This weekend I did a massive art cram to create three 16X20" drawings for my application to RISD. Initially I thought that I would have to work hard, but I would still be able to sleep. I was wrong. On Saturday I spent half the day cleaning my room to make my brain less cluttered and then started my first drawing. It was a drawing that utilized both sides of the paper. i started at 4 pm. Fast forward 12 hours and there's me, still only working on one side of the drawing and getting more and more exhausted by the minute. Finally at 4 30 I go to bed, thinking tat i wil just wake up and draw all day Sunday. Sunday morning rolls around. Sunday afternoon rolls around. And around one o'clock I wake up and get cleaned up and eat breakfast. I finish side one. At this point Im telling myself that really i have four drawings, and i have finished one, and really the side I already finished was the hardest side. so everything else will be easy from here on out. Then there's valentines dinner which lasts a few hours. And I am back to work at 9pm. at about 3 in the morning drawing one is finally completed. I have to get the drawings and two essays in the mail by 3 the next day. i would be panicking except I am so tired I can't function. I fall asleep and wake with a start at *am the next day. Now it is a race against time. Drawing 2 is complete around noon. With three hours left to make drawing 3, write two essays and get all the requirements to a FedEx shipping center I kick it into high gear. I get drawing 3 done, needless to say it is not my best work, by 2. The last hour was a frenzy of typing, lableling everything with my adress, and the worst part: folding. Now drawing 3 is not great but I am proud of drawing 2 and 1. Drawing one was a two sided drawing where the top is a picture (drawn from a photo i took) of me standing in a pond looking at my feet while the rain hits the pond surface. There is a fish tail plunging into the water, on the underside it is a drawing of a school of fish, with a lot of depth looking up at the bottom of the feet and the surface of the water. The second drawing was a creative drawing of a junked out bike in a pile of refuse with these strange garbage creatures crawling, floating, and growing in the pile. RISD forces the applicants to take their large drawings and fold them into quarters. FOLD THEM. it was a travesty and I may never recover. After the mad rust to the shipping center I went over to a friends house and painted trim until I could stand up anymore. Great weekend eh?

ok so this isn't really art related, but I am all shook up and were supposed to use this as an outlet right?
I had my Brown interview today, and it doesn't get any more nerve wraking than that. Some key moments were when the alumn told me that usually only one of all the kids he interviews actually gets in. The he said about twelve kids in the entire state of Oregon actually get accepted. Then at the end of the interview he asked me about my accomplishments. I told him I took first place in the George Fox shoe, got gold keys in Scholastic, and other artsy accomplishments. He respond by asking if I done anything else, saying that one kid interned at OHSU and another wrote published articles. He asked " Haven't you done anything like that?" I felt more then a little bit inadequate. No I have not published a book or been to the moon. I am a good student and a good artist. I am free spirit and a unique individual. But it was painfully apparent that I do not have the "Je ne sais quois" that Brown students should have. He was a nice enough guy but I feel I must kiss my Brown hopes goodbye and turn my dreaming elsewhere.

I went to George Foxon my way to visit my dad this weekend, and guess what? I won first place. And this wonderful little school is giving me 250 dollars. I was so surprised and happy. The art director showed me around the art facilities and showed me his art gallery, which was very edgy for a christian shcool. It was about the beauty of the female form and how its not something to be ashamed of even though modesty is important. I aslo visit alot of galleries in ashland and i got some ool ideas about how to pump up some of my past concentration piecies. I seriously can not wait to see if they work out!

sorry about the spelling errors :)

my computer is having issues but i am going to download a document for my update

• Magically I got my computer to WORK! I'm very excited, not only about figuring out how to type in this little box, but about art! Partly I am just amazed that it was finally sunny today. It felt like spring and that sun renewed me more then sleep ever can. I'm actually considering buying one of those light boxes that replicate sunlight for people who dont feel energetic when the weather is dark. I'm one of those people--which makes it hard to live in Oregon during the winter. Anyways the other reason I'm feeling excited about art is because of a little at home research i have been doing. For Christmas i asked my brother (who works at borders) for a strange book about creativity. The authors main theory is that creativity is not something that either you were born with or you don't have, it is just a skill. The skill has a nice simple foundation: creativity is taking a drawing and then doing things to it until it becomes something else. The book is a series of little activities that represent different techniques that take a regular image or idea and make it "creative." The book was a little simple, and the ideas seemed boring enough, but it sparked a bout of creativity in me. I wrote down a whole list of concentration ideas that i am so excited about. I seriously cant wait to dive into two of them for my next concentration pieces. The third reason I am so excited is because of portfolio day last Sunday. I got great feedback that really made me proud of what Ive been working on and even more excited to delve further into my art potential.
  I can't wait to be back in the art room tomorrow

O and I taught myself how to make apple pie, what a great accomplishment.

I'm having some issues trying to download these photos, so i guess every one will just have to wait with bated breath for my "in progress" pictures. I should have done an in progress journal so i could have ranted and raved about how much trouble my jellyfish drawing was.

So i have a favorite artist who does amazing work. She takes drawings of people and abstracts them. Somehow she achieves twisting, writhing, milky effect so the subject appears as if seen through smoke. It's amazing. Her name is Maureen Gubia and this her website:
http://gubia.neurasthenic.net/
I tried some of her techniques, but they didn't quite work out for me. Her hair is alot of fun to recreate. t did an abstracted portrait of my little brother and the hair was by far the best part.
see you all at school!

concentration

My concentration is an exploration of surrealism with animals. I want to focus on a juxtaposition of two regular things that creates a new perspective on the objects. The original french surrealists had many methods of tapping into the subconscious to create works of art. These methods are the inspirations for my art work. My art work shed a new light on everyday things, and they force the viewer to think about things from a new perspective.

this is a very raw first take on a concentration statment. tell me if you have anyways to make it better? or any ideas of art that might fit into my concetration

Last night I had this terrible school nightmare, where i forgot i was taking a class i was enrolled in and i ended up failing it and not getting accepted into any colleges. And then today when i was making a sketchbook i had this horrible thought that i can't remember the last time i used one of those sticker prompts. so now on top of the insane school night mare i have the real one of getting half credit for who knows how many sketchbooks. great.

but in better news i found this great how to book in borders about accessing your imagination in drawings and I used one of its ideas for my sketch book. The idea is to look at something with random organic shapes (clouds etc) and then drawing what you see in the shapes. I did a sketch book off the water stains/ mold growing on my bathroom ceiling. I used gray pastel for the stain part and then clarified it using a pencil. (this counts as observational too right?)I thought it was a fun idea. I'm trying to get my brother to actually buy the book for me so i can use more of the quirky ideas, they were really fun.