Different Digits January 1, 2013

The year 2013 is the first year since 1987 to have all its digits being different numbers. And it won’t happen again until…next year. SO APPRECIATE THE NOVELTY.

I got really wordy and deep last year with my goal post. I’m not quite as feely today. I still plan on rambling about things I want but still don’t do, though. That’s a New Years tradition!

Here are my goals from 2012 with a bit on how I feel I did for each:

have an increased feeling of independence and personal responsibility - Yes on this one. Totes. I live in my own apartment in Midvale. I still suck at managing money, but at least I consistently get a paycheck. I have made some very independent decisions this year. I won’t go into the details, but I feel like I have become a much more independent and responsible person over the year 2012. Yay for vagueness!

continue to be health conscious – Well, damn. That brought me down from the high of accomplishing my previous goal. Which means the answer is a big, fat no (pun intended). I did try to be a runner this year. I was actually successful at it for over a month. But then I stopped. And it’s REALLY HARD not to drink Live Wire Mountain Dew at work, okay? D:

continue to grow as an artist – Half a point. I took a colored pencil class in November where I made a very pretty color wheel, but still have no idea how to draw anything in colored pencil. So I’m not quite sure that I grew, but I still care and I still buy art supplies. Ha!

continue to grow spiritually – And another fail. I know what I want to do to increase my spirituality, but I’m certainly not doing it right now. In fact, I feel like I’ve sort of shied away from all things spiritual for various personal reasons. This is something I want, but currently I’m afraid to even approach it.

am happy- I’d say at the end of 2012 that yes, I am happy.

Okay, two fails, one half pointer, and two successes. I seem to do around half every year, don’t I? Goals aside, here are some noteworthy events from 2012:

I went to Disneyworld. That feels like forever ago.

I had a five-month relationship with Ryan Phillips. Even though it’s over, we had a lot of fun and I learned a lot.

In July, I adopted two kitties. If you remember what I said at the end of this post, I can now tell you that it is absolutely true. Life IS happier with kitties. But I never really doubted that.

I “ran” a 5K. It’s in quotes because while I finished it, I probably only actually ran 1/4 of it. I did the Dirty Dash with Eric and Kim Brown. I’m tempted to sign up again this year because for some reason I think signing up for stuff like that will motivate me to get in shape (even though it didn’t happen last time–isn’t that the definition of insanity?).

I finished the first draft of my YA novel via NaNoWriMo. So I can now say I’ve written a book. That’s pretty bitchin, IMO.

Saw The Killers in concert with Carly and Caitlin.

I cut off all my hair.

But anyway, enough of the past. Let’s set some goals for 2013! These may sound eerily familier, but if that bothers you, just read last year’s post again.

In 2013, I want to…

• Finish my novel. I’d like to try and figure out the actual submission process in 2014, so I’m giving myself 2013 to finish all the drafting.
• Lose 60 pounds.
• Read 30 books. I just picked 30 randomly. A bit more than 2 a month. I have over 100 unread books on my bookshelves currently, so I’m not lacking in options. I hope I review them all on here, too (so if you don’t like my book review posts TOO BAD).
• Complete at least one colored pencil painting (yes, they call them paintings).
• Keep up with my monthly budget spreadsheets EVERY MONTH.

So, those goals are not lenient. But they are all doable. And they all allow for a bit of slacking here and there. These are the kind, though, that I feel like I should actually post somewhere so I look at them regularly. If I don’t see them again until the end of December 2013, I’m going to fail.

They basically break down to this, though: write, eat healthy, exercise, read, draw, and keep track of my money. I just made them measurable.

Jamie asked me yesterday if I could pick one thing that I would for sure accomplish in 2013, what would it be. I couldn’t decide between losing weight, being responsible with my money, and getting a book published.

What’s something you REALLY want to accomplish in 2013?

Fancy Crayons February 12, 2011

So I woke up this morning actually somewhat motivated to do some art. This needs to happen more often. Get on that, brain.

Anyway, I decided to go with the least messy of my untried mediums–my oil pastels. Now, normally I only buy the highest-quality, elitist supplies. Never do I buy things from the clearance section of Reuel’s or take them from the “to donate to charity” pile my roommate has compiled while she’s packing up to move to Seattle (*cough*).

But this time, for whatever unknown reason, my oil pastels were not all that fancy. For oil pastels, anyway. For crayons, they were hella fancy. All ten of them.

Since I have never drawn anything with oil pastels (that one thing I tried in high school doesn’t count simply because I don’t FEEL like it counting), I looked up some “how to” videos online. And in the one that made the most sense, the artist drew a pear and an apple.

So guess what my first picture was? Yay still life of fruit. Even more boring than a tree!

So I hate doing backgrounds. You’re lucky you got a table. (Yes. Lucky. *peer*) And honestly, I just can’t get over the fact that these feel like fancy crayons. Not sure I’ll pursue this medium. Not until I feel like buying a better set of pastels. Or maybe learn how to use them right.

But hey! At least I did some art, eh?

Drawing Achaea June 2, 2010

So, with my newfound drawing capabilities, I thought I would try my hand at drawing some of my friends in Achaea. I started with a picture of my mom and mentor. It was meant as a wedding gift, but…well, mom and dad got divorced before I ever got around to hooking up my scanner. But the dress is still pretty and it doesn’t look too weddingy, so no big deal. She loves it, which is all that really matters. She is a dwarf in the game, but I didn’t draw her at all stout. I asked if she pictured herself more like the characteristic dwarf or just like a human, but short. She said a short human. So, I made her super pretty. Here she is:

Stephine D’Ischai

Then, last night I was bored, so I decided to draw Arionna. She is my Nature Tutor in the Druids. She is a Siren, so she is supposed to be all sultry and whatnot. And she has a pet tiger. She has a lot of pets, but I like the tiger best. So here she is:

Arionna Moonflair-D’Ischai

Her fiance in the game, Exelethril, liked it so much that he offered to pay me to draw him. I told him that I’d do it for free. So an atavian male is my next project. I haven’t drawn a male yet, so we’ll see how well that works.

I need to draw my own character, Hayzel, too. But I like drawing for other people. I get more praise that way.

Colored Pencil: #2 April 2, 2010

Wherein Carly and I spent 30 minutes before class sharpening all our pencils and only got to use grayed lavender before our time was up.

Colored Pencil: #1 March 26, 2010

Wherein I did the same assignment I did the first day in my regular drawing class, but managed to stay entertained because Carly was there.

Drawing Class: Portfolio March 11, 2010

So, my very first drawing class has come to an end. And, as promised, here is the collection of drawings that came out of it.

Our first assignment was to draw a self portrait and bring it to class. So, without any instruction, I sat in front of my mirror and drew myself. Here is the result:

So, there’s that. She then taught us how to draw facial features. Here are the facial features I practiced. Lips are my favorite to draw with eyes coming in a close second. Ears are boring. And noses are the hardest.

We were then given the assignment to draw this random woman’s face. Our teacher gave us a black and white photocopied picture of this woman with a grid on it and told us to get started. It was really intimidating at first, but the result of this assignment is, I think, my best piece out of this class.

I learned how to draw with cotton balls and q-tips through that assignment. Producing that also gave me a lot of confidence in my own personal ability. I feel like with a photocopy and a grid, I should be able to draw whatever I want. Since the main focus of that assignment was shading, our teacher wanted to see if we could do the same thing from an already shaded piece of paper. Not really sure what the point of this assignment really was since it’s not like smearing the paper with a coat of pencil was really that difficult to begin with. But, I wasn’t the teacher. So here is a Renaissance man on pre-toned paper.

Next are the infamous gourds. I think this is my least favorite piece. Despite their various uses and significances throughout history, I find the gourd to be a very boring subject. Here they are in all their gourdiness. (These last three drawings were not scanned in with the same quality settings as the first four. I was going to rescan them, but I didn’t want to put off this post any longer. Anyway. Gourds.)

We didn’t even draw from real gourds. We drew from photocopies of pictures of the teacher’s gourds. I think that’s why everything was such a medium gray. The whitish pumpkin and the pear are my favorite (yes, I know a pear isn’t a gourd).

Next, we had to draw our hand. We could do whatever we wanted with our hand. She said we could hold our keys or our cell phone or whatever. I really wish she had warned us in advance that this was going to be the assignment because then I could have brought something to hold. I was limited to what I had in my purse, though. It was between my cheap point and shoot camera and the book I was reading. So, I drew my hand holding my book. The book is Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger (I bought it the day he died) and it is opened to the first page of The Laughing Man. There’s a reason for that, but the explanation is too long for this particular post. Maybe some other time.

The scanner really blew out the whites on the book. It doesn’t look like that for reals. The entire book is shaded. I’ll rescan it at some point and then replace the picture. And delete all this nonsense about a poor scan. And no one will ever know.

Okay, last assignment. We had to draw our self portrait again. I was a little worried about this since the only thing we ever drew from actual life was our hand. Everything else had been photocopied and gridded. I didn’t think my self portrait would improve much simply because we hadn’t really learned how to draw a face from real life. I was wrong, though. My second self portrait took me half the time to draw and I think it looks significantly better than my first self portrait. So, here it is.

The chin is a little blown out, but again, that’s the scan. Not bad, eh?

So, that’s my drawing class. It was worth it in so many ways. I loved going to a class every week. I love the fact that I didn’t skip a single one (that’s a big deal for someone like me…ask any of my college friends). And I love how much more confident I am in my drawing skills.

I have decided to take the colored pencil drawing class. It will start later this month. I hope I get to draw a lot of different things in that class, too.

Drawing Class: #8 March 10, 2010

Wherein I realize I dislike perspective, but don’t really care because I finished my first drawing class ever (portfolio coming soon)!

Drawing Class: #7 March 2, 2010

Wherein I made the assignment to draw my hand a little more difficult than necessary by drawing my hand holding a book open…a book with TEXT on the page.

Time for Some Color February 28, 2010

I got the Salt Lake Community Education Spring Term catalog in the mail yesterday and I need help deciding what to do. Now that I have a beginning drawing class under my belt, I want to start playing with colors. I have narrowed my options down to two classes.

Colored Pencil Drawing (Beginning)
Taught by Jan Henderson
Fee: $55 (+$10 material fee)

This class runs from March 25th to May 20th and will be Thursday nights from 6-7:30 PM. It will teach the basics of working with colored pencils and is taught by the same drawing teacher I currently have. This is good, because I like her. It is also more her specialty–she has been published in two best-of-colored-pencil drawing books. There will be several projects to chose from and she will tell me what supplies I need depending on the project I choose. The class includes layering and blending techniques.

• Pros: It’s nine classes long, it teaches something I have no idea how to do on my own, I already know the teacher, colored pencil is a cheap medium to get into, and it will keep me drawing all the way through May at least.
• Cons: Well, first off–it’s during Survivor. Le gasp! Also, I will have to miss one of the nine classes as I will be in Disneyland on April 29th.

Painting Techniques with Acrylic Paints
Taught by Lisa Quagliozzi
Fee: $49 (+ $30 material fee)

This class is on Monday nights from 6:30-9:30 PM and runs from May 17th to May 24th. That’s right. It’s only TWO classes. She’s calling it a two-part seminar. This is the main beef I have with this choice. Two classes?! *grumble* Setting that aside, though, this class looks like something I’d really want to take. The whole reason I started looking into community classes is because I was given a set of acrylic paints for Christmas (which are still sitting unused in my closet due to confidence issues). We are instructed to bring an old photo and a picture of our favorite landscape or landmark. Which means I should come out of that class with TWO paintings. That really excites me.

• Pros: It’s acrylic painting, I can attend all both of the classes *eyeroll*, and I should come out with two paintings. And, since I already have brushes and paints, I might not need to pay the materials fee (though I am not holding my breath on that one).
• Cons: It’s only two bloody nights!! That’s really my only con. $79 for two nights?!

So those are my two options. I am tempted to enroll in both as I know I would enjoy both of them. And they don’t compete. The acrylics class is on Monday nights and the colored pencil class is on Thursday nights. That would bring my total cost to $144 (if I did my math right). Registration starts on March 15th, which means I need to decide by then (I don’t know how quickly these classes fill up).

I’d really like to hear your opinions on which class or classes I should take.

Drawing Class: #6 February 24, 2010

Wherein nothing of interest occurred as I spent the entire time shading my gourds.