Current location:	Northpoint, San Francisco
Current mood:	dorky
Current music:	"Think of Me" - Phantom Of The Opera
Entry tags:	academy of art, art

Art school is not as easy as you think. No seriously!

My upcoming weekend is packed, and that doesn't include anything Halloween related. For Friday, I think this pretty much covers my approach to the upcoming Y-Con. I can only really make it on that day, which is fine because I don't think I can handle more than the merchant's hall anyway. AX leaves me wary of berserk Yaoi fans, and having never gone to this con before, I have no idea what to expect. Some (ok a lot of) fans scare me ...but but some of the artwork is sooo pretty. Also Friday is thankfully the cheapest day, so yay. I know three people going (Jeanniephoenixdown7, Ellome antieden , Xiamara), and one other person, who I don't really know except through LJ even though she goes to my school (she seems awesome tho!! *waves @ masakocha *). Gah, I'm torn because, well... workshop time would be awesome too. Friday is workshop day; my Heads and Hands instructor's workshop (2:30), then there is Illustration Club (3:30) and Henry Yan's workshop of awesome is at 6pm. So, depending on how homework looks, I may not even go to Y-con. :X Maybe I can swing down there at night and get pictures of my favorite cosplayer all dressed up and maybe meet up with said other attendees. But I don't want to stay out too late since Saturday I have class at 9am (waaaaaaaay too early for a Saturday painting class but it is kind of a moot point now). THEN, Sunday is Costume Carnival! The Academy of Art University Illustration Dept holds a workshop where the models are dressed up in fantasy costumes, with horns and wings and such. All the work I see come out of that looks awesome. I missed it last year so I am determined to go this year. Also Helen wants to come <3 I wanna sneak her in!

Does my life seem busy? Well, that may be because it is. Right now I can't decide what to do. I could...

•  Work on my oil painting head portrait of my sister (partial progress due Saturday)
•  Work on illustration of girl in surfing on a car in a wave curl away from catholic school (Ill1 hw due Monday)
•  Work on rendering of my toy car from photo refs (Ill1 hw due Monday)
• - Print two copies of car rendering and color them in, one warm one cool based off photo refs. (Ill1 hw due Monday)
• - Make chart of colors I plan to use in chosen warm or cool final piece, this is done in gouache (Ill1 hw due Monday)
• Re-work patterns in B/W ink Dragon/Magic card illustration (Ill1 hw resubmission due this Monday or next)
• Work on the 100 heads and 50 pairs of hands notebook I have to have for Heads and Hands class. (due at end of term)
• Work on self portrait from mirror (no photos) for Heads and Hands (I actually forget when this is due... 2 weeks maybe)
• LA class HW that I don't even want to look at even though class is 2morrow at 3:30
• Any of my personal projects, like a comic about going to APE and meeting tons o awesome. D:

Okaaaaay, so in reference to my previous posts, where I said I was struggling at painting or basically any kind of rendering in color, this is what I was talking about (progress shot):



It looks like absolute poop! I wanted to rip it, cut it, burn it up by the end. It is so bad, I got frustrated to the point crying (later, not at school). But I hate that I don't post a lot of what I do here, so here! Here is something crappy. I took a picture of the classwork at the end of the day. The only painting that looked like Isabella (the amazing model), was that one dead in the middle. I kept trying to create her high cheek bones and just made her face fatter and fatter.... D:



Whyyyyyyyyy does everything I makes looks like a cartoon?! /cry /cry /cry

So yeah, I went out and looked for a book my instructor suggested at my favorite local indie book store, Green Apple. I didn't find it (omg!) but instead came upon these:


Let me tell you, I have been reading Alla Prima every day with lunch and breakfast. It is so informative and I enjoy going through the information at my own pace. Class, is obviously helpful, but the book sort of clarifies everything that I don't really understand from lecture. I redid my basic swatches and they looked so much better.. Resubmitting them on Saturday.


I'm really scared and excited to start on a portrait of my sister. Mixing is easy(er) now...but will I be able to isolate/identify the colors in her face? I gotta do it this week, to get some progress in. Now is not exactly good (or so I keep telling myself so I can post on LJ), mostly because I don't trust the lamp light. We get an amazing amount of natural light in this apartment (maybe a tad too much). I took this at breakfast just because the morning light coming between the blinds was so beautiful. This is where I do my illustration homework. I got my Dylan Meconis illustration up, my Jen Wang print and even a signed print from David Mack. <3 There's more on the side wall, but yeah, you get the idea.

I am kind of iffy on if I should continue painting on the drafting table. I kind of loom over it, and it helps that I can tape my paper up on the table when I'm drawing. It doesn't work that way with a canvas, though, and my last painting homework turned out warped because I just didn't step back and look at it. But seriously, how far do you see me stepping back there? Ok yeah, I can walk around the table... Haha, my palete is a mess I took this after I did the swaches.


To leave things on a bit of a higher note, here is my awesome $7 remote control toy car I got at Walgreens for Ill1 HW:

Warm light, cooooool shadows!

OK now I'm off to make a color isolator with a hole punch and some black card stock. YAY ME! >:D (You can tell I actually really want to paint.)