Ups and Downs

So, I've kind of gotten the feeling that until my post yesterday, everyone thought that I was having the time of my life at college. That everything was wonderful and life couldn't be better. Well, as you could tell from my last post, it isn't like that all the time. I don't usually like to be a downer so I usually try to make everything sound better than it is. Like everything in life, school has its ups and downs. Thankfully, at least for now, there are usually more ups than downs.

I am working on a post full of pictures from school, but as I was putting it together I found myself dwelling a bit too much on the bad surrounding one class than I wanted to. So, instead of bringing that post down, I thought I'd make a separate post about it, so that the other post can just be positive.

The bad this semester has diminished significantly since dropping the drawing class, but I still have a class that I am not having the greatest time with. I actually really like the class, it's very interesting, it's just there are things about it, that are very frustrating.

First of all, there is no book. You get no information other than what you copy down for notes. I hate trying to pay attention and write things down at the same time. I get the feeling that I'm missing half the information, trying to focus on two things at once.

The next thing is how the daily grades are given. Most of them come from an online quiz, which you have about a day-long window to do, so if you have to work, and you forget to do it, you're out of luck. There are no second chances.

The biggest problem with the class, is that the tests are completely essay, No True/False, no Multiple Choice, and you are not allowed to use notes. I was shocked that I got a C on my first test. I was expecting an F. I had an absolutely awful time with it. If I could have used my notes, I would have breezed right through it. I like writing, but I am terrible at remembering dates, names, and other trivial things without something to jog my memory.

I hate to say all this about the class, because I actually like it a lot. I've learned so many interesting things from it, it just that it is going to be practically impossible to get a good grade in it. Good for me anyway. I'm sure whatever I get there will be people who would see it as a good grade, but I am used to getting all A's and B's. In this class I'll feel lucky if I end up with a C.

But other than this class, right now everything else is pretty good. Even in the hardest of the other classes I think I'll probably get B's, and I think I'll be ok with that. A's would be awesome, but these classes are a lot harder than the ones I've had in the past, so I think I'll be ok with B's.

One thing I neglected to mention in my last post, another great thing that happened, was that I found out that one of the requirements in a Journalism degree is to take a statistics class. Not just a math class, a statistics class. Which I have already taken! I was ecstatic (On the inside) when I realized I would not have to take that again. I am now SO glad I took that awful class last year!

So that's all my negative news for now. I'll try to be more positive from now on. :)

A New Direction

Today I have a pretty big announcement. It's probably bigger than "Pretty Big" actually. It's kind of huge.

I am changing my major. Actually, I have changed my major. It's pretty much a done deal now.

It all started a few weeks ago in Drawing class. I have been having a terrible time there. It's not that I didn't understand anything. I understood everything. I know absolutely everything they were teaching. It was all extremely basic stuff. I've been doing this for years. The problem is having enough time to get what you know to come out in your drawings. The goal of the class is to produce realistic drawings, and I have never been good at that without spending a LOT of extra time on them. Time I do not have, and that was where the problem started.

In the class we are required to draw from still lifes (Lives?) that the teacher has set up. These constructions are made of a bunch of random junk. A dented rusty tin can next to a box with a wine bottle and a vase on it, beside a large wooden stool, topped with a large metal tub, with tiny clay pots hanging off, surrounded by all manor of rusty teapots, old liquor bottles, a baby's sippy cup, a tipped over wine glass, and who knows what else. The drawings are interesting, I suppose, but they are not fun. I was not enjoying trying to draw this mess.

What made the class so unbearable, was the teacher's insistence on EXACT accuracy. Without the use of rulers. We had to draw by sight only. Maybe if I had had lessons of this kind as a kid it might be easier now, but I'm 27, and I've been doing it "The wrong way" all my life. It's going to take a very long time to "Unlearn" everything I already knew. Not that that's impossible. It's not impossible at all. What IS impossible, is the insistence that we only draw that one still life for class. Nothing else would be acceptable for grading, and we only have around 6 hours of class time each week.

The teacher told us that we would need to spend, at the very least, six hours outside of class drawing. That would have been fine if I could have drawn in my spare time. The problem was, I could not draw whenever I had time, I had to draw, at school, in that room, and only when there weren't other classes there. In order to finish our projects, it was an absolute necessity to come back at night and on the weekends to draw when there were no classes taking place. I don't know what fantasy land the teacher lives in, but some of us have jobs. Not everyone is getting their way paid through school by their parents. There was absolutely no way that I would be able to complete the projects by the deadlines and have them look good.

I thought my teacher would be understanding if I simply explained my situation, but she was not. She actually told me that I should just drop the class. (A class which is a foundational requirement for any of the design programs.) As tempting as it is, I'm not trying to paint her as a witch. I'm just saying that she just could have been a little more understanding about things. Part of the problem lies in why she was teaching. She's actually probably around the same age as I am. She's a graduate student there herself, and in order to graduate, she is required to teach some classes. I suspect that she is just "Doing her time," and doesn't really want to be a teacher at all.

Initially I was determined to stick it out. I don't like quitting anything, and I needed that class in order to move on in school. But as the semester wore on, it was getting harder, and I felt like I was falling behind. The deadlines kept getting shorter, and the still lifes became more complicated. Finally after a particularly tough day, I started considering dropping the class. But then, if I did drop it, what would I do? I could pick it up again in another semester and hope for a better teacher, but there's still the issue of how much time I'd need to spend drawing. Unless I found a Fairy Godmother who would give me all the money I'd need to pay bills etc, I couldn't make that big of a time commitment. Because even if I only spent six extra hours drawing, that hasn't even begun to factor in the time I would spend waiting for the other class to get out so I could use the room, not to mention the time spent waiting for, and riding on, the bus. That alone is at least one extra hour total each day. There really is no way to pass this class unless you don't have a job, or are already extremely talented.

So I started thinking about other options and suddenly it hit me. Writing. I love to write. I love writing just as much as I love art, but until that day I had never even considered it as a career possibility. When I went to ITT Tech I had no goal, other than the fact that I knew I liked art, and I thought that graphic design was a surefire way to get a job. *Derivative Laugh* It led nowhere.

After three years of dead-end jobs, I decided I wanted a career I could love. I hated hating my job. I wanted to learn art. I loved art, and I wanted art-related opportunities that I wouldn't get in the middle of nowhere Iowa. So I decided to go back to school. I've never given anything else a thought, because I've always loved art, and I wanted to be an artist.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I love both art and writing, but I really feel like I am a better writer than I am an artist. Most days when I would have other school work to do, all I would think about was how much I would rather be working on my blog. I really love writing, and unlike art, it comes pretty easily to me. I love art, but I really have to work at it, and sometimes that takes a lot of the fun out of it. Especially when you're not allowed to draw what you want. With writing, even when I'm writing about something that I don't necessarily enjoy, I can still get through it relatively easily.

With that in mind, I started thinking about how I could translate writing into a career. My only writing experience, other than school, is this blog. And on this blog, I do all sorts of different kinds of writing. When I first started, it was mainly about me. What I liked, what I was doing, your basic boring blog. In the last year or so though, I've really branched out into a lot more creative writing. With my "Real Stories" fairy tale series, and my Facebook Friends posts, among others. Given these facts I thought that maybe I should look into getting a degree in creative writing. But then again, I needed to be thinking about money. As much as I absolutely hate money, it is an unavoidable fact that I need it, and unless I somehow managed to get published, or gain fame in some other way, creative writing is probably not going to yield that many job opportunities.

I started to think of the other ways that people earn a living by writing, beyond just writing books. My first thought was journalism, and as soon as I had the thought, I knew that was it. Done. The decision was made instantly. It was perfect. I wanted to be a journalist. I love to travel, and I love to write about what I've seen. If I could get paid to do that, I'd be set.

After coming to that conclusion I started to get things moving with all the different departments at school, and as of a few days ago, I am now a journalism major. I don't know exactly where this will lead me, after all, newspapers are slowly dying off. Such a shame, as I do love the thought of having the same career as Clark Kent. :) I'm thinking I will probably look to something more along the lines of a magazine. Or, more likely, an online magazine. Part of the journalism degree includes photojournalism, and I think that if I could combine photography with writing, it would just be the icing on the cake.

What does all this mean for my long-wished-for career as an artist? Well, I am not going to completely give that up yet. No one ever said you could only be ONE thing when you grow up. I am still going to get a minor in Design, and I am actually almost there right now. With all the classes I took at Iowa Western, I only need two more to get the Minor, so I decided to just go for it. Thankfully the drawing classes I took at Iowa Western are enough and I don't need to take any more here. I won't have to worry about taking that terrible class! The main thing I'll need to do is take an upper level art history class. One other upper level class after that, and I'll have the minor. Not sure what I'll do with it, but I think it's useful to be able to say that you know how to do a variety of things.

So, that's where I am right now. I know writing probably seems like it should have been an obvious choice, since I write so much more than I draw, but for whatever reason, until a couple weeks ago, it had literally never once crossed my mind to pursue it as a career. Now that I am, I can't wait to see where it takes me!

So Busy

As most of you know, I went Chicago a month ago. I got tons of pictures, and I wrote plenty of notes in my journal to use for a whole bunch of blog posts. But I have not yet had time to do anything with them.

When I got back from Chicago I had less than a week to pack up my stuff and move to Ames for school. When I got to Ames I had to work at the grocery store I transferred to. Then I had to attend Destination Iowa State to get me oriented to the campus and to be able to find my way around. Then it was time for school.

All this week I have been so busy with school and work, that I barely have time for anything else. I think I'm busier than I ever have been in my entire life. Monday I have classes from 9 to 3. Wednesday it is 8 to 3. Friday it is just 9 to 11, but then I expect I will regularly have to work afterwards. Tuesday and Thursdays are my easiest days, with classes between 2 and 4:30. But none of these times are quite representative of how long my day is, because you need to add on about an hour before and after each day for bus riding times. Not to mention the fact that I could get scheduled for work after any one of these days.

For homework in three different classes I will be required to attend a number of plays, musical performances, movies, and other cultural events, and then write papers on them. For my drawing class I am supposed to be spending at least 6 hours OUTSIDE of class drawing, each week. For two classes I have to write journal entries at least twice a week on different topics, and all of this stuff has not yet taken into account all the reading I have to do.

In addition to all these school activities that I have to do, I went and joined three different student organizations. The bloggers club, the design club, and the ISU Theater group, as a set painter. Hopefully none of the times that these organizations meet will clash with any other time that I'm already busy.

So as you can see, that doesn't leave a whole lot of extra time, but I will do my best to keep up with this blog. I want to get a post done about Destination Iowa State first, and then I really need to get caught up on my blogging from my Chicago trip. It has already been a month since then! It hardly seems possible, but this month has just flown by. Tomorrow is Labor Day, so I don't have school, but I do have to work. I will try to get some writing done between now and then, and maybe I can get a post up in a day or two.

8 Sketches

In painting class we had a few side assignments where we were to sketch famous artworks. I tried to keep my selections very diverse, and I had a lot that probably no one had ever even thought to do.

My first one was part of the sculpture "Odyssey" Anyone from around Council Bluffs knows what this hideous eyesore is. I chose it because I wanted to be very different and sketch something I hated, rather that something I really liked.

The second one is Norman Rockwell's "The Connoisseur." At first I was looking for a Jackson Pollock painting, one, because it would be pretty easy to sketch what basically amounts to a scribble, and two, because at first my plan was to only sketch art that I didn't really like, or had some kind of a problem with. I don't dislike Pollock's work per se, I just have a problem with it being classified as fine art, and people shelling out massive amounts for it when they could do the same thing on their own. It just seems like a big scam or a joke to me. Anyway, I came across this Norman Rockwell painting of a man looking at a Pollock-like painting, and I decided to do that instead.

 Then since I deviated from my original plan to only do art I didn't like, I decided to just get different, and I decided to do a photo instead. This is one of my favorite photographs from the book, Creature, by Andrew Zuckerman.

The next sketch we were given a specific assignment for. We went on a field trip to the Josselyn art museum, and we were to do a sketch on one of the pieces of art. Again I went in my own direction, and I sketched a decaying relic from the ancient Egyptian wing. It is supposed to be a hippo, but you really can't tell very well.

For the next one I went for something more normal, and tried to do one of the most famous paintings of all time. I don't think I did all that well...

For this one I also went for a more normal choice, Just because I felt like doing one of my all time favorite famous paintings. I love Van Gogh's "Starry Night". :)

Then it was back to being weird, and I chose to do Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Tomato Soup Can." I'll bet no one ever before or since, chose to sketch that as an assignment. :p

For the last sketch I wanted to do a sketch of a sketch, so I chose the Vitruvian Man. I decided to give it a censor bar just to be funny. :p I suppose I could have just drawn it correctly, but I'm pretty sure everyone already knows what's under there, and I was just in a goofy mood that day. :p

And with this post, I think that is the last of my artwork from my 4th semester. I did have one more assignment from Design 2, which I will post in a day or two, but I didn't make any new art for that project. Also, I will probably post more of my Beanie Baby pictures as well, since I still have a lot of them. Stay tuned! :)

Judges Comments

So I just discovered this half finished post in my drafts folder. I ended up completely forgetting to finish this this post, which I started months ago. It’s now the end of the year and I think it’s high time I finish it!

I started this post mainly to share what the judges had to say about each of my entries for the fair a few months ago. When contestants enter artwork and photographs in the fair the judges write down what they think of the pieces on index cards and staple them to the ribbons. Aside from sharing what they had to say, the other point of the post was to show how terrible some of the judges spelling was. Most of it was ok, but some was just downright awful. (They let these people pick the winners?!) I am leaving all the comments as they were written.

Let’s start by getting the worst comment out of the way. And by worst, I am referring to how it was written, not what was written. This was actually one of the most complementary comments I received, but it was enough to give an English teacher night terrors for the rest of their life.

First Place

“wew I made this kinda thing when I was in high school 40 years agoin

well balanced Design

love how colurs Blend”

It was very hard for me to transcribe that without editing… (Even now, as I proofread this post, I am having to restrain my fingers from correcting those horrible, horrible errors…)

The next one is my drawing.

No Award

“All very grey. Should be placed in “modern art” for its good abstraction. More texture on “berries”. Could repeat more shapes.”

The next two are my paintings.

No Award

“Very flat – Need more darks/lights for contrast… shadows would help! Cool that creature comes out of fire! – also dolphins coming out. – Maybe have a way to have the viewers eye to follow around – could use color/shape/pattern.”

Third Place

“Monochromatic – good to be all one color! Could use more definition of waves”

The last ten are my photographs.

The handwriting on all the photographs was almost unreadable. The writer used cursive, but wrote so fast that most of the letters looked exactly the same, and it took me a long time to figure out what they were trying to write, and then once I figured that out, I had to try to figure out if they had spelled the word right. For the most part I think they were a pretty good speller, they just wrote WAY too fast. There were a few words that I was completely stumped by, so for those I marked them with an asterisk. * If you see one it means I could not figure out the word because the handwriting was just way too bad.

Third Place

“Very Creative”

No Award

“Excellent capture of colors and action Ideally however should watch eyeess* in back ground (peoples backs) Focus is good.”

No Award

“Good color choice for mat. Interest center good, but would be better if pic was vertical and worms eye view of pole not so much over Wey* altui* spole* that distracts from pic.”

Third Place

“Good Color and composition bee careful to not center horizon line.”

No Award

“Good color butterfly is just not quite as focused as it could bee.”

No Award

“Interesting composition just not quite as clear as should be.”

Third Place

“Unique structural design Excellent clarity”

Second Place

“Unique subject, very clear – unfortunately the pink mat distracts from your subject”

I mounted this on a pink mat to complement the picture. A friend who helped me mat this (Who does this professionally) recommended it. This was a very picky judge…

Third Place

“Striking color, very clear focus, just wish you had more of the bird especially the body. – feather detail is very clear”

The entire point of this photo was the tail feathers. NOT the bird. Obviously the judge couldn’t figure that out…

First Place

“Excellant action and colors very clear”

So, there you have them. A few months late, but better late than never, right? :)

The moral of the story is, take what you will from the judge’s criticism, but in the end they really have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to your personal artistic interpretation. If I want to take a picture of a bird’s tail, I’m not going to include the whole bird, no matter how much better the judge thinks it will make the picture.

Oh, and the other moral is, LEARN TO SPELL!!!

I’m in a Music Video!

Well, maybe not me exactly, but I bet that got your attention. :p Allow me to explain. First watch this video. Or rather, listen to this song, as the video really isn’t anything more than lyrics running on the screen.

I love Parry Gripp’s songs. They always crack me up. :D “Baby Monkey (Going Backwards on a Pig)” is just one hilarious example. :p After he released this song he announced on Facebook that he was looking for drawings to use in his next music video for Slushy the Slushball. He’s done this before, you might recall my brief obsession with Space Unicorn. :p I didn’t make my Space Unicorn drawing until after he’d made that video, but this time I decided I’d submit a drawing. If you watched the Space Unicorn video you could tell he used everything he was sent, so I was pretty sure I could get a drawing in there. Here is what I drew. (As long as you listened to the song, the picture makes perfect sense.) :)

 

I know, super simple. But I did it that way on purpose. I wanted to test out my developing Photoshop skills. Here is the after.

I submitted it and today the video was released. Check out the third drawing! :D

This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me! :D Well, probably not really. But I am excited to have one of my drawings in a Parry Gripp music video. :)

Now that I’ve gone back and reread my Space Unicorn post, I realized I still need to make a big piece of art. It never progressed beyond that drawing. My obsession died soon after I wrote that post. :p Maybe I will use Photoshop and see what I can make out of that drawing. I'm sure I still have the original file somewhere… Stay tuned, I may just do that. :p

8 out of 14

First to get the bad news out of the way. 6 of my entries got nothing, including one that I was really surprised about. I was sure that the boy with the peacock would win something, but it didn’t!

Also my Giraffe painting, and my drawing from the abstracted collage. On reflection, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised about them. After all, I was up against many other really great artists, and I’ve never painted before.

The other photos that did not win were the bitten gingerbread man, (I’m not really surprised. I probably grossed out the judges. :p)

The telephone pole. They claimed it would be better if I had shot it at a worms eye view and held the camera vertically. Well, that wasn’t the point of the picture at all. The subject was the interesting metal numbers on the pole, not the pole itself, and shooting it at a worm’s eye view would not have gotten the landscape background.

And the butterfly, ladybug, and flower. They criticized it for the butterfly being slightly out of focus. I suppose their criticism is understandable, but I was using a macro lens, and when you’re that close to a subject, you can’t have everything in focus. The lens just doesn’t work that way.

Now for the good stuff. :)

I won 5 third place ribbons.

First for my painting of waves.

Considering I had never painted anything before I painted this, I think third place is pretty good. :)

For my photos, my picture of the inside of the Desert Dome got a third,

As did the flamingo tail. The judges note card criticized it for not including more of the bird. Um, that wasn’t the point of the picture at all. I was specifically focusing on the tail feathers. I have plenty of pictures of flamingos. Anyone can just snap a picture of a flamingo. That’s not what I was going for.

My sunset tree also got third, and they criticized it for having the horizon in the center. Wow. That is an antiquated rule that really needs to be done away with. To begin with this is not a landscape picture, and if I hadn’t centered the horizon, it would have cut off part of the tree, or some of the flaming shadow. I have versions like that, I took many pictures that evening. None of them looked as good as this one in my opinion. I am going to post the others on my photo blog now. Look for that later tonight.

My Leaf picture also got third.

I got one second place ribbon, my two birds. Their main criticism was my choice of mat color. I picked the pink on purpose because it brought out the pink in the parrot. But apparently the judge has something against the color pink.

Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: The blue ribbon winners!

First up I was SHOCKED that of all the things I entered, my carved printing press plate got a blue! I wasn’t expecting anything really. Maybe third at best, but it got blue!

And finally, one of my favorite pictures, the bull riding one, also won first place.

When I get my entries back next week, I will share what the judges had to say about all of them. I only remembered the comments that I absolutely disagreed on, so I’ll be able to share the others when I have the notes in front of me. They had good things to say about even the ones they didn’t award anything to, so it’s not like they’re a bunch of mean art haters. They just didn’t understand some of what I entered.

Entrance Day at the Fair

Today I entered my Photos at the fair, I also entered some of my artwork. Altogether I entered 14 items. 10 of those were the photographs that I recently posted about, But I also entered two paintings, a drawing, and the carved mat from my second printing press project. In case you’d like a reminder, or just want to see them again, here are the things I entered.

This one I’ve been planning on entering ever since I painted it. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve done. I put it in the “Other” category, under Mixed Media, because it just has so much in it that Landscape, Seascape, and Animal, don’t quite describe it well enough.

This drawing I hadn’t decided to enter until last week, I decided that even though I didn’t really like doing it when it was assigned to me, it did turn out really well. Plus I put a lot of work into it, so hopefully the judges will be able to tell that. I also put it into the “Other” category, under Pen, Pencil, and Charcoal, because it’s part landscape, part portrait, and part modern art, but just one of those categories isn’t enough to define it.

This was my printing press plate from THIS project. I entered it in the Hobby Craft Department under “Other Art” because I really didn’t know where else to enter it. It’s doubtful that they’ll have a separate category for “Carved Rubber Printing Press Plates” any time soon.

And last, but not least, the very first painting I ever did. I entered this in the Acrylics category under “Seascapes”.

I really hope I win something. I entered 14 items, so I think the odds of me bringing home at least one ribbon are pretty good. :) Tomorrow is the judging. Mom is talking about going in in the morning to watch. Not sure if we will yet or not, but by tomorrow night I’ll know how my entries did. I’ll keep you posted!

Outa Space!

It’s Final time! Bleah. XP
But Finals aren’t so bad in art class. For this last project we were to do a piece of art of anything we wanted, as long as we used a variety of both wet and dry media.
To begin with, we had to make six sketches of ideas for the final project. I knew in advance that I wanted to do a space scene, but I did the sketches anyway, and just drew a bunch of Outer-Space-Type-Stuff.

To start the project I used a paint roller and completely covered a sheet of paper with black and purple paint. Mostly black, but I wanted a little purple to make it a bit more interesting. I decided to make a nebula as the background and that I would do it as a print,

I used a lot of paint so I used a large sheet of paper to take off some of the excess, and then I used red and brown directly on the print to do the next nebula layer, and took off the excess with the same paper.

Then I proceeded with the rest of the painting.

After the painting had dried, I took it home to use pencils and colored pencils to add a little more detail. I also used a white out pen to make the stars rounder, and seem like they were glowing.

And that’s the final painting! Monday is our last class, so as soon as I get my artwork back, I will have a better picture of this painting, as well as many more prints that I made over the course of the last semester, that I have yet to post.