Paintings

So I started a couple paintings last night. I've been wanting to paint for awhile now, and I've had the idea for these paintings for awhile now, so Sunday night I told Annilyn that I was sick of waiting and I Need Reference Photos Now. And Annilyn, being the kind and lovely roommate she is, obliged me.

I WAS going to wait to actually start painting until I, um, actually had the TIME to do it, not to mention a safe space, etc., but then of course it would never have happened, and I don't have that kind of will power.
(More specifically, I have the 'I must paint now and alot and crazily because I am an art major and nothing must get between me and my paintings!" kind of will power rather than the "I will study for my art history test because I'm a good little student, even though painting paintings is much more fun than writing about them" kind of will power. I just took the Art History test and... well, I think I passed, at least :-}.)

ANYWAY.

Here they are. I worked on them for... an hour or two. I've never been one who has kept track of time extremely well.

Yeah, I'm the one in the reference photo, so I guess you could say that these are self portraits, but I don't exactly think of them that way because the point of these paintings isn't an accurate likness but just... well, they're just supposed to be paintings. That happen to be of myself. sort of.




Yeah, I just painted them on my desk. Somehow I managed to have all needed painting supplies EXCEPT an easel... so I used my Mirror of Erised. Hey, it worked.

Some close-ups...


Sorry its kinda blurry. And at a weird angle. And stuff.

Yeah, so painting myself flying with a horn like an angel might be a bit vain/blasphemous, but I don't really see it that way.



I'd show you the reference photos too if I didn't think that the paintings were actually much more flattering. :-)

There are things I like and don't like about each of them, but I'm not going to tell you because I'd like to know what whoever is reading this might think. :)

Life, the Universe, and Everything

I just got 100% on my Physical Science test, which I'm pretty happy about, because this weekend decided to be crazy and I had very little time to study.

First, it was my week to work Saturday. There goes four hours.

Then, a Cleaning check. A deep one... headache.

Then, my teacher decided to remind us of an obscure assignment mentioned briefly in the syllabus that would be due on Monday.

Then, I have an art history test Tuesday which I Can't Not Study for.

And then the Physical Science test, to be taken Friday or Saturday or late day Monday.

Oh, and dancing. I was absolutely determined that I would finally go to the swing kids dance this weekend. And I did. And it was full of fun and awesomeness and all that jazz. I mean swing... and blues. Not so sure I'm a fan of the blues, but whatever, right?

Yes, well anyway, I really shouldn't be doing this right now, but this was much more entertaining than looking at my Art History notes (and then ending up doodling on them rather than studying. Which happens far too often. The last couple LDS History classes I've been to I've taken all of NO NOTES. Got plenty of sketching done, though. All the power points from the lectures are on blackboard, so I should be ok. :)

Last Saturday

Last Saturday we were going to go to this comedy show in the Mazer building. But, when we got there, we were told that tickets were sold out. Meh.

So we were hanging around outside the Mazer building and somehow we had the idea to go around to all the statues on campus and take our pictures with them. After all, we were already right next to one of them.



Thats Brooke up on the statue.


On our way to the Tree of Life, we stopped by the Ball.



Thats me and Deidre :)




Me, Annilyn, and Brooke as the Tree of Life.

So we were on our way to the statue of the mom and dad holding hands with a little kid when we passed the SWKT, which had its lights on (it was getting kinda lateish...) We were wondering what was going on in there. Annilyn said she thought it was the international cinema movie, probably the Kite Runner, and it was supposed to be starting around that time, maybe.

We walked in just as the opening credits started.

It was such a good movie. Mind you, it was edited a bit (this is BYU, of course, and its a PG-13 movie) and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to see the unedited version, but we all liked it alot.

Oh, and here is my window. Because I felt like showing it. And, before you ask, no, I haven't finished the hair on the one of the girl reading. I'll get around to it... eventually.

This is an EXPERIMENT.

I'm testing my HTML skillz to see if I can embed an image from shutterfly on the blog. I know how to do it from flickr and photobucket... shutterfly I don't know so well. So. Here goes nuthin.



Hey! Look at my mad HTML skillz! Lets try a couple more!





Tis working! I feel smart.

A Tribute to Clouds

I was walking home from my Writing for Children class last night when I looked up and saw the clouds. "Gosh," I thought, "I wish I had a camera. Wait... I DO have a camera!"

Behold.








And now some randomness.

First, the Living Room Wall.
]


My painting on display, helping to brighten the room.


I had to share this... Annilyn's Flying Toasters of DOOM! (thats what I say the title should be, anyway.) Its on display, in the kitchen, of course.


My desk. I'm going to tidy it up tonight, I promise.
It is colorful!

Oh, and while I was on the computer, I decided to change my blog a bit--namely, by adding a blog list just like everyone else, or in other words, becoming a conformist ;-).

I thought I would just say that, if you don't know what one of the blogs is, that probably means its the blog of an author whose books I like.

If you feel the urge to click on them, just be ready for plenty of nerdy book talk. And I'd be wary of Robin Mckinley's blog, just because ;-). She puts enough footnotes to make me dizzy, not to mention she posts EVERY SINGLE DAY. I mean, who has that kind of time, really?

Speaking of which, McKinley's latest book, Chalice, will be released in One Week. But I'm not too impatient for it, since I got the ARC from work and so I read it a few weeks ago. Speaking of which, I should probably work on those other ARCs. Speaking of which, I'd better get ready to go to work now. Speaking of which... I don't know. I just felt like saying that again.

Pictures

So, I've finally got the camera and the chord and the computer and the time all gathered together in once place so I can post some photos! The pictures are still uploading at the moment, but this post is looking like its gonna be pretty image-heavy.

While I wait for it to load, I'll just... ramble? Except that I'm not entirely sure what to talk about. Classes are the same as when I posted before. Homework is building up but, well, it tends to do that, doesn't it? It wouldn't be homework if it didn't. I will say that an extremely large proportion of my homework is reading--reading, reading, reading. In fact, the only class so far that I haven't been assigned reading for is Photography. Most of my classes require me to do reading before almost every class meeting. Good thing I don't have a big problem with reading, although of course most of the reading I have to do is text book type reading.

(Photos 43% loaded...)

I read a bit more of A Swiftly Tilting Planet last night, and while it is Very Good I most certainly don't blame my fourth-grade self for thinking it was pretty confusing. It certainly isn't the most straightforward book I've read. There is a lot of obvious religious symbolism in it which I probably didn't entirely pick up on as a fourth grader, though its obvious enough that I would have got at least an idea of what was supposed to be going on.

(Photos 78% loaded...)

We've decorated the living room wall in our apartment. I haven't taken a picture of it, but I will take one and post it later. We got little 6x8 (ish) cards and wrote little messages on them or doodled or whatever, and then we stuck them randomly all over the wall, so now out living room is no longer boring!

(Photos 99% loaded... make that 100%)

Ok, first... heres my room/bed. I've tried to make it fun/colorful. It looks a bit random/cluttered, but this is ME we're talking about, right?



Those little pink and orange and white pieces of paper all have quotes or sayings on them that I like. Way up above them is an ambigram that says 'Sarah' one way and 'Princess' the other way.


Now for weekend pictures.


Caleb loves his uncle Preston!


Fun playing games together


What're you lookin' at?


I find this picture immensely amusing for some reason. :)


Stargazing


Who handed me to this weirdo?


After the blessing; Lynzee, Nana, Brynn and Caleb, Emily


I honestly don't remember this picture being taken. I don't know what that says about my memory retention...


Anne took some artistic photos of Preston playing the piano.


Don't we look like we're enjoying ourselves?


Our cow is the one that goes 'moo'.


Anne took this one--I wish it was in color.


Caleb and Grandma


I took this one. Photoshop that tarp out of it, and I think its a very nice picture. Look at those clouds. I kinda have a thing for clouds.


Breanna on the Merry Go Round thingy. Whee!


Caleb and Daddy.


Caleb doing his balancing trick


I took this one too. It looks a bit too symmetrical, that wasn't on purpose I promise.


Family Picture!


Silly faces!

Hi. Its me. Wow.

Mom wanted me to put this on my blog. So I'm putting it on my blog. Yay.

http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Friend/1997.htm/friend%20january%201997.htm/childviews%20your%20pioneer%20art%20starlight%20camp%20.htm

While I'm here, I might as well, you know, blog or something. But maybe that would just make far too much sense. I think I'm going to anyway.


Well, I've made it through exactly one week of classes and I'm still alive! At least, I think I am. (I'm kind of tired at the moment and I think my sense of humor at the current moment is a result. Anyway.) I don't think that I'm going to end up disliking any of my classes... though it doesn't necessarily follow that I'm going to like all of them. I guess I could just say a few lines about each one, just because I can.

Physical Science--I think this is the class I like the least, which isn't to say its a bad class, exactly, merely that its not much good. You might remember that, in order to make my class times fit my job hours, I dropped the Physical Science class with the professor everyone said was fun and entertaining for a class at with a professor who was rated as merely good/ok. I'd much rather have the job, but why couldn't the funny professor teach at eight in the morning? I guess its hard to be funny that early. Maybe the class will get more entertaining once we're past Newtons laws, which we've been taught every couple years since fourth grade. Anyway.

LDS History (During the life of Joseph Smith)--I wasn't actually signed up for this class until the day classes started. I was originally signed up for some class that filled some random university requirement, like Moral Leadership or some other random thing. It was a three credit class, though, which put me at 17.5 credits, which is quite a bit, especially if you're working as well as going to class. So I dropped it and added this two credit class, so I'm now at 16.5 credits which I'll be able to manage a bit more easily I think... plus, I think I'm really going to like this class. The professor is really interesting and seems pretty enthusiastic about what he's teaching. It's not the same as any seminary class I've been to. And it'll be fun to learn more about all the sites we went to last July. The writing/research assignment we'll be doing for this class seems pretty different/interesting as well.

New Testament--With this class and LDS History, I have four religion credits this semester, the maximum number we can take and get credit for as religion classes. I think I'm really going to like this class too--the professor seems interesting and passionate about what he's teaching, and though there'll be some writing assignments it doesn't seem like they'll be that bad.

Art History since 1500-- I took the first half of this class (Art History until 1500) last semester, and it wasn't that bad. One of the worst parts of it was, since this is Art History and its kinda, you know, helpful to actually see the art that we're talking about, the teacher would show slides all through class. Which wouldn't be so bad if he didn't dim the lights WAY down in order to see the slides and then talk in a really low, monotone voice about the art on the screen (which was really, really interesting I'm sure). I will admit to dozing off in class--the only class I've slept in, actually. (Not that I made a habit of it! I tried to stay awake, really! But the atmosphere wasn't exactly conducive to that goal...) Anyway, the point of talking about the first half of the class was to say that, I don't think I'll have that problem this semester. The lady who teaches the class still shows slides and still dims the light and still talks about them, just not in the low, monotone voice. She's quite animated, actually. And, the class is in the morning rather than in the evening. So, yeah. No more sleeping during Art History.

Photography-- most of my VA friends/roommates took this as a freshman, but it didn't fit in my schedule so, I'm taking it this semester--the last VA core requirement. It seems good so far, but... since this is the class that overlaps my work schedule, I kinda can't wait to jump out the door and clock in so I can get as many hours in as I can, you know?

Intro to Graphic Design-- even though it says 'Graphic Design' in the title of the class, this is a requirement for Illustration majors as well. Two of my roommates (One an Illustration major, one currently a Graphic Design major until we convince her that she was Meant To Be In The Illustration Program, which she already thinks but is scared that the department will reject her application) are in the same class with me, so it makes it funner and cheaper (since we're sharing the text book.) I'm still not quite sure what I expect this class to be like, since I've only been to it once and all we did was go over the syllabus.

Writing for Children-- actually, the full title of this class is Writing for Children and Adolescents, but the only section of it open when I got to sign up for classes was the class that focuses specifically on writing picture books for children. As an Illustration major, this class seemed fitting, and though my Greatest Love is Adolescent Fantasy Novels, I really enjoy Picture Books as well. I've only been to the class once, but it seems pretty fun and kind of intense at the same time--every week we have to read ten picture books (not bad) and write one full manuscript (yikes!). Well, no manuscripts until we're through the first couple weeks, during which we have to think of and write down at least 200 ideas for childrens books. Hopefuly, out of these 200, there will be at least 10 or 11 that are half decent that can be turned into manuscripts through the semester.



So, those are my classes.

And, for those who care, I'm currently-
-a few chapters into The Queens Own Fool, but I don't think I'll finish. Its only somewhat interesting, I think I would have liked it alot more if I'd read it a few years ago but... well, I didn't.
-a few chapters into The Secret Life of Bees, but I don't think I'll finish, at least for the time being. I really really like the main character and the narration, but it seems pretty dark (And there are some swear words, etc. which are part of the people/setting but I wish they weren't) and I'm just not in the mood for dark.
-several chapters into The Mark of the Horse Lord, which I think I'll finish though I don't think I'll love it just because it comes so highly recommended. I think Sutcliff might be a bit too dark for me as well, despite the wonderful prose. If only she had some really fun characters, as well as three dimensional ones.
-a few pages into The Blue Sword, which I haven't read in a couple years but it looks like I still have it half memorized--I still finish sentences in my head before my eye passes over them. Not necessarily a bad thing.
-a few pages into A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which I first read in elementary school though I barely remember anything except that I read it, though I've read and thoroughly enjoyed the first two books in the series (A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door) a few times. All I remember from the first time I read it was that I really liked it but I was also really really confused. Hopefully it will make more sense this time.