disclaimer: depressing

I was thinking, which is dangerous for me to do. But I think before my life is over, the US will fall.

We're like the big tough guy in the fight who has the size and the brute strength to win. But radical Islam is the little guy who will win the fight because he believes he can and will.

Know what I think our biggest problem is?

We have no one left to believe in.

:(

I've been so busy with everything at school - and everything else - that I haven't had much time to keep up on my blogging. Classes are going pretty good, but I've got so much to do it's hard to keep up with the spare parts of life. My extra time I've spent restocking my Neopets store. It's becoming one of those de-stressers like cleaning that's just monotonous and mind-numbing. Like cleaning, it has a greater good. There's the obvious benefits of cleaning. And my Neo bank account is up to over 400k, which it's never been.

Maybe when I'm not pulling my hair out, I'll look into redecorating the upstairs room that started this whole thing. If you didn't know, I tore it all out and sold most of it except the few bits I thought might come in handy some time. I'm planning on doing something more sensible with it than building a bar. We'll see. I think the business market is cornered anyway. Maybe I'll have a nice attic to store junk in. Everyone needs a junk attic.

Much love, squishes, hugs, and sproinks. I'm really sorry I haven't had much time to come out and play. :( I miss you guys.


(Noooooo, I didn't draw him. I stole him from a google image search. My art class can't work miracles.)

Graphically Undesigned

Intro to Graphic Design.
Beginning Drawing.
Photography.

Lines.
Colors.
Backgrounds.
Shapes.
Texture.

Aaaaaa!



Drawing: This is not an ear. This is a sweeping line. It is darker at this end, lighter at that end and it intersects with this shadow right here.

Photography: This is an ear. Get rid of everything else. It's clutter. Background schmackground.

Design: This is an ear. It's made up of lines and shapes and colors. It has a texture and mass. There are color values in it. All these color values mean things. It's a pinkish tan.. which means.. we haven't learned what this means yet. This ear is attached to a head which we can't see. We can see the hair, however. The hair is blonde and whispy. This implies the individual attached to the ear is carefree and light-hearted. Behind this hair that's attached to this person whose ear we're looking at is an ocean scene. This ocean scene is made up of a sandy texture on the bottom. This sandy texture is earthy tan. Earthy tan implies stability, naturalness, something organic, something wholesome. The sand is a darker value, which contrasts with the lighter foreground. This gives the background a slightly darker visual mass. The foreground is a lighter visual mass. What's the overall visual mass? The ocean is a light value of azure and above it is a light blue sky. The sky has a pattern of white puffy clouds. This gives the impression of trustworthiness, dependability, classic(ness?), loyalty, freedom, cleanliness, refinement, purity, an air of refreshment and truth. This whole picture of the ear, the hair, the ocean, the clouds, the sand and the little bottle of beer that's sticking out of the cooler is all printed on heavy weight paper. Thus, the advertisement has a heavy physical mass, but a relatively light visual mass.

See? Aaaaaa!


So yeah. I had my first introduction to Graphic Design yesterday. My head is still spinning, even though I've had two classes since then. Next week? Lines: an in-depth look. Thank God I only have this class once a week.





Power to the woman holding the pen!!

She da man.


(And notice she's cast in a red light, wearing red, her chair is red, her office is red. This ad is just screaming with red - power! vitality! energy! excitement! passion! confidence! Doesn't she make you want to take action and buy a Uni-Ball pen?

Yeah, me neither.)










This one makes you think though, doesn't it?









So first order of Graphic Design business: put together a folder of advertisements - brochures, fliers, magazine advertisements, newspaper ads, business cards, logos, letterheads, labels and packaging, book jackets, anything that advertises something.

We're going to spend a lot of our out-of-class assignments organizing these ads into categories according to their features.

These categories will be things such as: Lines, Shapes, Mass, Textures, and Colors

Here are just a few I'm going to use (of the ones I found online, most are hard print).

Awww, a soap box.








Shapes and g-r-e-e-n.......















B&W and scienc-y.......






















Tell me you're not cracking up at this one?
Well? Aren't you?
















I hate golf, but I like the colors and the lines in this.









This one simply because it had some easy shapes in it and I was having a hard time finding shapes. Maybe I'll find more and get rid of this one because I don't really like it. Although including not-so-good advertising is also part of the project.










And one of my favorites - doesn't it just scream to you the audience it's aimed at?

B&W Friday

I have a few spare minutes so I thought I would put some B&W's up. Some of these I took on Friday, some of them I took a few months ago.

Here's a fern I shot for a depth of field portfolio I was putting together a while ago.

And a doorstop for my still life portfolio.

Measuring cups/spoons for a reflection thing I'm working on.

Another still life.

And another.

A B&W of a little place that's right across from City Hall.

A B&W of part of City Hall.

A puddle reflection.

Part of the Center for the Performing Arts.


And the coolest place ever - Alum Rock Park.

First day of class

Beginning drawing, beginning photography and pilates. Well, pilates is still to come and after today I'm going to need it. I had to take a PE and I figured I might as well sign up for something that's going to help me calm down after panic sets in during every class (or at least every drawing class). Photography was really simple even though we covered a lot today. It was sort of like a nice, reassuring review. Beginning drawing on the other hand?

I'm going to fail this class. She promised me I wouldn't fail this class if I just tried everything. It was okay now that I think back on it. It was terrifying at the time. At the beginning, she made sure we all understood that a lot of us were NOT art majors and that she knew this. She knew we would never be artists and never wanted to be artists, but we have to take the class anyway. Mostly what she wants us to take away from the class at the end of the semester is how to look at things differently. How to go from using our "logical" mode that says, "This is an ear. Draw an ear. OMG my drawing doesn't look like an ear." to our artistic mode that tells us, "This is a line and this is a shape and it intersects with this shadow."

So after all that reassurance, I still think I'm going to fail, although my drawing of the piece of paper I crumpled up got considerably better after she stopped by to help me and give me some hints. I can't draw stick figures and this class really has me worried.







After I get some pictures of the stuff I did so you can laugh at it, I'll finish my blog for today. We drew a picture that was upside down so it was hard to tell what it was. That was supposed to keep our "logical" mode from kicking in and telling us what it was supposed to look like. Mine turned out okay but she looks like she's been in a car accident and has very short midget arms and one huge gargantuan thigh. Oh well. First attempt.










Next, we were instructed to crumple up a piece of paper and uncrumple it. Okay, now draw it. Pay attention to the lines and the shadows and shapes. Mine started out awful but the second half got better after she gave me some hints on how to use my pencil to shade better that "coloring in". :) *Oops* Well wtf do I know about art.








We got to trace next. Yay! Sort of yay. We traced the basic contour of a hand, then we were to shade it in by looking at the picture. Mine actually turned out okay. For me. It wasn't like some other peoples', but for me I was impressed. Drawing the contour of my own hand was a different story. She finally took pity on me and "helped" me by guiding my hand around my paper. She said I was starting to look like my eyes were going to fall out. She was right.

























The last thing we did was talk about negative space where we looked at a piece of paper with a chair drawn on it, then we drew the white parts and not the chair. That actually stopped my "logical" mode from telling me it was a chair. Instead, I sat there going, "That is the ugliest triangle I've ever seen in my life."



The one thing that really stuck in my head from my first class in drawing is.... Did you know your eye is the same width as your nose is long? I had to go home and try it and she was right. It really is. Huh!




Photography came next after lunch and it was much less exasperating. We talked about shutter, aperture and film speed. Wide angles and zooms. Oh, if you're looking for a free Photo Editor, he gave us a good one. It's called The Gimp (General Image Manipulation Program) and you can get it at: http://www.photonhead.com/photo-editing/thegimp.php

Anyway, back to it. We talked about the differences between good pictures and great pictures, what our eyes go to first when looking at a picture and why, how we can get rid of clutter that takes away from the picture, and why we should consider using people in our pictures (yuck). We talked about color, layout, creating depth, good dramatic lighting and bad dramatic lighting, shot preparation, and what times of day present what types of light and what each type of light is best for. Right before the end of class, we started talking about different subjects to shoot and how to take the best pictures of each of them.

Our first assignment is to find several pictures we like, and describe why it is we like them.

Keep checking back because I'm going to take some pictures of my really scary drawings so you can laugh at them with me. And trust me, I'm laughing.

*mwah*
<3