Gingersnap

Happy Halloween!!!! Tien and I are on a scary movie binge tonight. A lot of films were missing from the video rental shelf. The ones I really wanted to watch were classics like Freddy Krueger, Casper, Addams Family and such. We're watching "Friday the 13th," the first "Halloween," "Twitches" ( a cute Tia and Tamara Mowry film), and "Goosebumps." It's a mixture of the terrifying, frightening, and humorous fun. No candy or costume. I guess that's next year for me. I'm definitely going to be a duck.

So..... I've decided on making a "Days of Our Lives Bites" cereal commercial for the Bonnie Hunt contest. My friend Alex is going to help me with editing. Lord knows I'm so bad at that. So the premise is simple- very cheesy and bright. First it opens in a seemingly empty art studio with the cheesy music of "Days of Our Lives." Cheerios is pushed aside, slamming to the ground as the box of "Days of Our Lives Bites" is brought into focus. "Oh, the studio is my home away from home! Yeah! I eat my breakfast here as well as make art," exclaims the lonely artist, hungry for breakfast. The camera pans towards the decorated desk that contains an odd bowl of cereal that contains marshmallow hourglasses, a plate of toast, and a glass of orange juice. The woman looks at the box, exclaiming her excitement over the new cereal, "Days of Our Lives Bites," a non-nutritional cereal high in sugar and calories. The slogan says, "it can be you...

This is the original novel. It's So in Love by Karen Ranney. There's that insinuation that it is more than a man simply putting on a necklace for a woman. He is shirtless and though she is fully clothed, the decolletage is happily displayed!!!! She is sensuously blissful and expecting the inevitable. He is honing in on her, close and breathing in the intoxication of her scent, her femininity. Yep, they're about to....... I read this twice by the way, lol!!!! I guess I'm showing some kind of appreciation. These are almost finished!!!! I'm so proud!!!!!! I mean, I feel like I have accomplished something with these drawings/paintings that the others didn't. They're not realistic, but they are rendered to my satisfaction. I realize that I can't impress everyone at school, especially the ones who want art to be in a classically, masterful skill. The first, I have to finish polishing up her braided hairstyle, the fabric of her dress, and I'm still tryin...

I'm making new celebrity portraits tonight!!!! Taking a small break from the historical romance appropriation. I think it's confusing me so much, these hurtful comments about rendering. I don't have a classical technique or have such precise attention to detail. In fact, I'm bad at this as I keep saying, but it's what I got out of the special Hank Willis Thomas critique today. The visiting artist said that the drawings were more successful than the paintings due to their boxiness, harshness, and brutality. That the line work was strong and angular which in turn added to the texture. Then he mentioned that perhaps I should explore other materials, especially color ones on the textured paper as opposed to canvas. The weaknesses were of course the rendering (romance novels are traditionally successfully realistic and very glossy), to clarify what I want the audience to feel (is it humorous, celebratory, or loneliness?), that the background takes away, and that the cont...

Crit was so damn horrible today. And I had two of them. One for my Figuration class and one for Advanced Tutorial. My school definitely loves to stress the academic part of its name. I am not the best rendering artist in the world and my drawing isn't classically correct. It's stylized and expressionistic which I don't like to keep stressing over and over again. I hate critiques anyways. I don't like to talk about art at all. I'm sorry. I just don't. Heck, from my badly written "art" papers, I can't even comprehend the language of articulating what my work is about. Geeeeesssss!!!!!! I feel so much doubt right now, so in the dumps. I think I may have to take up painting celebrity portraits again! I am almost wanting to quit. I hate having to suffer through harshness. Sure, I do get some positive feedback, but it just isn't enough. I feel like my heart is not into this semester at all. I'm not going to be surprised by what grades I'll be...

It was the best birthday yet!!!! It started off with a great interview at Artworks, a nonprofit arts organization. I got the internship! I'm very excited about it because I get to do all sorts of things like deinstallation, prep work, helping my new boss Amanda put up the big SecretArtworks Show, and I get to see what goes on in Monday meetings as well as help Artworks move into their new offices very close by the Art Academy. I think this may aide me into figuring out what I want to do after graduation which is a big blank at this point. Of course I took a nap. Birthday girls deserve naps. Tien left his shop early to pamper me, lol!!!! We had dinner at Shanghai Mama's sharing vegetarian potstickers and vegan spinach raviolis. I had the fried rice with added broccoli and Tien had chicken pad thai. Yummy yum yum!!!! We played a quick game of Trivial Pursuit. LOL!!!! Umm.... we really don't know much alright!!!!! I was surprised with Bob Evans pumpkin bread!!!! (Now, I gotta ...

We had some fun times together. Remember? How could I forget? 25 was a helluva ride!!!!! 1.) We had Mexican and margaritas the night we met on October 7th of last year. 2.) That Thanksgiving was even the first with no relatives. Just us and Tien on November 20th. 3.) That Christmas, Tien still used the same snow penguin wrapping paper on almost every treasured present we got, lol!!! 4.) We watched the ball drop for 2009 at Tien's house! 5.) We didn't get the million (or thirty) snow days that I wanted in January and February. 6.) But we did travel to Paris from March 5th to the 10th in our first plane ride ever!!!!! 7.) Going to the Louvre on March 9th was just an amazing, awe-inducing experience! 8.) April 16, we signed up as ejsami77 on Forbidden Love website to support the best soap couple in ages- EJ Dimera and Samantha Brady! 9.) We skipped the last day of class to see Britney's "Circus" concert in Columbus!!!! So awesome!!!! 10.) We had our last conversation...

So The Bonnie Hunt Show is having a colossal competition. They are looking for the biggest Days of Our Lives Fan!!!! The winner will receive two tickets to L.A., including round trip airline tickets, hotel accommodations, food (lol!!!!) and a chance to mingle with ALL of the cast members at the "Day of Days" event as well as interview them for Bonnie's show as a special correspondent!!!!!! All I would have to do is...... "Send us a video...no more than 2 minutes long explaining why you are the biggest fan of "Days Of Our Lives." We also want to see if you have any reporter skills. Show us how you would interview your favorite soap star from "Days." And you need to show-off your vast knowledge of "Days of Our Lives." You can tell us about the story lines, maybe dress up as a character or have a friend dress-up as one and you interview them...these are just ideas! Have fun with it!" Videos are judged on creativity, enthusiasm, humo...

This is my first large scale litho crayon drawing from my series. It's about 20" by 24" or something like that. I'll have to measure it later, lol. This is an Afrocentric woman all ready to be in the throes of love with her shirtless beau. I'm still working on this one, wanting to push the values even more and wanting to figure out how to incorporate text. One person suggested that I take the actual novels and cross out words like "pale white skin," "rosy apple cheeks," and other phases. But how would that correlate with the drawings? Most people favor the drawings when comparing them to the paintings. I think its due to the textural quality of the Arches paper. The format reminds them of novel pages. My instructor and another student agreed that the drawing seems much more thought out and organized. I'm looking and researching the Marie Antoinette period (heck no! I'm not watching the Kirsten Dunst film at all) to inspire the fashions...