Run To The Hills

Somedays I love to just run away.

Best place to go? - Up the canyon.

I also like to take pictures while I'm there. . .

Remember When I Used To Blog?

Some times I remember those fond memories of blogging and I think to myself: "Why did I ever stop?" The answer to that? Laziness. 

Anyways, I have so much to write about I don't know where to start. . .

I guess I will start with school. 

I have the greatest classes ever this semester. My favorite of them all is Figurative Illustration. This is my first actual illustration class I have ever taken, and I am enjoying it immensely. It's a lot different then I thought it would be though. We have and will be working on the same project all semester. Our project is creating characters for an adaptation of The Little Mermaid that we came up with. 

Here is my "Elevator Pitch" for the projects: 

What would you give to be considered normal? For Adrian Arielle, a struggling musician, he would give up almost anything, including his talent. Although Adrian's music captivates it listeners, he himself is outcasted from society. Nobody understands Adrian's madness, but the voices he hears and the visions he sees are his inspiration. When he falls in love with a woman from a respectable family, he knows that she will never accept him with his madness. Adrian visits a doctor to try and cure his illness. Miraculously, he is cured. He soon finds that he can no longer write music like he did before, but he doesn't care as long as he can be with the one he loves. Soon, however, he realizes that maybe he shouldn't have given up what he had for what he wanted.

So yeah that is my story, and here are some sketches I have done for the story:

I am also really improving  my figure drawing. In fact, the other day my teacher told me my drawing was absolutely beautiful. Which made me feel really good.

As I was browsing around on the internet the other day I found an amazing illustrator. His name is Frank Stockton, and I spent hours looking at his blog. Here is the link if you would like to see for yourself: http://frankstocktonart.blogspot.com/ 

One last little thing, it is currently time for my annual reading of Poison.

My English teacher in High School made us read this in class and it has been one of my favorite books since then. For the past three years I have re-read it around Halloween time because it is so creepy and awesome that it fits the season perfectly. I was then reminded of another book by Chris Wooding that I really wanted to read ever since this summer but I could never find. It is called Malice, and it is half novel, half graphic novel. The only problem is that nobody has this book! So I finally gave in and bought it off Amazon for $4. It should be here in a few days, and I am super stoked for when it arrives!

It's Been A While Man, Life's So Rad

I'm back!

Hopefully for a while, although I cant make any promises. 

Man it has been way to long! So much has happened in the time since my last post. First of all, almost a whole summer has gone by. I guess I will try and fit a whole summer's worth into one post.

Summer Starts: Ethan, Austin, Dallin, Katie, and I started a band. We called ourselves Animystic. We had six songs that we rehearsed, four and a half of which we wrote ourselves. We were so set on getting a set together and playing some shows, but everything sort of fell apart. Our first problem was that none of us could really sing. (Which is kind of a must for a band to do well) But at first that didn't really stop us. We were in the middle of recording a song when the band came to a halt. What was our downfall? We all got jobs. 

I got a job cleaning office buildings up at thanksgiving point. It was a great job except for the hours. Not that I worked to many hours, but the hours I did work were always at night when my friends wanted to hang out. So when I got offered a job at a Black Cat firework stand I took it and quit that job. 

Summer Middle: My job at the firework stand was awesome. All I had to do was sit out in the stand and when customers came by I would help them. To pass the time in between customers, (Sometimes I would only have about two a day) I got to play gameboy, read, draw, or anything else I wanted to do. I also got to meet some great people. I worked with three other people, Walter, Mandy, and Stephanie. Mandy was my favorite by far. She was so nice and funny, and just fun to be around. I also loved her family who would come to visit her almost every day. She had a little son named Braylin who was the cutest little boy in the world. He also had the biggest crush on me. For the first while he wouldn't even walk past me or look at me because he was so shy, but by the end he was talking to me and drawing me pictures of hearts.

Now: I just had my last day at the firework stand. It was sort of bittersweet. Sweet that I am done with work for the summer, but bitter that I had to say goodbye to the friends that I had made. 

So me and Jose (He is visiting for the summer, I don't think I've mentioned that) decided we would have ourselves a Harry Potter "Marathon." Marathon in the sense that we would eventually watch all the movies in a row, but not in one sitting. We started watching about one movie a night, and tonight we finished the last one. (Star Wars next?)

Earlier tonight, me and Ethan had our "Wall Party." We had been wanting to do this all summer but we have just been too busy to find the time. Our party consisted of listening to Pink Floyd's "The Wall" while building with legos. I built a hippo, and then some sort of space craft, and then combined the two. It turned out pretty freakin' sweet, I thought.

So anyways, that's about all that has been going on that is of importance. Tomorrow (or today since it is 5:30) I am heading off to Idago, it should be fun.

Update

 I finally finished my next silkscreen project. My inspiration for this one came from Spencer Russell's song - One Man Show. The lyrics from it were, "The mouth of a fool is a well without water, and I'm getting thirsty." I just love that song so much!

I have come to the conclusion that as an art major I don't draw nearly enough. I realized this when I tried to go through my sketchbook for an idea for a project and I had absolutely nothing to work with. I remember when I was a kid me and my friend Kelsey would sit and draw all day long. I decided to make a goal to draw at least one picture every day, even if it is just a little sketch. So far it has been pretty good. (I did miss a few days but that's ok.)

Here are some of the sketches I drew:

 

On a side note, many of you may know that Pottermore, the Harry Potter website made by J.K. Rowling herself is now officially open. So there has been a lot of Harry Potter going around the apartment. On my way to FHE the other night I happened upon the perfect wand stick. I polished it up a bit, and now it is the perfect wand!

Art Update

It's been a while since I have posted my work, but here is what I have been working on:

My still life painting

I finally finished my relief carving!

and my two silkscreens

Easter Egg Coloring

For FHE the other night we colored easter eggs. Saying that we got carried away is a bit of an understatement.

Our eggs:

We went with a Pokemon theme

And then a Zelda one

And a mustache just for fun

Victory is Mine pt. 2

As you all probably know, I have a small obsession with a game called Zelda.
In an earlier post, I posted about how I finally defeated Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. Well I have an announcement to make:

I beat Zelda: Link to the Past!

It was very difficult too I must add. It took lots of hard work and dedication, but it was worth it in the end. Now this makes 3/8 games that I have conquered! (I had to add Twilight Princess (And I had forgot Four Swords))

Still on my list to beat is:

Twilight Princess
Windwaker
Oracle of Ages
Four Swords
Majora's Mask

Next I will focus on Twilight Princess so I can try to beat it before I have to return it to my friend Danielle.

Avacado!

So you all remember my collage I was going to paint? This one: 

Well I finally finished it. And I've got to say I'm pretty proud of it for being my first oil painting ever.

I think I will hang it up somewhere in my apartment for the world to see.

Photoshop Fun. (pun intended)

I was bored today and decided to play around in photoshop. I downloaded the free trial version on my computer and I might as well use it while I have it right? Anyways this is what I came up with:

Yes, we all should know by now that I have a new "Boyfriend", Nate Ruess from the band Fun.

The reason why I got photoshop on my computer is so that I could put together a picture for my relief carving class. This is what I should look like when I am done.

Also I was playing around with a design I was working on for the band The Brocks:

In conclusion, photoshop has kept me very entertained the last couple days.

The Sasquatch Gang

I have been having a blast hanging out with Amanda and Ethan. We always do the most random things, like go stealthing, make movies, take Dale out on adventures, and our newest expedition: making cardboard superhero suits. The Institute was having a superhero themed dance and we came up with the brilliant idea to make our own superhero suits out of cardboard. Let me tell you, we had the best costumes of everyone there. We decided to call our super league the Sasquatch Gang, named after the great film of the same title.

My super identity was The Hippo, Amanda's was The Ostrich, and Ethan was. . . well we don't really know what Ethan was.

In the end, we combined all our efforts to create the ultimate suit. We used my skirt, Ethan's chest armor and Amanda's helmet.

Beginning of a New Semester

Wow, it's been over a month since I last posted on here, so this post is going to have to cover a lot of ground.

First off I would just like to say that I am loving this semester so far. I absolutely love all of my classes. I would have to say that my favorite class, though, is silkscreen and relief. Right now we are working on relief carving. We are carving pictures out of linoleum sheets which will then be used as giant stamps to be printed on paper. Here is what I am working on at the moment:

Yes there is a giant white line going through it now, but that wont matter for printing.

My other art class I am taking right now is painting. So far we aren't doing anything to exciting. We are working on a color mixing study where we made an image out of magazine clippings and are now trying to replicate the colors exactly and painting it on a canvas. Here is what I have so far:

As I promised a long time ago, I will now put up pictures of Mary Ann Kimchi (my marionette I made in  3D design last semester)

I didn't think you could get the full effect just from some still photos, so I did a little demonstration as well.

Yeah I know she is kind of creepy, but you've got to admit she is pretty cool too.

Also, I finally finished that dolphin picture I started forever ago. For my art insights class I was required to bring a piece of work, and I had absolutely nothing I could bring except for that. I'm not the biggest fan of it, but I figured I would put it up here anyways.

So that is my current artwork for now.

So far this semester has been awesome. My friend Ethan came home from his mission and has started hanging out with me and Amanda all the time. We decided we would start our own to show. We decided to call it Suu. (Pronounced like Sue) After many hours of hard work, we finally finished the first episode

(I couldn't get it to work on here, so if you want to see it, which you should, go look at my videos on facebook)

Yeah I know, it's not quite up to a professional level, but we are getting there.

Me, Ethan, and Amanda also wanted to start a band. We will hopefully be working on that this weekend, but I can't make any promises.