Happy 50th birthday, mom!

It’s always hard to figure out what kind of gifts to get your parents since they’re the ones that can usually buy what they need for themselves.  I decided on making something, since my mom says there is always room for art on the wall, and it won’t just be a thing to unwrap (although it kind of is).

I first did a personalized rendition of Tokidoki wine and champagne characters in acrylic, since… well, my mom likes her wine.  And she loves tokidoki.

I texturized the background using an OJ cap as a stamp.

It’s not the greatest painting, but I didn’t have much time to do it and it’s on a pretty large scale so it came out all right for what it was.

I next put together a montage of pictures of my siblings and I with our beloved little maltese puppies.   They are the cutest, nicest dogs ever!   I thought it would be neat to try to figure out 9 different art mediums to use with different interpretations of photos.

pens                                                     pastel

watercolor                                                        pencil

crayon                                                     acrylic

colored pencil                                                     charcoal

The last one was a printout, because I ran out of ideas for art mediums.  I could have tried oil paints, but I haven’t used those before.

It was also rushed, but she says she likes it so that’s all that matters. =)

Avatar Movie: response

My first response to the trailer:  Oh brother, this is just Hollywood’s new 3D pocahontas.

Sure, if you take the bare skeleton of the plot, it has resemblance to and will remind you of the Disney film multiple times throughout its three hours.  But when people are compelled to say this movie is “amazing,” in this decade it just isn’t about the plot, the storytelling, and the characters anymore.  James Cameron has stretched this science fiction theme with his $300 million budget to its fattest potential, recreating a dream so real that he’s claimed the 3-D viewing technique is actually one that “may trigger memory creation in a way that 2-D viewing doesn’t.” All I know is that having watched re-watched Spiderman after a 2-D AVATAR, I was thoroughly not impressed with pre-2008 graphics anymore.

This gorgeous reality has animation so believable and so well done that both the environment and the people are fully decked out to the finest detail in their distinct African-alien cultural nuances.  No moment is spared beauty and sensual richness; the Na’vi even have their own “linguistically correct” made-up language (which you can learn here!).  With the reality of it all, the most thrilling part of this movie is not in the Hollywood plot line or the pretty resolution–those just come with the production.  But rather, the epitome of this film experience is what earns it its right to the film title over The Last Airbender’s own original name: the thrill of the very real escape made possible by the intensity of every sensual detail.  Experiencing a taste of it is to feel first-hand as if you have infinite freedom.  This is something you get from your sparse daydreams, intense forum roleplaying, or occasionally the exceptional video game.  Watching AVATAR doesn’t make me want to save the forest, it makes me want to become a Na’vi, one of the dreamy beings spared no detail in their form and figure.  Freed from the limits of our ugly bodies and our daily life, the Na’vi embody spiritual perfection expressed through their gorgeous physical form and the graceful lanky movements that flow through them.

How they did it:

Although many I know have called this movie “political,” it is actually one deep-rooted in spirituality.  Not toward any particular religion, but the Na’vi command a faith that runs as deep as blind faith goes, both in their movements (jumping from tree to tree without looking, and even off branches hundreds of feet tall) and in their conscious loyalty to Eywa.  Combined with their humanoid presence which amounts to the aesthetic ideal of our own bodies at 9 feet tall, they are quite something for the audience to admire.  And to desire, as after the movie you may be one of those who find yourself craving more Pandora.  But what I feel the viewer is really chasing after when he/she pays another $13 to see it again is not for Jake Scully, Neytiri, or the ikran.  What you pay is a small fee to escape again into that fleeting heaven of AVATAR: the “I am graceful,” “I am unbound,” and “I am completely free,” capable of running, jumping, falling, and flying to pursue the heights of happiness… heights which we in real life feel 4 feet too short to reach.  From this we should be inspired to pursue a life of such strong faith for ourselves outside of virtual worlds.

eyelash crime poetry

For those of you who know my dolls, Senna and Rye, you may know that they incidentally both arrived with eyelashes awry and detached.

And if you know me very well, you may also know that I at a young age developed trichotillomania, an eyelash-pulling addiction (or for some people, other hairs) related to nail biting.  Yes, it’s very strange to anyone who doesn’t have it, and extremely embarassing to talk about.  But as I’m at the 14-year mark of this habit, it’s about time for me to openly address it and deal with it.  It’s genetic, it’s partly unconscious, and very tough to stop.  The main reasons I want to bring up this issue are to make people aware of it, and to let other people who have it know that it’s not their fault and that they aren’t the only ones!

Scene Painting exercise

Well, I have been posting very sparsely lately; it’s definitely not because I haven’t been doing anything!  I think life has become so occupied that the actual posting takes more time than I have now!  =O

So, here’s something we did in my Stagecraft class this week – practice painting on a large scale. =)  everything we do in this class is 100% geared toward learning the ropes for setting up the play productions here, and we have required volunteer hours.  That’s where they get their labor! XD

Practice Assignment: 2 people paint a grayscale section of a face on a 4′ x 8′ board. You can see the scale was huge – fortunately we had a grid to work with in 2′ squares, on the inch-to-foot scale =)

Use of texture was highly encouraged with sponges and feathers!  Creating texture lends very well to the faraway effect and is easy to do.

Everything was completed in just an hour and a half–

Here’s the one I worked on.

And the final giant effect!  The face was well done.  I think as a whole it doesn’t look half bad for being quickly thrown together and 0% coordinated.  XD

Side note – Storytelling

I have so many hobbies!  with a small obligation to occasionally updating the lives of my dolls, Senna has updated the world with the happenings of October in her diary here. [and here is the story before that one]  Stay tuned for the more recent events of november! =)

Stop Motion Complete.

When I was in the editing room somebody asked me, “how did you video that?”  And all I could say is, well, I’m touched that you thought it was video. 

The assignment for Visual Arts this time was to make a 60 second film that shows something “falling apart,” and it’s finally finished!  I’ve been dying to do a bit of real stop motion so I set up a big challenge for myself on this one.  Thanks to Brandy (a magnificent writer friend) for helping me figure out a plot idea! ^___^  Though the storyboard was pretty much improv as I went along.

Of all things, trying to pose AND photograph them myself was the hardest.  The frustrating thing is that most of the time they won’t hold subtle movements, so with each frame you have to readjust them as they slide off the chair or swing their arm down and drop what they were holding.  They also really, really do not like to stand and have a tendency to fall over easily. Plus add in trying to hold the camera still in mid-air with your other hand, and you have… a very tough project.  I wouldn’t want to do it by myself again.

The original song was going to be Blue and Yellow by the Used, but the teacher told me I needed a fast tempo soundtrack to match the video.  Also, I found out the hard way that youtube nonsensically doesn’t like popular music soundtracks on your video submissions.  -___-  So instead I decided on Kingdom Hearts II Duet of the Keyblade Masters, OC remix which has a pace that matches the fast forward style. =)

Can you tell what’s going on?  I know it’s fast paced, but it had to fit within the time limit!  And hopefully most people know what the origami is and how it’s made?  [star instructions]

More fun trivia:

Woodworking – Stilts

Last week was my first experience ever with woodworking, through my Visual Arts class.  We had to make a pair of stilts to go with this semester’s theme of “falling.”

Sculpting wood to your liking is a task of significant difficulty and requires a lot of arm strength– a little less if you have power tools.

Figuring out the best way to put something together is the challenging part; the rest is just tedious.  You have to pay attention to the grain of the wood, cracking, any knots, the hardness, etc.  And be careful about how well your lock-and-key shapes will fit together.  If it isn’t tight, the glue won’t save it.