed to write out anyway for a homework assignment.

What's worse is that the teacher explicitly said at the beginning of the semester DO NOT DO THIS. There were a few students who kept on looking at her guiltily while her back was turned as they took their pictures.

I actually said that a student was being lazy out loud to one of them and he got a sort of sheepish look and slunk back to his desk. But then I saw him writing out the notes.

Does this anger make me bitchy or something?