violet? what happened to purple?

What a bummer. Went all the way in for the evening Comic Club meeting only for it to be Jim, Taylor and I. Then fifteen minutes in a class came in and consumed our classroom (no class is supposed to be in that room at the time). We moved to the Foundation room (for general Foundation people usage) and that lasted less before a group came in. Taylor took off and me and Jim hung about. We tried to listen to the lecture but the woman was really stale so we went to the library and arbitrarily flipped through magazines and chatted. At about 8 we parted ways. It was starting to mist as I came back, no so bad but not so great.

I just finished watched Y Tu Mama Tambien. A lot better than I expected it to be (I was just watching it for that scene). A good portrayal about the power of friendships. I really liked the narration that would pop up and explain the back story/future story of events surrounding them. Not for everybody, but gosh Gael Garcia Bernal is bee-yoo-tee-full.

Digital Tools was spent with more piecing together a scene in photoshop. I like mine but it seems, I dunno...not the best way to learn photoshop. I'm just sort of learning one little aspect of it. I'll see how it goes.

Drawing was spent in part drawing textures and the other part doing crosshatch on a paper bag. I didn't get my bag finished but I am very proud of what I have accomplished.

I didn't get my bag finished because I had my review with Arvie. He complimented my work and liked the confidence in my lines. We also chatted about what to expect in his painting class. He suggested I play around with acrylics and get instructed on how to build a canvas stretcher. Thingie. Yeah. When it comes to building, I had to call the man.

Dad said to figure out what type of wood I would need and the lengths and types of the materials and he would help me make them when I visit home. He is awesome like that.

Also I didn't get my bag finished because lunch(and part of class) was spent taking the math exemption exam. Some stuff I was absolutely clueless on but I did have a good knack for the things Robertson taught me. Overall I think I am right around the point for passing. I tried everything and did lots of work.

Swung by Trader Joe's to get snacks for the Comic Club meeting. Rode home, switched my pants as I had forgot to put a bag on my seat and my toosh was wet. Then I went back to school to work on my color wheel. Got it all finished with some minor neatness issues (darn glue). Will have to put in some time Saturday or Sunday to finish up the value scale. Dang nabbit. Oh well.

Off to Seattle tomorrow morning. Bright and early.

color. bikes. comics. yoga. sleep.

Got my add/drop papers in, I'm on for printmaking! Yeah!

My color wheel is all cut out and ready to assemble into awesomeness. Need to cut out and make my value scale still...and paint my saturation one.

Went to a bike saftey lecture during lunch. Learned the districts where you can't ride on the sidewalks (I normally don't, but when traffic is heavy sometimes I do) and learned how much the fees are for sailing through stop signs (I don't do this either).

I'm a little stuck on my Time Arts comic. It is hard for me to think small, but I don't really have to. I can expand it out for my final project if I want. Into comics so much but this is tricky tricky.

Yoga was intense. The downward facing dog is really killing me.

the ol' switcharoo

House was pretty goog tonight. Kal Penn is the resident difibulator, bwaahaha! Loved that part. Then watched an episode of Spaced with Sean. I'm going to try to get a good early bed time tonight. So then maybe, maybe I will be totally on time tomorrow. I have paperwork to turn in anyway.

Digital Tools was spent part in critique. Mine was the second last to be reviewed and it went over pretty well. It was the anagulous one. Got some props about the range of color choices but the background was trying to pop forward a little more. Then we looked up clip art to piece together into a photoshop collage. Lotsa fun. I drifted off during one of his photoshop lectures but I think I know what Gordon is talking about so it's all good.

We took a field trip to some galleries in Drawing class. Looked at more Chuck Close prints and art by Robt A. Nelson. Both were phenomenal, though the PAM Chuck Close exhibit is more magnificent and on a larger scale. Course you couldn't buy anything at PAM either. Then we went back and messed around with acrylics creating texture. The texture paintings went into the second part and we hung them on the wall. I don't know quite the point but oh well. It was fun. I got acrylic on my jacket (it is white, the one I got at Goodwill) and I washed it in the sink and the blues faded pretty good. White just gets so dirty, bah!

For lunch I went to Yo's cart and got some curry. I ran into one of the MFA's, Nicole, and we ended up hanging out and chatting all through lunch. She's really sweet. The ping-pong tourney was delayed so now Craig has another week to prepare against Carlos and Yo.

After Drawing I met with Martin French, my Illustration advisor. We went over my schedule and my sketchbook and he complimented my work with the figure both in different styles and trying from reality. He suggested I postpone the illustration studio class for the next fall semester and take an elective. I do agree that flip-flopping is not the way to go when I'm a junior. I'm still taking 3/5 required Illustration courses next semester. I filled out my add/drop form and so I am replacing Illustration Studio I: Conceptual Techniques with Beginning Printmaking: Intaglio & Lithograph. So I'm not taking another basic drawing class; which is what I really did not want to do.

I still am coming out ahead even though I am delaying my studio courses. I am taking art history now, when means I won't be taking it when I am a Sophomore/Junior. I am taking beginning painting now and then when I take the second beginning painting in Fall 08 I'm done with that portion. Oh wait, shoot. Just looked it up and there is one more intermediate painting class. But that is still something I have a jump on. Experiments in Drawing will be done before I even start the studios as is one of my other Illustration requirements. Essentially I am getting a semester head start in all my classes outside of the studio, and I am super far ahead in terms of electives so when it comes to my Junior and Senior years I can pay more attention the reason I am at art school and not have to bother with art history or electives. Of course this is assuming I don't fail/drop any classes. Which I (probably)won't. I'm awesome.

I was in Safeway when mum called. I made a (bad)joke about biking and talking on my cell to her at the same time. Yeah, she didn't take it well.

So my schedule is still tentative. I'll turn in the add/drop tomorrow and hopefully they will print out a schedule saying I got into everything. I don't have much worry, it is a small school and my largest class has about 20 people in it.

overload? maybe. We will see.

I'm not all that tired today. Sure I had some good yawns but no drifting off.

Review was pretty painless, the test. Uhh. Not so much, I totally spaced on two names but they sounded like architects so I wrote down they designed the Parthenon. Wrote a shpeal about how great showing body movement in sculpture is and tried my best at diagramming some Doric Order Columns. I think I got more of the time frames right than the last one. We'll see. I'll see, you'll scorn me.

Hand was aching and I moved on to gouache design. Did my blue gray scale and cut out the blocks.

Registration begins today so I did some running around during class (Sally let us) and got the schedule to look over and my registration sheet. I filled it out and during lunch I sat waiting for half an hour to speak to Pearl only to be told that I was a transfer so I wasn't going to speak to her (this was foundation ONLY) and I'll have to wait till the 20th(when I had made my appointment). I filled out my registration and turned it in anyway. I can always swap things around when I meet with her. Have a meeting with Martin French tomorrow; that should be fun. Bring in what I'm working on now and my sketchbook. I think he will let me into Illustration, I have the credits anyway.

As of right now, my schedule for Spring 2008 is:
Art History: Renaissance to WWII with Libby Farr (M 11-3)
Experiments in Drawing with Modou Dieng (TTh 8-10:45)
Illustration Studio I: Conceptual Techniques with Kurt Holloman (TTh 11-3)
Illustration Painting Techniques with Sally Cleveland (TTh 3:15-6)
Beginning Painting with Arvie Smith (F 11-5)

So four artsy working classes and one literary class. Jim and Diana will be in my Art History class, so that will be awesome. Might be a hard work load, I don't know. See what Pearl says of it in a week.

OH! And I also found out that an Illustration degree is half painting degree. FUN. I so do not want to spend time working on one work, I would rather to printmaking. So if I wanted to take Illustration/Printmaking I would have to switch my degree to General Fine Arts. Which I don't want; every kid is a GFA and has a BFA degree. I have some transfer credits which act as a nice elective buffer so I think I will pad my electives with Printmaking courses. There is a Graphic Novel class (taught by Daniel Duford) but that is for 300 level only. Something to look forward to in a years time. So yeah, taking me some painting next semester. But it is with Arvie and Arvie is pretty awesome and a talented painter.

Cut out and picked out my colors for my color wheel for class. Need to figure out a creative way to piece it together.

Time Arts was super fun. Critiqued our little one panel comics. Most people didn't get mine but it was super nerdy. There was a miss-hearing about if I knew what "Raw" was and I said no, thinking they were talking about something called "Ra". Rose took away some nerd points and then I figured out they were talking about Raw. She didn't formally reinstate my nerd points. Gotta do some brainstorming for my comic now, hmmn. Also need to look into Persepolis.

Wasn't raining when I went home, was when I went to school.

Prison Break has really lost my interest, maybe it would have it more if I could see it. Heroes was pretty good but same for lack of interest due to fuzzy reception.

holy insomnia, Batman!

Oh dear. I'm up late on a Sunday night. This will not do well for tomorrow. Expect "an Oh gee, I'm tired. Why Why Why did I stay up?" post.

I got up before noon so really I have no idea where the time went. Around 6:30 I sat down and drew my comic for Time Arts while watching Constantine. That took an hour. Moved onto drawing my own little piece. Lindsay's friend Ashley was over tonight and we all sat about drawing.

Took some time off from my own project and read the Scott McCloud stuff I have to read for Time Arts. Scott McCloud goes blah blah about how comics are not a recognized medium of art. I could excuse that if he wrote the book in like, the 70's or something. But he didn't. He wrote it in 2000. AFTER Watchmen, AFTER The Sandman, AFTER Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Frank Miller, Alan Moore and an endless list of talented people well and truly established that comics are art and literature. I don't think I like Scott McCloud. I'm not even sure if it is McCloud or Mcloud (could even be McLeod) but I don't care enough about him to look it up and see.

Then I returned to drawing and oh gee whiz it became 12:30 am.

Here is what I am working on (with no attention payed to composition):

Color Theory via Illustrator

Grayscale, Monochromatic, Complimentary, Anagulous, and My Choice: Black & White and Cross Complimentary/Anagulous


Color Theory expressed through Illustrator. For Digital Tools.

The color doesn't seem right, like they warped between being files on my desktop and being uploaded here. Also some of the images are not working for me, are they working for you?

Noontime edit: I removed the individual files as they didn't look right at all. Enjoy a compilation instead.

relax? bored.

I am taking this weekend off from any tasks. To sort myself out and to asses where I am right now and what needs to get done in the coming month. I got a meeting with Martin French on the 13th, registration meeting the 20th, math exemption exam the 15th, Seattle the 16th and going home for Thanksgiving the 21st. Got comics to draw and gouache to practice.

Slept in with Ibanez. Slacked around then got bored out of my mind and went to PNCA to JPG some of my Illustrator projects. Swung by the PNCA library and picked up some VHS and DVD's to entertain myself while I drew. Got a Chris Cunningham collection, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Pulp Fiction and Seven. They have a pretty great selection. Think I'll pick up Eraserhead and the David Lynch Shorts Collection next. They had Twin Peaks but it looks to be checked out now.

Started watching Seven and set up a sheet of Bristol for drawing. Copying a pose from Lippi's Madonna and Child with Angels. Well not so much copying as being inspired by. I'm quite pleased with the face and body overall. I'm putting the woman behind a desk in the image but I'm having problems putting her behind it. The drawing took me into a double feature with Pulp Fiction.

Now it is late but I'm not really tired but I think I will still try to get to sleep, even though I have only been awake 12 hours.

girl posse

Wow, 2am. Movie night went long and into extra innings.

Signed up for my testing-out-of-math exam. I hope all goes well with it. At least I am trying. Uhg. I really do NOT want to take math. Again. Bleeh.

I finished up all my cleaning with an hour to spare. I didn't sweep the main area because a guy was applying gesso to some massive canvases. It would have been rude to stir up dust onto his work. I killed my time chatting up Andy, Rebeca(not sure of the correct spelling) and Gavin. Work still puts me out of my mind with boredom. I kind of want to start looking for a job that will go somewhere but any job I take to earn actual money; those jobs would kill my weekend.

At home I composed a printable list of my lendable comics (mainly for Craig, Andy and Jon's borrowing purposes).

Made it back to school in record biking time. Missed the first of the animated shorts at art film night but it was something I had seen before. Some of the shorts were brilliantly constructed. Some were cheesy. There was a really great one about a chicken having an affair with a fish and the rooster found out. Most of it was conveyed with just the facial expressions. After the shorts were done most of the people cleared out leaving Me, Jack and Gavin to watch Primer.

Yeah. Watching Primer again I really still don't get it. I don't think I enjoy it enough to watch it more to try and figure it out.

Grabbed some more Pizza and bid farewell to Jack and Gavin and rode home through the night rain. I forgot to put the bag over my seat when I returned to PNCA for Art Film Night and my seat was soaked with water. My bum was sooo cold and damp when I got back.

Relaxed a little and Mel invited me over for movie night at her place. So I hung out and chatted with Mel, Cidney, Darya and Mollie. Some of them played chess. Then we went to Safeway. Then we watched Barack Obama on Jay Leno. Darya made delicious pasta for us(she rocks). Then we got around to watching a movie; Mallrats! The lines were not largely convincing but it still was cute. I knew I was getting tired as the movie progressed but I had no idea how late it really was.

Dream time now!

two eyes on the floor

Finished and printed out all my digital tools pieces with a minute to spare to get to drawing. I did two for the "my choice" part because I'm not sure either of the two would cut it on their own. I did one with just orange, yellow, green and blue and the other just solid black and white. The orange, yellow, green and blue one looks really snazzy. Might return to those colors for later artwork. I was working from the theory that you can fill in any map with five colors (or was it six?) and never have the same color touch itself. Okay sure with four there was some touching but as a whole it has a nice pop.

The substitute, Peter, he had us start with a 15 minute pose. I wasn't warmed up and my drawing looking terrible. We gradually sped up to two 10 minutes, two 5 and a 3 minute pose. I warmed up and definitely became more confident with the lines that I had to make within my time constraints.

Then it was lunch time! The meal at student council was magnificent. Noodles with meat and veggies. Mmm. Delicious. Stuffed my face and enjoyed having several people holler at me. Well not holler but they were like "hey Trillian!" and that's cool. I like getting attention for being awesome. The main point of the meeting was about how PNCA is trying to get a building to expand into. Might take a bike trip down to see the building Sunday (seeing as how I love my Sunday bike rides).

Returning to class we started with a 10 minute pose and then did two 30 minute poses. I was astonished about how confident and correct my lines were. I could just...draw the model. There wasn't the constant searching for what was correct. Something clicked. Now I wonder if Arvie's methods of starting fast for warm ups and slowing down might be screwing me up. Well. It is a little early to tell. Every drawing I get better.

I really need to start taking photographs of what I have been doing. This was supposed to be an art blog. Nearing the big 100th post and still no art.

Made a quick grocery pickup. Took a risk with riding with eggs. They all made it home uncracked.

Sean made buffalo burgers and we sat down and watched Day Watch. If I didn't know it was part of a trilogy (possible quadrilogy) I would be really pissed at the ending. The visuals hold up to the first movie and I like the continuing of the mythology of the Russian sci-fi it has created. The plot was a little strung out and it seemed like it didn't have enough to fill it (like the first one did). It is clearly a bridge between the first and the third.

It may just be the Daft Punk talking but I am really loving Stronger by Kanye West.

kick up and fall over

I figured when I finished my essay about how much I dislike Larry Rinder I would post but the essay took me up to midnight and I preferred to just sleep instead.

One would think that when I sleep in I get more time to be awake, make breakfast and get a good start on the day. Wednesday is actually my worst day for getting to school on time. I always manage to make it on time but I always cut it very very close. Today was the closest.

Had to figure out how to bring my paper to school; bristol isn't really known for bendability. Also my bike is making funny noises from the back tire. Next Wednesday I will bring it in to the free shop for repairs and a checkup.

Got to class all right, all I missed was the teacher telling us to clean the tables. She showed us how to use Gouache and for the next three hours of class Patrick complained about how he used up his entire tube of yellow and about the worthlessness of color wheels. We complained less about the cost of the darkroom overall than he did about the loss of $6 in that one class period. It is art school, a cheap art school, you will be buying supplies. Get over it. We made lots of little color gradient swatches and will be cutting them out and making a color wheel from the best of the bunch. I got through them pretty quickly but I'm not sure how good they are (I'm not familiar with gouache as a medium). At least I have room for error.

Lunchtime was comic club. We just got the fliers up yesterday and we had an amazing turnout. Pretty much doubled even though our Pizza's wee oddly tiny. Craig, Chelsea, Kristin, Jim, Taylor, Karen, Sean, Tabitha, Mel, Cidney, BT, Suki-Rose, and about 6 people I didn't know were there. Very awesome! We talked about plans for the zine (we are re-envisioning it under the unifying theme of "science" and it is no longer called Macho Adventures Battlerama), our plans for comics, ideas for the club, the upcoming new PNCA anthology and whatnot. I'm excited that it is getting off the ground. Sure it is starting late but it is awesome none the less.

Time Arts was mostly a quick critique of our videos. Some of the poetry ones were downright amazing and certainly better than some of the stuff I have been watching at Art Film Night. The animation videos were also very snazy. I felt my video lacked a continual soundtrack and was more random for the different segments. Should have utilized the loops in Garageband more. Oh well. We are moving on to graphic novels in Time Arts now so I'm very "booyah". We are doing a one panel gag comic for homework and I know exactly what I want to do.

Then came yoga. Even after being out of it for two weeks I was still able to do it and I am not as stiff today as I was after the last session. Some of the poses required more balance than I was capable of and I very nearly fell over. Our final challenge was handstands and I managed to get up twice (we were against the wall). I really need art strength. I had no idea yoga required so much of it; really intense bending there.

Skipped open life drawing and peddled home. Kicked back for a bit then went over to Mel's for cake and movie. Watched about an hour of Art School Confidential before remembering to write the essay. The stereotypes are so hardcore in Art School Confidential and thus far I have only met one kiss ass/blowhard. The rest I haven't found.

Finished my essay, four pages of ranting about how Larry Rinder's odd points of view, and crawled into bed. So glad I am not stiff right now.

stop! nap time

Enjoyed a killer nap this afternoon when I got back from class. Just crawled into bed when I got home and passed out for an hour. So good. Still recovering from odd recent lack of sleep. I exercise everyday and still I don't get enough sleep. Well, I can snooze till 9 tomorrow.

Finished my monochromatic and complimentary shapes projects for Digital Tools. Now I just have to do anagulous and one of my own choice. Should be done on time. Sweet.

We had a substitute in Drawing because Arvie is out sick. He looked a little like John Cusack/my old boss Mike. I was all ready to blog complaining about his first assignment but actually it went pretty well. It is understandable, I think, that when a teacher tells you to spend 45 minutes trying to draw a perfect circle that a person would be mighty peeved at what seems to be a rudimentary assignment. Also an impossible one as no one can really draw a perfect circle. We were reviewing them against a light blow up of a perfect circle and Daniel came sort of close actually. We only got through five circles compared to the blowup when the bulb burnt out and the substitute (I think his name was Peter) let out a swear. So we eyed all the rest of the circles. Kat wrote "perfect circle" on her circle. Har har. After lunch we drew the new installation. I had no energy for it so it did not turn out that well. The new installation is hella trippy. I wonder if I can grab a photo of it.

Biking home was hell. So tired.

After my nap I watched Chasing Amy. A little crude at times but I did enjoy it. A good little relationship flick about how if you don't listen you will totally miss the honesty within the person you love.

Then watched House with Sean. Great episode. But now I wanna snooze. Sleep in! Whoo!

ZZZ's times three

Oh boy, it is getting harder and harder to wake up for my Monday classes and to stay away through them all.

Art History had a small snafu with the projector (hey guess what, you know that warning about replacing a bulb that has been popping up for the past two weeks? They meant it) and there was some shuffling and we ended up in the computer lab. Took some good notes but then my eyes just closed...then opened and I had no idea what she was now talking about. Damn!

That lecture was followed by another lecture. This one about color theory. Sally gave us all Butterfingers (left over from Halloween) but even that sugar was not enough. I stayed awake but my focus was shot. Blah blah blah, color theory is so boring. At least our color wheel can be non-wheel.

Ate some of Yo's soup for lunch. YUM. Ate it all up.

Time Arts had my third lecture for the day; about the different kinds of microphones. We also watched La Jetée, which 12 Monkeys is based after. Very surreal and trippy with an excellent score. I loved how even though it was still images through out, it still had movement. Like 12 Monkeys better but this was really inspiring.

Then we moved on to our video projects. Mine is all done. Wheee!

Rode home in the dark, not dusk. Did my laundry. Watched television. Yay that Heroes is finally looking to be getting into the action now. After what, six episodes? So tired, time to give in to my days desires and sleep.

sunday services

I saw the reprise of Cartune Xprez today. It had technical problems during the TBA Festival and so they put it on for free. It also contained both programs from TBA (one was international and the other was local), making it two hours of weird and awesome.

The first part before intermission was the international one I tried to see with Rubie and Nathan. I think that if they had seen it they would have been way too weirded out and will never visit me again. They set the mood the same way as before with the colorful looping blobs animation Tarpit by Takeshi Murata. The first was James Duesing's Tugging the Worm. It was very bright and had rather choppy noise. About a Utopian...something world where this bird walks about and changes bodies with a muscleman. I don't really know, it was weird. Amy Lockhart's Tell Mumsy I Love Her was about 2 minutes of a drag queen in a canoe. Shana Moulton's Whispering Pines 4 was magnificent. The first part was live action and then it went into something Pi-esque and talked about spirals and rectangles and the perfect spiral thing. Also a lady danced about while her body was filled with an animation of a fractal. That is always cool. Ola Vasiljeva's Michael Jackson Teaches Birds to Sing was short and rather unfocused. Didn't like it much. Philippe Blanchard's Stupid Tricks 2 was many types of brilliant. Some of it dealt with endless motion with objects and others were balance tricks. Really lovely. Ara Peterson's Treetops. Uhm. I forget that one actually. Timo Katz's Whirr. Uhh that one as well, not memorable. Martha Colburn's Meet Me in Wichita was a really violent recreation of Wizard of Oz.

Then we had intermission. Yay! Go out into the sunlight. And then back in and snack a little.

The pre-show loop was by one of the Hooliganship boys, Christopher Doulgeris. It had a lot going on in it and it hurt my eyes a little. Amy Lockhart returned for Walk for Walk. Which. I don't remember. Wow a lot of these shorts were highly unremarkable. Isn't that a bad sign? I don't remember Bruce Bickford's Inversion Layer or Nicolas Pittman's Synaesthetics II. One of them I think had some really intense patterns that continued to hurt my eyes severely. Hooliganship included one of their videos which was a nice little musical short (I really dig there music). It was just way to short. And it moved abruptly into Chel White's Choreography for Copy Machine.



In full it is simply amazing, that 45 second clip does not do it justice. I'm surprised that technique isn't used more often in animation. It makes a beautiful result and seems quite efficient as well. The next four animations listed on my program don't ring a bell either (Jeff Krischen's Singsong, Gretchen Hogue's Forest of the Flowers, James Sumner's I Will Truck and Corey Lunn's Darn Dance). If I didn't have my program I would have no memory that this many clips played. E*Rock + Mumbleboy's Superheroz started to annoy me as it went on. It had some great potential but then it would switch back to the same dull Superhero head change. Some great snippets but they were too short and far between. Finally, Joanna Priestley's Candyjam was a delicious treat (har har bad pun) to go out on. Excellent stop motion animation in combination with drawn out scenes.

Some pieces weirded me way way out, others were delightful and gave me a good laugh.

The whole event was at Clinton Street Theatre, which is in South East Portland. I rarely go past 5th in West Side, let alone cross a bridge and go into the 20's on the East Side. I should go there more often, it is nice, flat, and relatively low traffic and the instant I crossed Hawthorne Bridge a fellow cyclist complimented me ("I don't know what I like better, your leg warmers or your helmet"). The directions I got for getting to the theatre were designed for cars and so I couldn't take the proper exit to get onto 3rd from the bridge. It was easy enough to loop back around and under the bridge (safely of course) and get onto 3rd, which became Division and then turn on 25th and end on Clinton.

I left an hour before the show so I would have plenty of time (I have no way to tell how long something will take me to bike ride if it is out of Downtown/Pearl/Chinatown/Alphabet District) and I managed to score a pretty sweet thing-to-lock-my-bike-to. I didn't see anyone I knew (besides the Hooliganship guys but I don't really "know" them) so I nabbed a spot in the second row. I had twenty minutes to go till the show. Daniel, Rob and a girl I didn't know but knew she went to PNCA were there but they didn't sit with me. Jon was also in attendance and sat in front of me for the first part (don't know where he went during intermission as I didn't see him for the second part or when we got out). I didn't sit alone, and the people next to be were both very friendly.

I took a leisurely ride home from the theatre. Sunday is a great time to bike around Portland; I think I will try and take more meandering bike rides. I think my distance for today was in the 9-10 mile range.

Then for the rest of today I was really tired.

odd blind note

My blind date was interesting. For the first part of the day Adam and I were with Karen and her boyfriend Nathan; who was very abrasive and a self-proclaimed jerk. So that set the day off on an odd note. Wandered through Chinatown, went to a Starbucks and then went back to Karen's place. We dropped Nathan off and we three ventured out on our own. We went to a church bazaar that had some neat little trinkets and some cool purses made out of books and old board games. We drove down to Hawthorne Street and did some more wandering. Lots of hip stores and weird things on sale. There's a Coldstone exactly across the street from a Ben and Jerry's. Tough competition. We went to the Baghdad for lunch, it took them a while to get our drinks but not so long to get our food. The sandwich was decent but needed to be toasted. My hot cocoa came from a packet.

After Hawthorne we dropped Karen off at Lloyd Center (where she works) and went to see a movie. Nothing was playing in the Mall's theatre at a good time so we went to the adjacent one. The only one playing right at the time we were there was Dan in Real Life (Dane Cook AND Steve Carell, bleh). Actually it was a little better than I expected but still overall, not that good. Any sense of real emotion came in small little amounts, but I guess the main surprise came from me not wanting to totally punch out Dane Cook every time he was on screen (I really don't like that guy).

Then we wandered around the mall for a bit chatting and looking at books in Barnes and Noble. at around 8:45ish we parted ways at the Max station.

I had fun but it was a little awkward due to the note the day started out on.

no drawn out artsy movies for me tonight

The art film night was cancelled last night due to poor planning but that enabled me to see the Larry Rinder talk. Overall it was largely uninformative. He curated a show in Portland about graduates from California College of Art and Crafts(or Design, some Cali school) and what they are doing years from their graduation. He only picked 10 out of thousands of artists and at first I didn't really see the point about talking to an art school about how great their art school is and their artists. Actually, of all the artists shown he said that none of them were making a living from their art. Ha!

Well part of the point of the show and talk was to assess if they would have been capable of doing this work without art school. The consensus was "I don't know". They (the artists) said the school gave them a great community and discipline. I was not fond of how Larry Rinder said that any bright piece was "cartoony" or "comic-ish" something like that. Like somehow you can't separate bright art from childish connotations.

After the talk Gavin and I walked back to Goose Hollow and hung about and chatted about art. Lindsay and Brandon made their delicious meat/corn/cheese/tater tot concoction again and we gobbled it up while watching The Darwin Awards. The movie was surprisingly funny and endearing. Gavin started drawing on my arm and got carried away; carried away past when the last bus home left. So he ended up crashing here.

Earlier in the day, work was mostly uneventful except for when I accidentally locked myself out of the supply closet. The past few Friday's there have been next to no MFA's upstairs and now it seemed like they all were there. Guess they have something due on Monday.

I'm rather excited for today. Have my first ever blind date! His name is Adam.

trick or tr-I'M REALLY TIRED!!

Wow, I'm beat. It is Monday after Some Cats From Japan all over again. But like that time, it was sooo worth it. Halloween was great! Fun times were all around.

Karen's Party

Karen was throwing a party for all those who were not invited to parties. I was not invited to a party (well not directly, I'm sure Noel would have been cool had I shown up with Michael to her party) but I would have preferred the smaller one with people I liked and knew better.

I didn't know who all was going to Karen's so I hung out with Cidney and Mel until all was sorted out. There was lots of hubbub about which bus to take and where, which max, max and bus? In the end, after about 45 minutes of discussion we went with the first choice, the max. Which was the obvious choice as it comes every fifteen minutes by Goose Hollow and it takes us within 10 blocks of Karen's. So at around 7:00pm Cidney, Mel, Chelsea, Kristin, Robin and I left.

The Max ride was fairly uneventful for most of the fair less zone. Once we got into East Portland. Hooo boy.

This really drunk guy sat next to Robin and harassed her a little bit. Then he got into some weird yelling/shoving match with this guy he had gotten on with. Drunken playing around but it was very very off putting. I was very glad that they didn't have tickets and got off promptly at the first stop after they boarded. We just sort of sat about silently and awkwardly while the two guys yelled back and forth about, oh I forget. It was weird. The other loud guy was sitting right next to me and I was very scooted over next to Kristin. That wasn't fun.

We got off at a stop I remember from the time last summer when I went to the river with the pre-college people. It was a brisk walk and we stopped at a house that had trick-or-treater indicators around it and go some candy. The couple at the house were really nice and loved our costumes. Yaay!

We found Karen's house no problem and settled in with Tabitha, her friend Allison (I believe that was her name), Karen and Jim. The ten of us were all that there was for the night. Nice little group. Karen had burrito fixings layed out, and chips and drinks and soda and brownies and all other goodies. I brought Trader Joe's Cheese Puffs and Sprite and Juice. More than enough.

We started off with a movie; the remake of The Amityville Horror with Ryan Reynolds. Not really that good or scary. Well less scary due to the fact we were making fun of it the whole way through (we nine girls all paused and sighed during the scenes where Ryan Reynolds ran around shirtless, Jim just rolled his eyes). All it all, it was a pretty bad movie. Way too embellished and lacking in lots of action. Sorta funny but it fell into cliche so often. This movie, it really makes me glad my dad never made me hold the wood while he chopped it.

Then we moved onto a Mob themed card game. It took a little to get into it but we really got into it. Lots of fun being mean to each other. Robin and I were the first team to get out so we noshed and observed the others playing.

When the game was over we sat about and talked about calling a cab to take us home, one of those bus cab things. We called Radio Cab and they said it would be forty minutes. So we played charades from Cranium cards for the next forty minutes. I flopped around and somehow they got that I was a Waterbed, a Greenhouse, Titanic and Eddie Murphy.

When forty minutes was up we called the company to find out what was up and they told us that after forty minutes they delete our call for a cab. So apparently we have to call again and again every 10 minutes to make sure our cab is coming, instead of you know...relying on it and not pestering people. Yeah so we got mighty frustrated about that. Karen told off the company a little and then the awesomely kind lady that she is, Karen offered to give us a ride home. In her car. At the same time. Well, Tabitha and her friend were driving home in their own car. So it was the eight of us in a five seater car.

Robin sat with Chelsea up front, I sat on Jim('s lap, tee hee), Mel was squeezed next to me and Cidney was on Kristin. It was a squeeze. Unsafe squeeze but it was either than or wait till 1:40am for a cab that may or may not come on time. Karen was a safe driver and knew safe routes. Jim was dropped off first and Robin moved into the back seat on top of me. She used the handle to hoist herself so she wasn't putting her weight on me (something I didn't think to do for poor Jim). Karen dropped us off at Goose Hollow and we all meandered in and all probably got to our comfy beds at around the same time. 2:00am. BAHHG!

Halloween at PNCA

Rose from bed at about 7:00am to take a quick shot of Lindsay and Sean's costumes. They were doing their costume together and were Maude and the Dude from The Big Lebowski.

Thanks to sleeping in, I got a really good start on the day. I didn't ride in costume all though now I wish I had. I pass by a High School on the way to PNCA everyday and on Wednesday's all the kids are on break and I saw their costumes. Some pretty cool ones at it as well.

I made a quick change from bundled up biker to a certain infamous missing person before entering the school. I got so many smiles and "I found you!" from people. I loved the attention. Sohkun was a flamingo and was downright adorable. Got tons of good response from the darkroom people. Messed around with my old prints, played around mostly and hung around being overall awesome with my awesome costume. I knew someone else was going as the same person but I didn't see them so it is no big thing.

They gave us a free lunch and made the willing costumed people parade in front of the uninspired non costumed people. Mel's Jellyfish and Mollie's Medusa were downright spectacular but we were all beaten by a voodoo woman, a pirate with a real parrot and a girl with a rooster on her head.

The critique in 2D was rushed near the end as always. Got some good feedback but overall they always end up rushed because there is too much to talk about and not enough time to do it equally.

Time Arts was fun. Diana flipped out when she saw me. As did Amina. Very fun. We watched some videos and listened to a really intense audio. Then we worked on composing videos using clips from the 3 second animations we did a few weeks ago. Finished clipping things together and left to go to Karen's awesome party!

The next day (today)...

BLIMEY! I'M TIRED I'M TIRED I'M TIRED. I do NOT want to go out to First Thursday but I should because if I go out and see some stuff and write about it I'll get the coveted bonus in Digital Tools.

Gordon's strategy is that if we just do the work required for the class we will get a B. He wants us to go out and see art and make our own unstructured opinions and thoughts about it. And there is any number of things going on we can go to, First Thursday is just the easiest way to do it. I like that teaching practice. Doing the work is not enough, and it shouldn't be. There is also an extra project we can do to get the uber coveted bonus. I plan on making my own zine. Maybe about working in a library four three(!) years.

I started to nod off during my midterm meeting with Gordon. He was really well spirited about it considering I was midsentance explaining where I want to go with my art. He seems to really like where I want to go with my art and his interest encourages me to structure what kind of artist I want to become.

Drawing was torture. Ish. Did some great ink drawings in the first half, the second half not so much. I was tired and loosing focus and my drawing showed that. I didn't get the chance to do a good amount of value range and ended up with mostly dark shadows and a few lighter ones. Ah oh well.

So glad to be freed of the school to go home and relax. Ibanez totally loves me when we are home alone.

The chocolate yogurt was not much better than the green tea.

Well time to go out into First Thursday. First stop: going to Floating World Comics to see if Kazimir Strzepek remembers me from Stumptown Comics Fest. Next stop: I dunno, Steven Slappe's new exhibit? Compound Gallery?

Back from First Thursday:

Whee! That was fun. I was dead and a zombie for most of it but I did a pretty good gallery loop. Rode my bike down 14th and then down Couch and parked it at 5th. Scooting along on my bike past all these slow cars, so awesome.

Kazimir didn't remember me but he did sort of vaguely recognize me. Anyway he was sweet and fun to talk to. His comics are done at a 1:1 ratio and he had them up on the walls and I had to lean in super close to read them. But yeah we chatted and some other comic people were around that I didn't recognize but I knew they had to be important as they were all...published looking.

It was really hot and stuffy so I moved on to some of the other galleries. I went to check out Slappe's but I was never able to find it. I ran into Craig in this gallery with wigs and drawings done in Thailand. He told me to check out his and Sean's show that was on the other side of the block. I ran into Gavin at Pink Pony...Prancing Pony...Plastic Pony...uhm. Something Pony, they had really sweet cheap shirts and prints and zines galore. I didn't buy anything but now I know another place to go when I have money (which will be ages from now. I want a real job).

After that this guy was standing at a door and was like "Hey wanna check out this 3 foot ceiling gallery?" And I said "okay" and followed the arrows. I had seen the paintings before but they were in an open setting. This time they were placed in a crawl space that you had to pretty much scoot on your knees around to look at the paintings. Being in that space made me feel like a giant looking at tiny little paintings and in that setting it made me appreciate the intricate detail more. Kinda hurt my knees but it was worth it. I was starting to get really bleary so I continued on my way to find Craig and Sean's show. Stopped in at Rake, some cool paintings but I was so unfocused I wasn't paying attention. Saw Jack and ran into Gavin again.

Craig and Sean are MFA at PNCA and they were having a dual show in a cute little gallery. The stuff was mostly pieces I have seen before (either from their show at PNCA or by sweeping up past their studios) but it was nice seeing it more collected and tidied up. Congratulations go to Craig for selling his giant colorful robot piece. Chatted both of them up about whatnots and complimented Sean on his awesome tattoos (some great ones down here). Matt was there briefly. Jason...person, uhm I don't know he had a plain name and I kinda forget it but he heads student council, he was there and we chatted about how crummy Seattle is, how much the new sculpture park sucks and teasing the MFA's about their pathetic student council cash pot. There is a MFA trip to Seattle the 16th and they had open seats so Mollie and I will be joining them.

After them I waved goodbye and meandered back towards my bike. Stopped in at Compound Gallery but it was totally packed and people just stood chatting and blocking the paintings like they didn't matter. Will have to stop by later and look when there isn't so much congestion and claustrophobia inducement.

Popped into Floating World Comics and had a few more words with Kazimir and picked up my comics; well it was just one comic and I got one of Kazimir's smaller works. Then I rode home pretty much the same way I got back. Finished off my cheesy puffs and now I am ready for bed. Gotta get up for work in twelve hours.

I forgot I don't like the flavor of green tea

Yesterday was what felt like my first real day to relax. I didn't have any homework, I was all caught up in class and I had most of the night to kick back. Whoo!

Started work on my digital tools shape project, got the areas all shaped out and whatnot. Got a head start on my gray scale, a lot of people were having issues with Illustrator and Illustrator was having issues with them. Lots of chat about Macho Advetures Battlerama with Jim and Karen. More ideas and thoughts and feelings to bring to the table next club meeting. Shared my special Mats Mats candy around with some nice people.

Drawing, uhg my guys head was too small but the critique didn't go that badly. We had a late start on the ink drawing of the lady and I was going really slowly to make sure I got the lines correct. Also I wasn't allowing myself to do new lines over the old lines before, I had worked with the lines I had which was why my man looked horrible. The addition of my fault lines made this drawing look fab! Didn't get around to adding true values, I just outlined the values instead so it was more of a line drawing. Arvie seemed to dig it.

Stopped by Trader Joe's and did some grocery shopping. I grabbed a thing of chocolate and green tea flavored yogurt to try out. The green tea was a mistake. Here is my reaction to it:

Yeah it was gross. Never again. Hopefully the chocolate is better/actually good.

Lounged about. Lindsay dyed her hair for Halloween. It looks like dear old mums for a minute then she dyed it again. Then she looked like dear old mum if she was dressing up as me circa 2006.

Got to bed at a reasonable hour as today is a big big day! Now to go wander about and sneak into the background of peoples photos.

candles and flowers

Last night was the memorial for Brett Jarolimek, another fallen bicyclist in Portland. He was a PNCA alumni.

what a lucky and sweet girl

I am so lucky! Lucky lucky lucky! Sean and I, after having all the other people not be able to join us for the special sneak preview movie tonight, we made our way over to Lloyd Center Cinema. We saw a long line stretching about a hundred-fifty long outside the theatre and when we got closer we realized the line was doubled back on itself, pushing it into the 300's. Well it was more 400-600. MASSIVE line with hugely huge amount of people. I figured "hey, it is probably less people than it looks and they probably have a big theatre and are prepared?". Sean went and got us our free popcorn and drink while we were waiting in line and we nibbled. Our place was very much the last spot in line for a long time. About ten people braved the line and stood behind us. I was hopeful and it paid off. A nice wonderful amazing superb fabulous woman came up to us and asked our age and told us that we were instead 20 and gave us two tickets and told us to go to the back of the official line parallel to our line. We were the last people to get the green admittance passes. I felt almost bad walking past the hundreds waiting. Almost. We got into the theatre and in the back row was probably the last two empty seats next to each other remaining. We plopped down and prepared ourselves for the mystery movie, which was...

WALL●E! The new Disney/Pixar movie due out in 2008.

It wasn't complete; the first half hour was mostly finished but the last hour or so was made up mostly of animated story boards and some flat CG. And after watching the movie I am happy to report that Pixar is back! After that worthless film Cars they are back to what made them great and original. The message and the agenda of the movie was neither subliminal or hidden. It was very much "Look at what we are doing to the planet. It will get worse and we will stay the same and will be content to stay the same for hundreds of years as long as we think someone else is taking care of it." The movie followed Wall●E, a little trash compacting robot alone on Earth (which is filled with trash and uninhabited by people as they all left to go out into space and wait for Earth to become livable again) and what happens when a new robot, Eve, lands and finds a plant growing. He follows her back to the space ship and lots of running about happens in regards to the plant. Humans are just fat blobs living out of chairs and eating out of cups all day for their whole lives. They don't make any fat jokes as the whole characterization of humans is one big fat joke. The humor was clean and got some great laughs out of me. They didn't have to fall back on pop culture references that would not have made contextual sense. They also didn't need lame humor to appeal to the brain dead. This is very much a Pixar film in the spirit of Ye Olde Pixar where they gave the intelligence of their audience some credit.

I was hoping it would be Coraline but this was fantastic! I can't wait for it to be finished.

Art History got my dozing, man I don't like it when she drones on from notes. Blimey! I finished my paper for class before midnight last night and we chatted a bit about the vase and she seemed to really like my observations so I feel good about my paper.

Got my final print done for 2D design and spent the rest of class making prints from my older photos. Got two nice ones from my trip to Elandan Gardens and developed one of Joe Zuiche(Zuick? Zuich?) that has some great contrast and character.

Ate lunch in the library (food in a library, so contradictory) and read some more Crooked Little Vein. Ellis isn't the most detailed of writers in a novel form but he sure is whimsical and creative. Also it was really adorable how Gordon shyly asked me how to look things up in the library. I looked around for a second and found a computer with a tag saying "catalog use only" and refreshed it and indicated it to him.

We edited and finished the sound for our video in Time Arts early and Rose seemed to really like it. I like it too. Amanda's idea for the end really made it punch. We did a video of David Mura's A Nisei Picnic: From An Album. We were so awesome and on top of things that we got it all together early so I had time to print my color wheel for Digital Tools and bike home with time to relax between school and the movie.

When I got home there was a little square package waiting for me atop my laptop. It was from the Grandparent's Spencer and I knew right away what it was! Halloween Candy! The tradition that hasn't been broken in years, even if I move away out of state. They are awesome and what was great was the plastic bat-shaped bag filled with candy was cushioned in the box by even more candy! Yaaay! I might not need to go trick-or-treating this year. Wheee! Sugar sugar sugar sugar.

Thank you to all those who have sent me care packages. I love getting them.

Sunday, Beautiful Sunday

Rode my bike around downtown today. Need to be in that area more, I rarely go beyond 8th.

Rode down to Portland Art Museum to check out the Greek Vase for my Art History paper. Got side tracked in the Chuck Close exhibit for an hour and a half. Amazing work. His work is made so much in the color choices; such an eye for it all. The grind systems don't look so hard to work with but just the tonal ranges and the use of every color from every spectrum. Just wow.

Patrick thought he was being really funny a few weeks ago when he said Chuck Close should try different styles, branch out a little more and that it didn't matter that he was paralyzed. Patrick thinks he is funny but most times he is just a douchebag. I don't have a problem with anyone else I have met, everyone here is wonderful and knows to hold themselves in social situations pretty well. Except for Patrick, he just doesn't get it. There is a reason why we chew into his work a little more during 2D Design and Digital Tools critique. Part of it is his hovering over our work and giving his unasked for opinion like he is some photography God when really hes just some freshman with fancy cameras.

The Chuck Close exhibit steered me into the gift shop and I saw a hilarious Christmas Card set but after looking at the price I decided I could be funnier. I did buy a lovely ring for my right hand. But that was it. Had to hold off from all the shiney pretty books.

After the museum I rode down around 4th heading towards China Town. Little traffic and the sun was just the right amount of bright and not blinding.

Made my comic run, Doktor Sleepless and Black Summer. Also the new issue of The Boys, yay! That wasn't supposed to come out for a few more days. After Floating World Comics I went into Compound Gallery but the gallery was closed off for renovation. There was an annoying kid and I would have like to browse the store some more but the kid was so annoying I left. Little beggar child, poor hipster parent.

Rode home and have relaxed for a few hours. Now to write my paper!