Introspection and Rain

Rainy Sunday mornings are for laying around in cozy clothes and watching movies.

So today I stayed in bed listening to the rain until I couldn't fight my craving of coffee any longer and lazily spent the rest of the morning reading Post Secret and drinking from my dinosaur mug. Around noon I decided to finally watch The Fall, which seemed like the perfect rainy day movie.

Everything about this movie was beautifully heartbreaking. The story is set in a 1920's Los Angeles hospital, where a wounded actor befriends a little Romanian girl with a broken arm. To pass the time he tells her a fantastical story about a bandit, which we see filtered though her imagination. It's saturated with color and shot in breathtaking locations all over the world. 

I highly recommend everyone watch this film. 

Art classes update: 

I completed my self portrait assignment on time and got some positive remarks from the professor. 

A girl in my class commented that I looked sad in the photo, but it was meant to be a quiet moment of reflection. I wanted it to say something about who I am rather than just be a photo of me. My professor differentiated between the two and noticed how my body is a diagonal force against vertical and horizontal background. That wasn't even on purpose.

I also finally completed my still life painting. Well, we are moving on to the next project, so it's done unless I decide to work on it at home. I kind of don't want to look at it anymore though. 

Here it is after about twelve hours of work:

I should've picked a different brown.

It might just be the rain, but I've been feeling a little down this past week. There really wasn't anything that happened, in truth it was a pretty good week. There was absolutely nothing to complain about. Maybe I'm just getting sick or something. It would probably help if I stopped reading poems and watching movies about broken hearts though. 

I really don't need to be reminded of mine. 

Improvements

I am pleased to say that this week was considerably less terrible than the previous one. I managed to finish all my prints for photography AND develop my first role of film. I didn't even get panicky in the pitch black closet. I was so proud of myself.

Also, my first week at the comic shop happened to coincide with the release of Saga #18, which means it is the end of the current story arc (and Volume 3 will be out soon!)

Oh man, it was so good.

Seriously, you need to read them all.

And I went to the movies! So the Roxy movie theater has this Cult Series, which is a double feature of old cult films. I'm ashamed to say that I'd never been to one previous to last Thursday. It's only $10 to see two movies! Granted, yes they are old movies that I can download and watch in the comfort of my home (preferably in pajamas), but still it's cheap entertainment.

Last Thursday was the end of Month of the Bloodsucker and after getting invited out by a friend, I really couldn't refuse. I mean, who doesn't love the Lost Boys? As a bonus, I was getting to see an 80's vampire movie that I managed to miss completely.

Everyone (who loves vampires/the 80's) needs to see Near Dark. It is a ridiculous Cowboy-Vampire mash up complete with showdown at the end. Not to mention Bill Paxton being a total psychopath. Watch it for gratuitous blood, explosions and barely believable science.

This month they are having a double feature with the Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Phantom of Paradise. I'll definitely be going to that one.


In other news, my still-life panting is coming along nicely. I spent another couple hours on it, so now it looks like this:

Next week I will have more color, promise.

That pretty much wraps up my week. Not a bad ending to the first month of the year. I think I'm getting a little better at making this a weekly habit (or at least dreading it less).

Now if only I can motivate myself to work on any of the various stories I have hiding in my computer files...

Who wants to be a grown up anyway?

Last week was rough. 

It was as if the universe was testing my skills as a well adjusted adult and I most definitely failed. Okay, maybe I didn't fail per se, but I didn't do well. 

Near panic attacks from the crowded dark room in photography class and my bank account reaching new lows has me thinking about whether I can handle being a "grown up". Maybe I'm not as adjusted as I think. Or maybe I am just in a period of growth. Yeah, let's go with that.

Well I am, for the first time, learning how to stand up for myself and hold my ground. I won't go into detail, but it is safe to say that it's not going well. But I'm not giving up, because I need to value myself and not let people make me feel small (...figuratively). 

I did, however, have a great weekend hanging out at Comics FTW (which I officially start working at this week!) for Geek Trivia Night and my first ever screening of a WWE Royal Rumble. 

I was score keeper.

And I made new friends! I knew it would happen eventually if I hung out at a comic shop long enough. It's good timing too because yet another one of my friends is moving out of state. That makes two in three months. </3

In other news, I finally got to start painting! It may be just a monochromatic still life, but I was really excited to finally put some paint on the canvas. Not to mention some of the still life props were deer skulls. 

Here is about two and a half hours of work, or the under-painting. After I mess with the antlers and bottle a little more I'll add some color. I'm thinking either a blue or a brown. Not bad for a start, right? 

This makes a successful month of regular blog posts! Yes, I realize that this one is a couple days late. It still makes four posts in a month and that's pretty good. 

Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have more interesting art to show off or stories to tell. 

Here's to a better week!

B&W Photography

I don't think I have much to write about this week.

It was the first week of school and I've just been trying to fall into some sort of routine. So far I've only succeeded at being restless and aimless. Maybe I will mellow out once I start having assignments to work on. 

My first camera assignment for Intermediate Photography is a self portrait, which is great except I hate taking pictures of myself. Hopefully it the process will be more enjoyable that I think it will be. In the meantime I have to study up on all the fundamentals, since it's been over a year since my last photography course. Luckily, I just got my textbook in yesterday. 

So here are some of my favorite prints from 2012. It was difficult getting them to look the same as they do in person, but I think I got them pretty close.

My goal this semester is to make more interesting, better quality prints. Last time, I left my projects to the last minute and my negatives are sort of...boring. So if you see me without my camera after next week, you have my permission to scold me.

Seriously.

Work In Progress

So I looked back through my old posts this week and realized that my writing has deteriorated into a sort of list format with pictures. I don't tell stories anymore. I'm not really sure when that happened. In all honesty, I feel like I've been running out of stories to tell. It's ridiculous, I know.

Okay, so maybe I'm not running out of stories. I mean, every time I leave the house I have a new story. I think that over the past year or so I've fallen out of love with writing stories. I haven't been reading much either. Yet my whole existence is collecting stories; my own and from the people around me, so you can see how I've been having a bit of an existential crisis.

It has been a transition moving back home, more so than I thought it'd be. I've also been here for longer than I had anticipated. The past year has felt like being in limbo. I'm just waiting to move forward with school and time is stretching out so far I can't see my goals clearly anymore. When I moved back, I had a plan. These days I'm a little lost.

The point of all this (there is a point, I promise) is that I need to stop waiting around for things to happen. I need to keep my momentum even when things are up in the air. I also need to learn how to not let every broken heart completely devastate me, but that is another story.

On the bright side of all this, I have been drawing more. Granted it is mostly fan art of the comics I read, but its still art. At least I like to think so. I've been experimenting with my Prismacolor markers (though not as much as I'd like to), but I still have a ways before I'm comfortable with them.















As you can see, I've been mostly drawing sexy ladies. These things just happen. Especially since comics are filled with them. Anyway, I quite like how they turned out, despite the fact that markers are tough to use.

In other news about writing and projects, I decided to write a graphic novel that will be illustrated by my very talented friend Blair  and lettered by Yano (even though he knows we won't be able to pay him). The working title is Delirium, and I am pretty excited. I'll post more info as we progress. 

So yeah! Gold stars for me posting on time. Now I am off to a magical night of geek trivia and beer. 

Thanks for the support everyone~

Back from Hiatus

I am a little embarrassed at the state of my blog. Never before have I gone such a long time without posting.

It's been six months.

Six months.

I can't even think of a valid excuse to why it has been so long. All I can say is that a lot of life stuff happened and my brain stopped being able to process my experiences into writing. No, I'm serious. I took a Creative Writing class this last semester and wrote one poem. And it was a breakup poem. Yeah, pretty bad, I know.

So what was I doing the last part of 2013?

Well...

I finally got the coveted winner's badge.

 

I transformed my bedroom. 

I painted.

I baked some amazing things.

(except the cupcakes with hearts, those are Jenny's)

Spent some quality time with my brother.

And got a bow for Christmas. 

Six months is a lot of time. I had quite a few adventures and some disappointments. There were many lessons to be learned (such as how difficult DIY home projects are or don't forget to send in your transcripts) and too many tears (no, you don't get examples). It was clear that I needed some time to hide inside myself, but now I am ready to move forward with my life.

Oh, and this blog too.

It might be a slow process, but I want to get back to posting every week. Even if it is just the crappy fan art I've been doing lately. 

So here is to picking up the pieces and changing my story.

Winner!

 

I've finally done it. After three years and five writing challenges, I have accomplished my word goal. Mind you, it did take a flexible word goal to get there. At the beginning of July, I was aiming for 30k, but about half way through the challenge, I realized it wasn't a realistic goal for my pace. 

Which may have had something to do with those few days of not writing at all.

So I knocked it down to 20k. But an average of 650 words isn't so bad! That is about a page a day.  Yeah, I took out 10k words and yeah I probably could have made it if I buckled down and did absolutely nothing except write. Honestly, I really needed a win.

There is something really satisfying about winning the NaNoWriMo writing challenges. I mean, it's not like you physically get a prize (unless you count the print out certificate).

It felt weird getting more excited the last week instead of despondent. It was such a high though, rushing the last hour, blasting My Chemical Romance to get pumped to finish on time. It was kind of amazing.