Finals from Second Term

May 16, 2013

So much blogging catch-up to do! Here are my finals from my second term at Art Center:

For Composition and Painting, I painted a portrait of my mom when she was a teenager. I spent several weeks on this, almost every day in the garage painting away! The challenge with this piece was using a black+white photo for reference, and having to use my own skin for color reference. Fun, very challenging, and I’m super stoked about the results!

24×30, oil on canvas

There were also several occurrences with this painting where I kept putting it in places that spooked me out: in the back seat of my car (so whenever I looked in the mirror, I thought someone was sitting in the back of my car), near the entrance of my apartment (so it looked like there was someone in my house), etc. I presented the portrait to my mom a few weeks and she absolutely loves it! PHEW!

For Materials, I’ve been working on making a jewelry box for several weeks. It took a long time to figure out how to hinge the lid. And even still, I was a bit off with the hinging. While in the class, I learned how to mold/cast with urethane. I sculpted a narwhal head (I had some trouble sculpting out the tail portion!), cast the head, and brought it to a foundry to get them in bronze! I used a drill press to put a hole in the back of the narwhal heads, tapped the hole to add threading to it, and added a screw in the back! Functioning drawers :D Still in progress: making little dividers within the drawers and then adding felt lining to the interiors.

For VisCom, we had to design a machine that moves on the ground with tire treads. I was anticipating a Mario Kart tournament post-term so I kept thinking of go-karts for my final! My original design was not very exciting -_- but my TA helped me spice it up a bit!

2nd Term Spending at Art Center

May 16, 2013

Last term, I did a compilation of spending to have a visual idea of my how much I’m spending while in school. Here’s a review of my second term at Art Center. I like to do this so folks who may be planning their budget of attending Art Center might use this as a resource.

Overview of Spending from January 2013 to mid-April 2013

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Education — details about education spending below.
Food & Dining — this term, I tested out how it might go by eating more often on campus. I had longer days on campus, and have taken up more coffee drinking! I definitely spent more money on food by eating at the cafeteria, where things are often priced very high. Obviously, it’s much more healthy and resourceful to bring my own food. I bought a coffee mug and stashed several bags of teas in my locker to offset some of the caffeine costs.
Health & Fitness — I was hit with several medical issues this term. Though most of this consists of eyecare costs: seeing optomotrist, new glasses prescription and contacts. I found out I’m developing a slight astigmatism, too. :( I had a few other doctor visits with copays and all that jazz. NOTE: The Aetna student health insurance provided by the school is not too bad so far!
Auto & Transport — a bit more this term because increase in gas prices, and also driving around to do errands a bit more than first term
Home — some organizational upgrades to the house, and I’ve been working on a small garden area just to keep our place comfortable and looking nice!
Shopping — new shoes for my messed up feet, and some baby gifts for friends
Taxes — cost of tax software

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Because I was taking an oil painting class, that in itself was over $300 for supplies. I was also taking a materials class, working with wood, metals, casts/molds, etc.

It’s Week 12 of 14.

April 5, 2013

…and all I want to do is research and work on DIY gardening projects!!! I’m addicted to apartmenttherapy.com.

We have some minimal space in our porch area that I’m highly optimistic about. It’s a little bland and somewhat anemic at the moment and I really want to make it lush and pretty!

Hmm… should I be concerned about attract mosquitos? O_O

This summer, I plan to take a somewhat lighter load of classes. Hopefully I can have extra time for building all these projects I have in mind!!!

Things that make me happy #9: home improvement, optimizing and beautifying my living space. And PLANTS have been making me very happy lately, too!! Trying to find ways to integrate more plants into our home space.

A Weekend with Jess and Bryan

March 27, 2013

No better way to finish off my March madness than a weekend with two of my favorite people! They came down for a weekend but stayed at our place. They’re our absolute favorite guests because they’re sooo easy going and we can 100% be comfy around them. (Our house has a help-yourself approach and they are well versed in taking care of themselves as guests!)

Though they were busy helping out with wedding prepping and writing speeches, we managed to slip in a game of Powergrid! It was with Jess and Bryan that we got very fluent in Powergrid during a weekend in the mountains, eventually leading to an excelsheet to track stats and numbers along the way (Brent generated some graphs too)!

Lots of fun, food, and laughs, we always have to ask, “Do you have to leave so soon?”

Chicken wings + beer are essential MUSTS for Powergridding.

“Hurry up and get to Step Two so we can eat HaagenDaaaazzzz!!!”

And featuring their baby girl, Emmy! I love her :~~~)))

Things that make me happy #8: Boardgaming with Jess and Bryan, and all the things that entail.

“Talent” Commentary

March 20, 2013

Since I’ve started my design school adventures, friends have mentioned things like, “You’re so talented,” and “I wish I could draw,” and similar comments. (I’m not bragging — just setting up for my social observation!)

Around the middle of my first term, Brent asked me how much I now think of art as an inherit talent vs. learned skill. I 100% believe that art and creativity is like any other skill set: it can be learned, it’s something that is developed over time, and ANYONE can do it. Like anything else, it’s a matter of dedication and investment. I kinda cringe when I hear comments about talent and envy because I get the impression that people are inhibited by … something that prevents them from seeing that it just requires some time to do the same art as me! I’ve gotten soooo much better in the last seven months (has it only been half a year!?) because I’ve been working my butt off, practicing nonstop, failing along the way, but learning sooo much as I do.

I think we often handicap ourselves when we begin to think that we’re inherently born with or without a skill. I grew up being told that I just wasn’t good at math, I never was, and that it was just part of my identity. Consequently, whenever I did poorly on math tests, I would think, “Well, I’m just not good at this, and I never will be.” When we define ourselves by the LACK of inherit skills, we often consider it a failure of our IDENTITY rather than a skill to improve upon. Similarly, “talent” implies that one is born with a knack for a skill, that they do it effortlessly and with ease. In some ways, it might diminish the amount of hard work that was put into developing the skill. One of my close friends mentioned before that she dislikes when people say she’s smart because people don’t see how much time and effort she puts in. She’s one of the “smartest” people I know, but she is most definitely one of the hardest workers I know.

Does any of this even make sense right now? I don’t know where my grammar and writing skills have gone. Moral of the story: approach life like The Sims. The Sims have skill set bars that progress when they spend the time to work on drawing, speaking, working out, etc. None of it gets unlearned — it only progresses as one grows up. When’s your next level up?

Proof that art is a learned skill:

Week One: A couple of my “good” paintings from the second week of oil painting class. Gosh, I’m embarrassed to even post these online. I’ve never touched oil paints ten weeks ago, let alone have any idea what the heck I was doing when I started using the medium. I didn’t know how to control it, how to make the paint move, I don’t even think I knew how it was supposed to LOOK. That, coupled with my shoddy figure drawing abilities, kinda made my early paintings look flat and without form. They looked more like contour/outlines rather than shapes with volume and weight.

Week Two: I started to get a feel of painting on canvas, and how to mix darks to lights with just one color. I thought this was pretty good when I painted it, but my instructor noticed I needed to learn more about head structures. In retrospect, I totally see what he means. This was good in helping me learn mixing values, but the painting doesn’t show the thickness and complexities of a human head.

Week Three: getting better at head forms! Compared to the previous painting, this one has so much more depth and form. I learned how to see a bit more of the darker values within shadows, and got better at using the medium. Big jump in progress here!

Week Four: mastercopy of Rembrandt’s Johannes Wtenbogaert portrait. Another big jump for me!

Week Five: adding in color!? But but… I JUST figured out how to paint with just ONE color!! I didn’t know nor feel comfortable with smacking down highly saturated reds and pinks into Johannes’ face. Mine came out a lil desaturated and not so lively as a result. Good practice, nonetheless.

Week 8: in-class painting with full color palette. Learning how to paint values in colors, how to mix them accurately, and loootttssss of trial by error learning.