Finals homework remaining:
Media In Motion complete. :)
Art History <-- need to study
Creative Writing <-- rewrite a bunch of stuff; may also need some kind of presentation folder for it
Concepts and Issues shitty ass self portrait is finished. I just need to show up and turn it in. :)
Perspectives in New Tech <-- throw the background onto the greenscreen.
Comics Class <-- print and staple the minicomics.
The end of the world was canceled today due to unforeseen complications. The PMTV News crew wanders the streets, half-heartedly rooting through Monday morning traffic for footage of pristine, un-pillaged television stores. Crazed hobos scribble furious revisions on their doomsday signs. I love you’s are exchanged just like they are on days the world isn’t scheduled to end.
Overhead the jets scream and the bombers rumble. They have dropped their undetonated payload in the Atlantic and are going to Alaska to spend the last of their fuel under the Aurora Borealis.
The dead sleep peacefully. Atom bombs meditate quietly in their silos. Coffee is still slightly cheaper than gas. The president, it turns out, is not the Antichrist after all. The Beast still strains against his chains in the Underworld; Cthulhu slumbers.
All around are wide smiles, sighs of relief, laughter, tears. People call their parents, their siblings. Apologies are made, bridges are mended, couples fall in and out of love. Vacationers call their old bosses, hoping to beg their jobs back. Night falls, and PMTV News anchors promises that this sunset is definitely the last.
--
I’m sorry I forgot to write. I don’t have a good excuse. You still tried to contact me when you knew it wouldn’t matter in another week; that makes you a better person than me. The workload is backbreaking here. There are times when the oxygen systems shut down. Do not come. This is no place to raise a child.
I recently took the plunge and got my first tattoo. :D
I waited a full year after I decided I wanted it before I got it, just to make damn sure I wanted it, and I used money I earned myself. It's an angel riding a turtle on the back of my left calf. The original picture comes from a collection of 1900's newspaper illustrations. Pics to come. :)
I've got plans for more, definitely. I want one on the inside of my right elbow that reads (my plan is secret) and I'm saving one of my shoulderblades for a tattoo artist to make something completely original and new-- an independent piece of art, full color. I'm also thinking of getting a batsignal on my right forearm over some scars, but that's tentative because I want to save my upper arms for sleeves.
Also, if I ever get an STD, I'm gonna tattoo a biohazard symbol over my junk.
http://upload.
I like how there is no sense of scale to this picture. That thing could be a hundred feet tall if it's half an inch.
Sasha Reneau
Jessica Ngo
English, section K
1/3/10
"Cut! That Was Perfect--Let's Do Another Take."
It is not uncommon to hear these words on a movie set. As frustrating as they may be, they are necessary because of simple economy: the more takes an editor has, the better a chance he'll cut together the best film an actor and director can provide. No film goes straight off the camera onto the projector uncut; otherwise, audiences would be wading through hundreds of hours of film to watch a two-hour movie. Movies are cut, recut and cut again a thousand times over before they ever reach the eyes of the public. It's equally true in literature. The proper revision of an essay requires writing multiple drafts, reading the work aloud, and understanding of the rules of grammar, syntax, and structure. This process can easily be applied to the work of visual art.
Writing multiple drafts of a work of literature, be it an essay, a short story, or a poem, requires a thorough examination of syntax and structure. In order to exploit the full benefits of rewrites, however, a writer has to accept the idea that not everything he pens is untouchable brilliance. There may be little jewels of sentences that glitter and look deep and meaningful. On a second draft, however, it often becomes clear that the little gem of a phrase isn't cohesive at all with the message of the rest of the piece, and is ultimately meaningless. As Donald M. Murray put it, there is a lot of fuzz in American writing; this is the writer's first line of defense against that. For an artist, the tools may differ, but the mentality remains the same, especially in the case of young artists. Once in a blue moon, the stars will align and a hand will come out perfectly, or the core muscles ripple with vitality instead of squiggling in earnest. Because they're still developing their abilities, young artists carefully work around these little 'gems', but often the overall composition of the piece will suffer for it because, although the hand may be beautifully rendered, it would have to be broken severely before it could be unified with the rest of the pose.
Reading a work of literature aloud forces a writer to see all the words in a composition, as well as the structure and cadence of his work. People normally read a word for its entirety, which is why a paragraph which every word is scrambled except for the first and last letters is not impossible to read, according to a UCLA study. Reading words aloud allows the writer to concentrate on every word as he speaks, revealing excess vocabulary and amusing grammar errors. It also forces him to see the work as a whole. This is where art and literature differ slightly. For a masterpiece, it is best for an artist to back at least six feet away in order to guage the entire composition as a whole. Literature, on the other hand, cannot be absorbed in one glance, even in such a thumbnail; it can only be broken down into parts. This limitation defines the medium as time-based, like music or film. However, this comprehension is imperitive to a work's success, regardless of media. The ability to step back and guage its effectiveness at a different perspective is invaluable to a writer and to an artist.
The English language is monstrous. Its vocabulary is panoptic and its grammar laws apply everywhere, except for in special cases which number higher than the law abiding sentences. The best writers know how to apply this language with finesse and restraint through years of practice. They know the connotations that apply to subtle words, and how to use them to manipulate the mood of a piece of literature. Likewise, a master painter knows how to paint a beautiful white cloud without ever dipping into white paint. Abstract artists can connotate emotion without the annotation of allegory. All art is made to express something. Exceptional art profoundly communicates its expression to the viewer. It is the same in literature. All it takes is knowing how to say it.
Rewriting, reading aloud, and knowing how to communicate are essential tools in a writer's arsenal. In this way, all pieces come together cohesively. This easily applies to visual art. The tools are best employed as mentalities: sketches are not sacred, details are sacrificed to the benefit of the whole, not the other way around, and geometry and organic form mean different things. Artists and writers will always need editors, regardless of the medium they choose to work in. As the seemingly jaded director knows, an artist grows with every draft he makes. "Perfect take," he says, "let's do another one."
Meme stolen from [Fireblade K'Chona]!
Ten things I wish I could say to people:
1. If you thought I drew furry porn for five years, what the hell else do you think you know about me?
2. I was lying when I said I projectile vomit when someone tickles me but it got my point across and I don't regret it.
3. I clam up about things when we talk because I know I'm uninformed and you are about a thousand times smarter than I am and I think it's a better use of time just to listen.
4. Honestly you might actually have a chance if you didn't live in bloody North Carolina of all places.
5. You have the most magnificent of mustaches and it brightens my day immeasurably every time I see you.
6. Are you helping me because it's a good challenge for you, or is there some seed of altruism I haven't seen before? Either way I am not complaining.
7. Knowing that I'm a lesbian, do you still not like Queen on the basis that they stood for homosexuality in the 80's?
8. I don't really hate you, but it's good for my art if I angst about you. I genuinely hope you are doing well and please God have moved out of your mother's apartment.
9. You act and look exactly like my ex-boyfriend plus two feet and a tan.
10. You're awfully cute.
Nine things about myself:
1. I secretly want clavicle piercings and long, elaborate sleeve tattoos that tell the fairy tales that our parents censored for us until we misbehaved.
2. I don't like Alan Moore's writing style. He spins one hell of a tale, to be sure, his characters are amazing, yes, and he revolutionized the superhero graphic novel, but his pages are fucking dense. It's like a ten-panel, 500 word minimum per page for him. I don't care if it takes twice as many volumes! Let the pages breathe, please!
3. All I know about my life is I want to draw and get paid for it. Beyond that, I have no idea what I want to do for a living.
4. I love Los Angeles but if I didn't have outgoing friends I would never leave my house.
5. I am a lesbian but my geekiness supercedes that. I still have a huge embarrassing crush on Darth Vader. (although really, any sufficiently evil and delicious villain will do in a pinch. Yum.)
6. I am not a charitable person.
7. I adore opera.
8. I have hitchhiker's thumb, I think. In any case I can bend both my thumbs back to a right angle naturally.
9. I love love love love vintage 50's music. The Ink Spots were my first <3
Eight ways to win my heart:
1. Love God.
2. Have a creative outlet.
3. Pursue your dreams.
4. Make me food.
5. Be a geek/nerd.
6. Be a 501st Stormtrooper.
7. Get me Darth Vader paraphernalia.
8. Draw me fanart!
Seven things that cross my mind a lot:
1. How things could've gone, but didn't
2. Dream theory
3. various songs
4. 'it would be lovely to eat some spaghetti.'
5. I don't know?
6. I don't really pay much attention to what goes on in my head.
7. The next Asylum Labs script, maybe?
Six things I do before I go to sleep:
1. Check the interwebs for things
2. Yawn
3. munch on something
4. use the bathroom
5. vault into bed
6. think
Five places that I want to visit:
1. Moscow
2. Scotland
3. San Fransisco (VISIT, not just drive through!)
4. England
5. New York
Four things I'm wearing right now:
1. big fuzzy blanket
2. TMBG Presidents shirt
3. jeans
4. an alchemy necklace
Three bands/artists I listen to often:
1. Muse
2. Kaizers Orchestra
3. Prokofiev
Two things I want to do before I die:
1. Break a bone
2. Have a solo exhibition
One confession:
1. I have two cars, a 95 Ford Escort and a 69 Chevy Nova.
http://www.bri
I just realized. I use 'fucking' in conversation like most people use 'um.'
Maybe I should fuckin' stop swearing so goddam much.
if my art never infiltrates the popular conscious, if it makes no social changes, if it isn't taught in schools long after my death, is it relevant as art? And am I, in turn, relevant as an artist? Would I be content as a footnote in someone else's story? Is my destiny only to inspire and aid another artist into revolution, into fame and glory? And could I be content with that? If I work all my life as a commercial artist doing children's books and DnD illustrations will that be an acceptable legacy?
How much should I compete with my heroes, with my contemporaries
Am I even old enough to consider this kind of career nonsense? XD
songs I have an emotional attachment to:
Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel
Don't Give Up - Peter Gabriel
Black Leaf Falls - Sea Wolf
No Surprises - Radiohead
Just (You Do It To Yourself) - Radiohead
Can't You See - Marshall Tucker Band
Midnight Rider - Allman Brothers Band
Boston - Dresden Dolls
This isn't counting a variety of classical music, which will take me to a different place entirely. These are songs that give voice to the way I feel. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.
I woke up this morning with Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel running through my head, and an unsubstantiate
I know from life drawing that I love that little tummy pudge on girls. I think it forms this beautiful curving slope that accentuates all the other curves. When I lose weight I'm going to keep that for sure.
Sasha Reneau
Critical Analysis and Semiotics
Section K
December 1, 2009
I’ll be honest. I’m an Internet junkie.
At home, the Internet has fizzled out for one reason or another. I’m staying at school so I don’t miss anything if my collaborative stories move at all. In fact the only reason I am writing this essay this early in the evening is to pass the time between forum posts. Ironically, even as a full-time college student, homework takes part-time precedence when it comes to entertainment on the World Wide Web.
It occured to me that I don't have a lot of real-life male friends. So I considered the male friends I do have and it made me miss them terribly. I say I want to go to the opera more often; I really mean I miss hanging out with Daniel. I say I want to start getting flying lessons again; I really mean I want to talk to Ben. Funny how attached you can get to people you see every day for four years. I even miss dysfunctional Matt.
I don't like people, but I love these people in particular more than I thought I could.