February | 2010 | Inside the Junk Drawer

Piece of Cake

Category: Uncategorized Tags: Art history, daily life, drawing 3 Comments

Drawing: I have no idea what’s gotten into me this week. The drawing I finished on Monday, I sketched with a neutral gray. I thought I was playing it safe because it was neutral; instead I pretty much made picking my color palette much, much harder. Gabe thought this was extremely unusual and helped me through it by pretty much picking my colors. I figured out what color to use on the model’s hair by myself, but Gabe really held my hand through it.
Then, yesterday, we did two studies before proceeding with the long pose. We did studies because this is the first time we’ve had a model with this kind of chocolate skin tone. Usually, we get a lot of Caucasian models, so we end up using a lot of red, pale pinks, and tans. This time, we were using two reddish browns to sketch with, which was really cool.
But it took us forever to warm up. We spent most of the class sketching, so when we had to do more sketching for the long pose, I was already tired and really messed up my paper. This is where I get strange again. I started sketching in the dark brown, which was extremely stupid, and really smudged up everything on my sheet. Gabe came over, looked it, and then had me smudge the entire sheet so it would at least be uniform. I started my under drawing, using orange, yellow of the highlights, and this dark pink for the shadows.

Social Ethics: I have a midterm I have to study for. I also have to write a paper on what moral virtue I’m going to work on. Aristotle writes that moral virtues are created out of habit: basically courageous people are courageous because they have decided to be in the past. So, our lab experiment consists of picking a virtue we feel need to work on and how we’re going to change our habits to conform to it. Needlessly to say, I picked courage for my experiment.

Literature II: I also have a midterm for this as well that’s on the same day as my Social Ethics. So, this weekend I will be studying for the both of them (after my sister and her boyfriend visit on Saturday, lol). Class was canceled today, so this should give me extra time to study.

Western Art II: I was also relieved that my literature class was canceled today because now I’m free to go to the assigned museum trip without having to leave twenty minutes early. I hate missing class. I forgot about it when I was registering for classes in the fall that my art history class was going to have to do that because the museum doesn’t open at 8:30. Last semester it wasn’t as much as a problem because it was social ethics.
Now it’s worse because my English teacher is pretty zealous and doesn’t like it when his students leave in the middle of class. He said I could, but was a bit grumpy about it. Also, I was thinking about minoring in creative writing, so now my major requirements are messing with my minor’s, lol. Obviously, I’m going to go to the lecture-I don’t really have a choice-but I won’t deny that it’s stressful.

Anyway, the trip went without a hitch. Now all I have to do is write the two page paper. Piece of cake.

Advanced Painting: I’ve completed my collages. The ones I liked the most were the bits that used some of my scraps from printmaking. I also tried dripping paint, but these felt weak in comparison. We’ll be looking at them Friday, so I should get some feedback. I also primed three canvases, so I’m ready to go.

Library Work Study: I’m surprised at how comfortable I’m with it. I think its because I’ve already worked for the front desk for a year and the skills are pretty much the same when it comes to customer service and answering the phone. Checking in the books and the equipment is different, that still trips me up a bit, but I feel very at home with Ellen and my other coworkers.

Front Desk: Still scanning Brus’ slides. Also helped Josh out with midterm evaluations.

Weekend: The plan is to go see the Harry Potter Exhibit before it closes on Saturday with my sister and her boyfriend, then study my brains out in preparation for Tuesday. The latter will be difficult because I don’t want to go back to poetry and Aristotle’s virtues, but such is life.

Side note: I also have to figure out what is going on with my alarm clock. This is the second time it hasn’t woken me up. It’ll ring for fifteen minutes before I wake up and shut it off. I sleep with earplugs but I haven’t had this problem before. I’m wondering if the ringer in the alarm has become softer or something? Or maybe I just need to turn the ringer on my phone as well…? I’m hoping that I don’t need to find another alarm clock. I’m a bit strapped for cash as of late.

Spring Term So Far

It’s been a long time! Classes have been pretty hectic this spring term so I haven’t been able to keep up with this. I’m taking English Literature II, Western Art II, and Social Ethics this term, so it’s been very heavy on the reading assignments. Luckily, Drawing Structure and Expression II and Advanced Painting have been far more relaxing. I’ve also continued dividing my work hours between the library and the front desk as well. Recently, the project I’ve been assigned for the later is scanning slides for Professor Brus.

The second half of Drawing Structure and expression is pretty much like the first. We’re still drawing from the model using pastels. There have been some differences. Gabe let us experiment with other mediums for the last two weeks. Some people tried out water color and other kinds of washes. This week we’re in the middle of a long pose. My drawing is a bit strange because I decided to do my sketch with a neutral color, so my color palette is extremely bizarre.

At first, I thought Advanced Painting was going to be a pain because it meets from 10 and officially ends at 4:40. Basically, it’s an all day class which takes place on Fridays. This really bummed me out, but it was the only class offered that semester, so I took it. I ended up being really surprised. It’s turned out to be my favorite class. Linda Brown’s teaching the five of us (yeah there are only five of us, awesome huh?), and been guiding more than lecturing: she’ll introduce us to artists, give us a task, then leave us be for the rest of the day to muddle through on our own. If we’re really stuck, she’s close by, but I find it very nice to be left alone like this. The idea scared me at first, but I’m really enjoying it now. Tomorrow, we’re making about twenty postcard sized collages for our next painting. With our first painting, we abstracted a still life with a specific color palette. On our second painting, we drew using our first as a base. The third was less strict and required an additional color. So far, all three of my paintings look related to each other, so changing to collage should help me not be so dependent on previous objects.

In Western Art II, we’ve started at the fourteen century and progressed to the sixteenth. We’re studying High Renaissance and touching upon Mannerism now. Professor Bokhari has also assigned a research project to complete for the class, so I’ve also visited the first of four museums last week with Pearla. We went to the Harvard Art Museum and I definitely recommend going if you have some time. The collection isn’t as extensive as the Museum of Fine Arts, but the pieces (jems) they do have are definitely worth looking at.

In English, we’ve finished up Romantic Poetry and moving into Victorian Prose. I turned in my first essay today. He assigns in class writing assignments at random. We’ve had two and both of them I did pretty well on, but I still get nervous. I’m finding it difficult to pull the deeper meaning out of the poetry we’ve read so far, which is a bit embarrassing considering I’m thinking about minoring in creative writing.

Social Ethics is probably my biggest class. It meets once a week on Tuesdays. We’ve been reading from two texts, Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, both written by Aristotle. Our first reading was hard, but once you get use to the mathematical way Aristotle things, the concepts become much easier to understand. This class has also forced me to pay more attention to the news of late, though I’m finding it extremely difficult to make this into habit. As an Artist and image maker, it’s extremely important to know the news. Pretty much essential. I just find it hard to get into because I can’t really do anything with it and I generally don’t have time to read the paper or watch the news.

As for work study, I’m still stumbling over stuff, but the library work has become much more fluid. I also started getting to know my peers better that work there. The front desk, Molly handed out this handbook which has pretty much helped me stop so many mistakes. I feel like superwoman, lol. Now, I’m just waiting to continue scanning slides. After that, I have to read The Case of Jekyll and Hide and Life of Lycurgus. Then, this weekend I’ll be going home to celebrate my sister’s birthday. It’s crafty, but I can’t tell you what it is because I think she might read this. I’ll let you know next week.

Inside the Junk Drawer

Piece of Cake

Spring Term So Far

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