new semester -- fall 2010

into my third week of fall semester.  beginning painting I (of II), and personal mythology.  I'll give you a guess on which is my favourite.

really love my mythos class.  I'm focusing on my family.  ...which really means me.  ;^p

BUT I used it as an excuse to sign up on ancestry.com... love it.  I've easily spent over fifteen hours on it in the last two or three days.   found a line to king arthur!  (through campbell, starting with my great⁷ grandmother ...though there are some discrepancies.)

anyway, I'm attempting to mythologize my family.  my dad's a twin.  my mom died when I was youngish.    time, memory, legacy, and identity are interesting & important issues to me.

it also relates to my "I'm in an existential crises, why aren't you?" joke.  which also involves evolution  ...as a species, as a planet, as a[n(?)] universe, and as a family on a macro & micro scale.  everything seems against you in terms of the probability of your existence, yet you're alive.

SO I'm trying to tie that into some kind of a narrative based on my family.   or something.

but I need to do some physical art.

it's just been theory and research so far.  I'm also reading books on iconology, subpersonalities, and incest.

also a memoir.



as for painting I:  I'm painting a still life in four monochromatic scales.  before that, we did ten small quick black&white studies of single objects.

I need to get more ultramarine blue.  and flo-aid.

the starkest difficulty is in learning to paint in an impressionist oil-painting kind of way.  holding the brush at length, lots of paint, quick strokes.  I'm used to a watercolourish method.  still fast and gestural, but less paint. though that is kind of an issue of mine..... conserving/hoarding/rationing.  at least it was in the past, I've gotten better with it.
...in art, and life.

fear is nobody's friend for long.

(though I think part of my preference for watercolour, and less paint, can also be tied to my appreciation of minute details in the mixtures & textures of colour & line.  but that's me focusing on small things. zooming in. and that relates to my interest in 'found compositions' and depth perception. (primarily with photography))

BUT ANYWAY..... I need to make sure my mannerisms don't become academicized.    <--though that's a fear of influence.  hmph.



oh, and I got a B & B+ in drawing & design, respectively.   though I feel my quality decreased over time.  at least in terms of input energy.   and that's another issue.

yay art.

day 6 (before classes): a homework & an activity...

ugh. tired.

partial homework

desk

drew and drew

me

more art (not-for-school)

...and my dad got married the weekend before last.

her name is betty.  she's a nurse.  they live in pearland.

they're very happy.

as am I.

day 1: SUPER tired.

home again, home again, jiggity jig.

classes were fine. just overview. normal first day stuff. I apparently don't have many art supplies for 'drawing'. some design homework for wednesday---20 thumbnail-sized, close-up 'line drawings' from observation-not imagination.

ANYWAY, summerfest was yesterday AND the day before (Girltalk was best!)... and I have to go to work overnight in a few hours... I'm so very tired... and drew keeps threatening to eat my shoes unless I take him for a w-a-l-k. siiiiiiigh, brb. ...okay, I'm back. it's humid and grey out.

so it's 4 o-clock... I could take a two-and-a-half-hour nap. ...but I'll have to set every alarm in my conapt just to make sure I wake up (there are 3). at least I can do my homework tonight at work. tomorrow I'll check my supplies, and get new things I 'need'. AND tomorrow evening is the el rincon social crit class!

okay, I'm gonna nap.

ps - complete fail on finishing ANY of my 3 paintings. LAME. I'll have to make a post about motivation & procrastination soon. ha.

completed paintings + studio & hood + new illustrations

Stuff I already finished this year, plus some compositions of my place and neighborhood, and some brand new drawings.  yay art.

...and I totally have not painted at all these past few days. so, 3 paintings in 8 days? DOABLE!

Goal: 3 paintings in 12 days.

Classes start in twelve days.  I want to finish the last three of my recent paintings.

...and after one session...

...so yeah.  yay art.

It doesn't look like much, but it's a step.  There's more grey & brown (payne's gray+titanium+cad red light) on the flower & the forest.  And I shaped up the the ny skyline w/ grey+cerulean+prussian blue+gold yellow... used two different brushes too (a cut round & a filbert).

Yay Glassell

I signed up for Drawing Fundamentals & 2D Design @ the Glassell... !!!!!  yay art, yay artist.  step 1 complete.
                   ...classes start June 7th.   4 weeks away.


I've also signed up for the criticism class at El Rincon Social... !!!!!  yay julia/tessa/patrick!

                    ...and THAT starts on the 8th.



I'm excited to FINALLY start moving forward with my art into a public sphere.  I've been drawing and painting off and on since I started college (ten years ago!), and it'll be nice to get some peer review AND physical classes.  I haven't been in a classroom environment for art in... seven years?  I just can't seem to stay motivated unless I have a big pressure... a deadline... so, yay school.  yay pressure.

the two classes cost 840$...
the crit class cost 100$...
(we'll see which one pays off more)


One of the ulterior motives of taking these courses, is to get into the Glassell's CORE artist residency program.  But I need to take the paintings classes... to evolve as an artist and painter and stuff... duh.