Category Archives: Growing Up

2nd Term Spending at Art Center

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.

“Talent” Commentary

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:
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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.

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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.

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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!

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

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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.

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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.

Weeks 8-10 Leyendecker mastercopy progression:

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Finished! Mastercopy of J.C. Leyendecker’s “Carousel Ride” after muuuuchhh much work. I feel so much more capable with oil paints!!

Things that make me happy #7: working my craft :)))

Life Advisors

Today, I met with my academic advisor, Paul Rogers, a fantastic illustrator and graphic designer. With all my uncertainties and wavering plans, I shared with him a lot of my concerns and doubts. He assured me that in doing just fine in school, I’m on the right path, and that I DO belong at Art Center. I think these are the three things that people need to say to me to make me feel less worried and stressed, hahah There’s something about the creative process and Art Center’s rigorous program that makes us question our life goals and choices we’ve made. But I think it mostly makes us feel out of place, that we’re not good enough, and that we don’t belong. I get sucked into these negative doubts pretty frequently. Paul mentioned that worrying about it is good — it means I care about my education and plans — but that I shouldn’t dwell on it or let it get to me. I should acknowledge it as experiencing a moment of being challenged, and then continue forward with the grind. It was really helpful to chat with him, and reassuring to hear his words. SIGH!!!

I also spent some time chatting with my parents about some of our family history. I never documented our history before so I took diligent notes! I hope to use some of these stories for inspiration in future projects. Especially with our parents’/grandparents’ generation of pre and post Communist War, I think there’s a lot of untold stories that are incredibly interesting to hear! It’s also a bummer to hear that my family used to be really wealthy before Communism! WHYYYYYYYY!!!??!!

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Things that make me happy #5: Hearing about how our family came to be.

Living with Brent

… is one of my favorite things! We’re a great team together and we make sure we help each other thrive!

I just got home from a 16 hour day at school, and he just got home from a long film shoot. Even though this might be one of the most challenging times for us — spiritually, emotionally, an financially — the last seven months have been the time of our lives! We’re so fortunate that we’ve both been able to sacrifice our jobs and living situations to pursue our passions. (At the same time, nonetheless!) We know other people don’t have CHOICES or OPTIONS to pursue their goals, and we feel very lucky that we always have a fall-back plan to go back to the tech world if necessary.

Since we started our adventures in SoCal, I notice that we have a conversation every day that has to do with our respective passions. I chat about my challenges with painting and grasping techniques; he shares with me new film ideas, progress with current projects, and any new gigs that have come into the pipeline. Yeah, we’ve never had to work this hard before but we get to do fun stuff. And we’re getting good at it! The best part is: we’re both growing together and teaching each other along the way! We’re both creatives at heart with very strong structural/technical backgrounds. We speak the same language and think very similarly. We really are a great team. :)))

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Things that make me happy #4: Living and growing with Brent

Support from Family and Friends

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Brent, Juanni, and Norvelle have been busy planning and shooting a little baby project of theirs this weekend. It’s been very refreshing to see them in action and provide input along the way. Not to mention their comedy is sooo spot on! Our place has most definitely become the house of creativity! :)))

I was barely alive for Materials class this morning, after a fun-packed evening yesterday. I love Materials and learning how to make things with my hands. Plus, it looks impressive when a lil girl like me works on giant heavy-duty machinery ;DDD I painted a bit this afternoon in the 70+ degree weather. Then, my parents arrived!

We met with a few other family members and had a ball sharing family stories and a bit of our fam history. My mom wanted to come down to help cook and clean our place to take some of the load off of our schedules. Super sweet and incredibly supportive. I’ve come to appreciate and love my parents more and more.

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Things that make me happy #3: my parents and their unconditional love. Developing new bonds with my cousins, while sharing stories about our family history.