Questions

1) You've worked on a group film and on your own. In which situation are you most comfortable - group or solo? Which do you work best in?
I'm the most comfortable  working in a group situation mostly based on the fact that I like having people to bounce ideas off of and having other people watching me and depending on me helps push me that little bit further to create something great.

 2) What did you learn that you expected to learn?
I learned a lot about the process of designing a set and how much time and planning goes into it.

3) What did you learn that you didn't expect to learn? 
CUTTING FOAM CORE IS A LOT HARDER TO DO THAN YOU WOULD THINK.
AND FOAM CORE CURLS WHEN YOU PUT PAINT ON IT.

4) What didn't you learn that you expected to learn?
I didn't learn scale but i think that's mostly because I decided to focus more on building and learning how to read plays rather than getting it percise

 5) Praise your amazing achievement and explain your brilliant plan for pulling it off.
I think I did a really good job for my first attempt at set design. I dove in headfirst without much guidance and made use of the materials I had. everything I know about the process I learned the weekend beforehand, and much like my art 2 years ago this is just the beginning.

1) How much time did you spend working?
Not as much as I probably should.

2) How much time did you spend thinking about the work - sort of sitting there and staring at it, or listening to it over and over again, etc.?
Way too much. I get nervous to the point where I can't even start so it just kind of sits there.

3) How much time did you spend doing other stuff that seems like work to that make you think you're working but you're not?
A whole lot.

4) How much time did you spend socializing?90
I do all my homework with my friend on skype every night so i guess that would make it a few hours a day, (but we do get a lot of school work done in that time)

5) How did you use your community?
i bounce ideas off of people.

6) Rip apart your awful project and how did such a disaster happen?
I don't think I was organized enough in my process and couldn't figure out how to do certain things like putting up the curtain

7) You've completed a step on your path. What is your next step?
well my next step is to put set design on the back burner for awhile to focus on my stage managing portfolio to get me into college and pick it up again once college aps are over.

I've been working.

So it's been quite a busy summer. Time to sit around and be bored doesn't seem to exist (and I won't allow it). My July was certainly full of various activities that needed to be preformed in an inadequate amount of time. Between a figure drawing class Sarah Robinson and I took at FIT, homework, birthdays, working at the bakery, an obscene amount of concerts, family gatherings and a wee bit of a social life, I've had no time to breathe. Now that August has rolled around I have much more free time but I won't let it go to waste. I have a few months to put together a portfolio before applying to college and I'm making the most of my time.

I've decided that I need some opinions and now that I don't have the convenience of being in a community of artists everyday in STAC I decided to try and get some on here.

My Experience at FIT:

Now my time at FIT was odd. Being in a college environment and commuting to the city everyday is a huge difference than going to high school. Now it's nice to say that STAC did in fact prepare me for the class. The class was 3 hours long, and we mostly drew in 20 minute intervals with 5 minute breaks in between and one 15 minute break. So a similar time period to STAC but much more breaks. I'm used to working on something for 3 periods straight, not 20 minutes at a time. Now one thing that I did notice that might surprise you is that I was a lot faster than most people in my class. Luke is usually telling me I need to speed up, work faster and not obsess as much, but in this case I had my professor telling me to slow down. I'd finish each drawing with at least 5 minutes left and run out of things to improve upon. Some of the talent in my class was ridiculous, so it was definitely a lot harder to make your art stand out, but I guess that's how it's going to be in college. I know Sarah has some wonderful pieces that I'm in love with.

These are the pieces I'm most proud of from my 3 weeks at FIT

I like to call this one the terminator
because our model had a strong resemblance to a cyborg.
(may I add that he fell asleep during this pose and continually during breaks)
We working with planes and were trying to section off the
various planes on the body. I wasn't too good at it, and I'm
pretty sure I didn't do it quite right but I like how it ultimately
turned out. Done in 20 min. with pencil.

I'm not a huge fan of this one because I feel as if
it resembles a man with a quite large chest when
it is in fact a women and just drawn poorly.
Done with compressed charcoal in 20 min.

I believe this was my first try at shading during this class and
I think it turned out quite alright. There might be a few proportion
problems but I kind of like it.
Done with compressed charcoal in 20 minutes.

This one was popular with all my classmates.
Some cleaning up needs to be done in certain spots
but I'm pretty proud of this one.
Done with vine and compressed charcoal in 30 minutes.

This was a quick drawing I did on the last day of class.
Not much time or effort was put into it because I really
just was wasting time, but I think it came out alright
I think it was a 30 minute set but I only used 15 minutes
of it because the rest was spent discussing my portfolio
with my professor. Done with compressed charcoal and
red conte crayon

This was my final project in the figure drawing class
and I'm not sure if I like it or not yet.
it's strong in some aspects, but I'm not a huge fan of how
different the background is to how the figure is.
Done with compressed charcoal and red conte crayon.
I think I mustve spent almost 2 hours on it.

 Working on my own:

It's much harder to find inspiration when you're on your own so I've been looking to some pictures from my trip to Europe last summer. I've been trying to create quick portfolio pieces that I can just knock out in time for applications.I've started painting again which is nice! I kind of missed it. I think I've become much more of a painter than a sketcher. My passion lies in color and I can't just draw something with pencil and have it come out as something I'm proud of. I'm still playing around with various mediums though and trying different things. I started working on my own Wednesday and none of these are quite done yet, but this is what I've got:

I started by painting a black background with acrylic
on a white canvas and then using oil paints on top.
unfortunately I can't finish it until the oil paint dries but until
this point I really like it. I think I did this in about 2 1/2 hours.

Not my strongest painting, but it still has a lot of work to be done.
This is inspired by one of my favorite music videos Nine in
the Afternoon by Panic! at the Disco, and apart from the obvious
cleaning up that needs to be done, I want to increase the contrast
in the persons clothing an smoothen out the background.
Done with oil paints.

Now this one is my most recent pieces and what
I'm currently working on. A lot needs to be done
and I can't even begin to point out the problems,
but I think in the end this is going to be one of my
favorite pieces. Done with white conte crayon on black paper.

My Plans for the upcoming future:

DO MORE. I really need to keep up this mentality of getting something done and then getting something else done. I can't be lazy and put off working on my art because I really need this to get me into college. All the money I make at work has been going toward buying supplies and all my time has been going towards creating something. In fact today I went and made some very large purchases that I hope to make some use out of soon. Good idea or bad? We'll soon find out.

Not sure whats going to go on them yet, but I'm bound to find something.
Buy one get one free, hell yeah.

I've got a year.

Let me start off my saying that I opened this new post up to talk about the oil painting I just finished. As I was writing, it took a completely different turn and I think this may be a little more important.

I've always been a little behind the rest of the artists in STAC. I've never taken any classes and I haven't been drawing for nearly as long as the rest of them. I believe I started drawing halfway through my freshman year and started taking it seriously during my sophomore? It really hasn't been long. I spent a lot of last year pushing myself to try and reach the standard set by everyone else because I was clearly behind. I worked hard, I tried to make every piece as perfect as possible and as soon as I thought I was at a skill level that was acceptable, the year was over and I was worn out. Then I started my junior year and in came a new group of students younger and more talented than the last. The passion and skill level all the current artists in STAC have is absolutely terrifying. When you feel like you have to compete and compare yourself to kids that are 1 or 2 years younger than you it takes a huge toll on your mental state. It's gotten to the point where nothing I do will ever be good enough.

Now my junior year is coming to an end and in September there will be a whole new group of talented kids I'll have to face. I'll be the oldest artist and probably the worst. I have one more year in High School. This is what I've been dreaming of this since my freshmen year. I've hated this place since the moment I walked in the doors September of 2009. I thought I was ready to leave but now I realize I'm really not. If I'm having problems keeping up in a class of 35, how am I going to manage an entire college? It's different to be 14 with no direction, but once your future is becoming your present, everything is suddenly real. Sometimes I feel like giving up, chuck all my supplies out my window and put art behind me. I'll settle for a safe desk job till I get married, have kids and just be a housewife for the rest of my life. Become everything I hate because my future is already destroying me.

I've got a year. A year to get my grades in order. A year to explore. A year to discover. A year to experience. A year to decide the path I want to go in life. A year to tie up loose ends. A year to say my goodbyes. A year to get a head on my shoulders that'll able to face the real world. A year to become enough.

I'm still that freshman who first picked up that paintbrush a week before STAC auditions but now I've got just a year.

Tori Amos

So I've been working on a oil painting of Tori Amos for the past few days and it has taught me a lot. It made me feel a lot better about using color and painting skin tones, and honestly I'm not as bad as I thought I would be. Once you get the hang of using the colors in the set of paints, figuring out which ones are weak and which are strong, mixing the colors becomes mindless. Now I did mess up on quite a few things while painting, like how leaving the eyes for last really screwed me over and the fact that I made the background similar colors to her hair was a little inconvenient (that one doesn't bother me too much though). I'm glad I made these mistakes though because I probably wouldn't have learned anything if I didn't. Note to self: don't avoid sections of a piece because you don't feel like doing it, work on everything evenly.
I have noticed that lately I haven't been taking every single portrait I do as seriously as I used to. I leave a lot more room for error and  honestly don't care if something doesn't come out exactly how the picture looks. I figure it's my art, not their photograph. I've actually been trying to stray from going so closely off a picture, but I do understand that a photo is where I need to start to learn anything. I think I'm also starting to learn what kind of art I enjoy doing. After doing the watercolor portrait of Louis Tomlinson, I've had the urge to take portraits and make them colorful instead of accurate. It's a lot more fun and relaxing for me having creative control over how I want the work to look. I enjoyed doing the one of Louis much more than the more conventional one of Tori Amos. I might try a colorful oil painting next, unless Luke has other plans for me.

Stressed.

My junior year is coming to an end and I'm having a wee bit of anxiety to say the least. There's so much I wanted to have done by the time college aplications come around that I still don't have done. College is right around the corner for me and its terrifying not having any plans for my future. I like to keep things generally structured and planned out so having my future unknown is quite scary. I'm really hoping things will get clearer over the summer when I have more time to focus on my FIT class and think about what I want to do. I hardly have any portfolio worthy pieces (maybe 3 if I'm lucky) and I don't even know if I'm submitting a portfolio. Between the stress of school and the confusion of my future, I'm not having a great time.
My group has been having trouble focusing on our music video, but I don't think I want to throw it out just yet. Sarah Danny and I have put a lot of thought into our project, and I really want to see it come to life. Maybe once we start filming things will go a lot faster.
For now we're all focused on our art though. I think Sarahs working on anatomy, Dannys working on color and I'm still trying to figure out how to match colors with oil paints. It's not very easy at first, but once you start to get the hang of it, it goes a lot smoother. I was never much of a painter, but there's always room for improvement. Also, to start enjoying art again you kind of have to create some art. I think for now I should focus on getting my passion for it back and then work on getting a portfolio together. It's going to be a rough couple of months and hopefully it'll prove to be worth it..

Independent Projects

SO this is what we've all been waiting for from the first day of STAC. I've always had an intrest in film making so this is a perfect opportunity to explore that. Sarah and I have been obsessed with this band called The Brobecks for quite some time now, and without eachothers knowledge had been wanting to do a music video for their song Goodnight Socialite. When the time came to pick a project on monday I went straight to Sarah and told her how I really want to make it and she was quick to agree. We knew we needed a boy for what we wanted to do and Danny fit the part perfectly so we pulled him aside quickly and asked him to join us. I'm glad we're working in such a small group cause it'll make getting together and getting things done much easier than if we were in a large group. I don't think they'll be too many conflicts. I just want this to go smoothly.
So far we know the basic premise of our video, but we're just working out the details. It really helps to have a song to guide us because we can follow the tempo and sound of the song to constuct the video after. The song is very dramatic and in itself tells a story, so we're taking that story and making it our own. You know, filling in all the details and giving it a meaning. That being said, it is very hard to keep from just actign out the lyrics. it's so ingraved in our minds that we have trouble ignoring it. We're working on it though.
The past few days we've been working out the story, figuring out places to film and writing down ideas that come to mind. I want to try and wrap it up by friday so we could really start preparing for filming. Also I'm buying a camera this weekend that I'm super excited to use on this project.
My side salad is still being decided on. I know I'm definitely doing art, but I'm not sure exactly what. I think I may try and get as many portfolio pieces done as possible so I'll have stuff for when college applications come around.
This is the song if you're interested:

I think it's going to be a good quarter.

Week One. Day One.

Our first day of intense technical work definitely wasn't as terrible as we all imagined it was going to be. It was actually kind of easy once you got the hang of it. I managed to get 3 basic grid drawings done fairly fast. My main problem has always been confidence when it comes to drawing. I'm always very unsure of where to place all the facial features. Applying the grid method got rid of that problem pretty fast. By the time I got around to my 2nd picture my lines became far more confident and permanent. I didn't spend much time hesitating and double checking, which was a great feeling.

The reading we were given reminds you that Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were real people. I feel that they're always talked about so highly that you forget they were human. They bashed each other just as much as artists do these days. I'm not surprised that Michelangelo used grids for the Sistine chapel. It's such a large surface that I'd be surprised if he DIDN'T use grids. It would have taken so much longer and come out worse. I'm not going to lie, fresco sounds terrifying. It's so permanent, I would be scared to even try and use it. On the other hand it sounds far more convenient because it takes far less time to dry, which allows you to work faster. It just doesn't sound like the medium for me.

After doing the watercolor squares I realized a few things: 

1) My watercolors aren't that great (they're kind of terrible actually) 

2) My blue was very over powering 

3) Getting gray is a lot harder than you would think 

4) I need to work on it a lot more.