I realize now that my computer screen has a bit higher resolution setting that almost everyone elses. The ultimate result being everyone's blog looks horribly narrow. Like the page is as wide as the word expansive, but the writing is only takes up "an" of the space. So on my computer on my blog I fixed it. I spread out the margins so my words would fill up the page. Take their place full and center instead of a narrow column slicing off pieces of my photography. Looking on other's computers though I realize that while it looks great on my computer, on at least two others its been mangled to - were I following the diagram of the word "expansive" - look something like this.
expansi
ve
Though my words are spread as widely as "pans" on the page, my link bar falls off the edge, vanishing to a magled heap at the bottom of the page. I've worded this a bit confusingly, but if you've noticed my margines and tables are off and my links hanging around the bottom of the page, let me know. I think I might change it if I'm the only one seeing it like this.
Also, I think I might create a collage like satin bower bird picture. I dont have brown tissue though, so it could be difficult to get the effect I'm imagining. Maybe I'll water color it instead... I hope to buy another cheap student set when I get to Portland. Speaking of which I need to finish packing all my periferal goodies and get to bed. Yikes. Wish me luck!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Vision
I've never been one to poke my walls full of push pins. Or even one to use nasty tape on my unmarked walls. Generally, my walls are kind of bare save for a few carefully placed treasures. I like the uncluttered space. My old roommates poster drowned wall drove me a little bit crazy... But I could use some more decoration. I could also use, even cluttered though it may be a beautiful big vision board. I'd place pictures cut out from magazines... a cute coat, inspiring word strip, or just a color or pattern that attracted my fancy. Weave the bits and pieces like the satin bower bird his treasured rubbish.
I'd post things that were pretty. Things that inspired me, or made me think. I'd do impromptu collages to solidify my ideas and themes... Post dreams of all variety. Day dreaming what if I could... Life dreaming as soon as I can I'll... Real dreaming like the one I had the other night... And it would be a physical thing that I could rearange and add to and tear apart without tedious uploads and crops and sourcing. That I could fix in a moment without sitting on my darned computer, though if it looked especially good I'd consider uploading pictures.... I'd love to make it a magnet board somehow. Some sort of pewter colored metal with a sea of cute polished black and exceedingly colored magnets. And on it right now, I'd post this.
I'd post things that were pretty. Things that inspired me, or made me think. I'd do impromptu collages to solidify my ideas and themes... Post dreams of all variety. Day dreaming what if I could... Life dreaming as soon as I can I'll... Real dreaming like the one I had the other night... And it would be a physical thing that I could rearange and add to and tear apart without tedious uploads and crops and sourcing. That I could fix in a moment without sitting on my darned computer, though if it looked especially good I'd consider uploading pictures.... I'd love to make it a magnet board somehow. Some sort of pewter colored metal with a sea of cute polished black and exceedingly colored magnets. And on it right now, I'd post this.
The Art of the Truffle!
Join us for a fun evening of truffles and wine!
Learn to hand temper chocolate and make true hand dipped truffles! We’ll start off by making the basic truffle. Then you decide what flavors you want to add and what you want to coat your truffles with to make both sweet and savory treasures. Take home a treasure box full of your creations.
$50
The decription to a class I have long since missed in a chocolate shop in a city I've only been to once. And though I've missed it, I could dream it and imagine it, and smile at all the flavors they might have to try and how I would arrange them... How I could take that knoledge home and apply it elsewhere... And how fun that little treasure box full of my creations would be to savor. Maybe next to a picture of students in chef hats. Maybe a shot of an urban view out of a balcony window, sheer curtains pulled to the side and blowing in the slight breeze as a woman sips at her beverage on a cute bistro table. A flat. An arrangement of colorful scarves. Paving stones in an old park in the old town... Bits and peices. Moments and feelings. All bits and peices of a dream I treasure and long to meet. And I could look at it in fleeting reality on my dream board and smile, and be inspired to move with my day one step closer.
Friday, November 6, 2009
If I Had...
Have you ever when running or singing or stretching or trying to put something really delicate and back together with your suddenly massive fingers.... run into the very edge of your ability? Where your try to pull your foot back just a little faster. Where you can see just how or where you should grab that sliver with your fingernails... but you cant. Its like running one of those stupid claw vending machines, only you cant blame the controls the same way, because its not some rigged money making contraption, its your body. I wonder if a surgeon feels the same way. And how frustrating and terrifying it would be for them. A millimeter off and they'll never walk again...
Its frustrating to run, not into a wall (my elbow cant bend backwards at a 90 degree angle) but into the end of that bungee cord tether. Where it doesn't feel impossible, just a little beyond you. It seems possible to pull yourself up into that tree or win that arm wrestling match, but no matter how easy it seems, how hard you try, your arm just cant move any further.
I keep blathering on forgetting what I'm segwaying to. I guess its that tools are in many ways an extension of our body. And our body, in many ways, a tool of our mind. It exhilerating to know that there's still room for improvement. That you can, with practice and time, run a little faster. Overcome that hurdle that was impassable before. Unlike one's body which generally gets stronger with practice, tools need to be improved manually. No magical recipe for growth like with ones body. If its going to work better, it has to be made to work better.
Luckily other people are good at making improvments and new tools just for others to use them. Now for some specifics. If I had a crazy lot of money, there's a lot of things I would buy. There's always a new list. Right now many of the things on it are tool upgrades. Extentions of my periferal systems.
I'd love lenses to open a new door on photography. I run into my limits with so many pictures. Scarred by blurriness that I cant account for. Backgrounds I wish I could blur in full view. Candid distance I can't accomadate for. And macros. Such beautiful larger than life details... breathtaking closeness... Impossible and lost with my lens.
I'd get Photoshop. I'm so dejected looking at some of my favorite photographers works. I cant even comprehend how their images become what they are. There's no way any of my pictures could ever come out looking that good. Colors just dont look that good... and then I realize. I'm producing nothing but raw images. They've got theirs filletted marinated spice rubbed and sauteed to pefection with just the right amount of sear and garnish. That is to say, perfectly amply proccessed. I have a few that I'd match against some of theirs with the added bonus of "I GOT THAT GOOD IN THE RAW!" but by large, my pictures wont look as good as theirs do without editing.
I'd get a tablet. I'm looking at a Wacom Intuios4. Ive been meaning to do a web comic, and how nice would it be if I could write, line, color, and post without living by my scanner and taking hours to fix any sort of color distortion. Think how often I might be tempted to post my art if I could do so without uploading and converting to jpeg and and cropping and renaming and uploading to the internet... See what I mean?
I'd get new paints. More prisma color markers. Classes to learn more skills. Oh! An external hard drive so all my pictures camera and otherwise can fit onto my computer without it crashing! Much of this will have to wait though. I'm heading to Seattle and Portland. I want to buy people Chrismas presents. And I want to go to Thailand this spring. I've got myself in the red for the rest of the year, but there's always hope down the road. Always improvements to be had.
Its frustrating to run, not into a wall (my elbow cant bend backwards at a 90 degree angle) but into the end of that bungee cord tether. Where it doesn't feel impossible, just a little beyond you. It seems possible to pull yourself up into that tree or win that arm wrestling match, but no matter how easy it seems, how hard you try, your arm just cant move any further.
I keep blathering on forgetting what I'm segwaying to. I guess its that tools are in many ways an extension of our body. And our body, in many ways, a tool of our mind. It exhilerating to know that there's still room for improvement. That you can, with practice and time, run a little faster. Overcome that hurdle that was impassable before. Unlike one's body which generally gets stronger with practice, tools need to be improved manually. No magical recipe for growth like with ones body. If its going to work better, it has to be made to work better.
Luckily other people are good at making improvments and new tools just for others to use them. Now for some specifics. If I had a crazy lot of money, there's a lot of things I would buy. There's always a new list. Right now many of the things on it are tool upgrades. Extentions of my periferal systems.
I'd love lenses to open a new door on photography. I run into my limits with so many pictures. Scarred by blurriness that I cant account for. Backgrounds I wish I could blur in full view. Candid distance I can't accomadate for. And macros. Such beautiful larger than life details... breathtaking closeness... Impossible and lost with my lens.
I'd get Photoshop. I'm so dejected looking at some of my favorite photographers works. I cant even comprehend how their images become what they are. There's no way any of my pictures could ever come out looking that good. Colors just dont look that good... and then I realize. I'm producing nothing but raw images. They've got theirs filletted marinated spice rubbed and sauteed to pefection with just the right amount of sear and garnish. That is to say, perfectly amply proccessed. I have a few that I'd match against some of theirs with the added bonus of "I GOT THAT GOOD IN THE RAW!" but by large, my pictures wont look as good as theirs do without editing.
I'd get a tablet. I'm looking at a Wacom Intuios4. Ive been meaning to do a web comic, and how nice would it be if I could write, line, color, and post without living by my scanner and taking hours to fix any sort of color distortion. Think how often I might be tempted to post my art if I could do so without uploading and converting to jpeg and and cropping and renaming and uploading to the internet... See what I mean?
I'd get new paints. More prisma color markers. Classes to learn more skills. Oh! An external hard drive so all my pictures camera and otherwise can fit onto my computer without it crashing! Much of this will have to wait though. I'm heading to Seattle and Portland. I want to buy people Chrismas presents. And I want to go to Thailand this spring. I've got myself in the red for the rest of the year, but there's always hope down the road. Always improvements to be had.
Progression and Such Like
I'm going to Seattle tomorrow or Sunday. Then I'll be in Portland till the 19th. I don't really know what to write about, beyond a degenerating flow of consciousness. I've been painting. Using my little brother's art set he never used. I stole his cheapo acrylics and bought some canvas board for 99 cents and plugged out some painting. Like this one.
I realized today as I was posting it... I think I really am terrified of being criticized. And as some sort of defense mechanism I start pointing out to myself all the things people might make fun of. My road line isnt strait, that S is WAY bigger than the stupid U... the lady bug doesnt have antenna. The rainbow hits her torso (not really intentionally, just where it ended up), but it looks like its hitting her butt! People might say something about her pooping rainbows or something. And then what would I do?! I have no defence for that! Then I think what I'm saying with simbolysm which I didn't intend again, but maybe I'm saying that I'm emo, or feeling rainbowless. Or maybe the rainbow just leads the way to the bus stop. And I'm sitting her ripping apart the symbolysm, because I've managed to accept I've massacred the technical skill part of it. And maybe people will make fun of me for using cheap material or doing such a standard rainbow land thing...
People never do. Say any of those things. It doesn't matter though. I've already done it for them. I think I tell myself that because I'm citicizing it, its better. That I'm accepting my flaws, that I know them so no one needs to point them out. They've already been claimed so they have to find something new to make fun of. And because its me, its ok because I like me. And I woudln't really mean to hurt my feelings. Only... I do. I start believing it. That its worthless. That its flawed. That its medeocre. And I kill that excitment of having created. Murder it in cold blood and leave it in peices in the dumpster along with any "personal best" thoughts I might have. An hour, a day, a week after finishing something, I almost cant bear to think about it, let alone look it over without feeling embarrased that I thought it was good. And that little excited girl inside me who wants to show everyone "look what I did" is scolded into sad and embarrased silence...
Sorry for going all emo. Thats a worse case senerio. I dont generally let me get myself down that bad. But I do try to find everything wrong with my art that I do. Arguabley it helps me improve, if I dont let it cripple me. Its strangely motivated though. I'm afraid of what others think. So I try to come up with what they might be thinking, as a defensive measure. I don't want to care what others think, so what I think is most important. Somewhere in there though it turns into I only care what I think and I think it sucks. So anyone who agree's I said it first, and anyone who thinks its nice, I'll graceously accept the compliment even though you must be wrong! But the excited girl will smile to herself anyway.
And I plugged through that tissue paper collage I thought up a while ago. I'm not satisfied with it quite yet though. Mind you, its not that I'm hating it because of any inferiority complex I might or might not have. Yes, according to my strict guidelines it could be better. I wish I had worked the coat a little differently. I would have liked to try more folding for the layering, instead of just adding more cut outs. But I'm ok with that. Its not worth redoing as its beyond return, and it isnt terrible. What rankles me... it feels like its missing something. It needs a snow covered tree... or more texture. Maybe tissue glitter sprinkled accross the snow... Something a little more detailed. The snow was a reflexive option. I didn't think about it enough to really develop it beyond something to cover bottom... But this I can still fix. Just have to decide what exactly to do.
I want to clarify that I'm really not feeling down about either of these. I do find their mistakes, but I'm not feeling vindictive about them. The stream of consciousness just turned into providing clarity on my thought patterns and some moments of angst a couple weeks ago. Understanding negative thought patterns seems like the best way to break them. Or correct them...
I realized today as I was posting it... I think I really am terrified of being criticized. And as some sort of defense mechanism I start pointing out to myself all the things people might make fun of. My road line isnt strait, that S is WAY bigger than the stupid U... the lady bug doesnt have antenna. The rainbow hits her torso (not really intentionally, just where it ended up), but it looks like its hitting her butt! People might say something about her pooping rainbows or something. And then what would I do?! I have no defence for that! Then I think what I'm saying with simbolysm which I didn't intend again, but maybe I'm saying that I'm emo, or feeling rainbowless. Or maybe the rainbow just leads the way to the bus stop. And I'm sitting her ripping apart the symbolysm, because I've managed to accept I've massacred the technical skill part of it. And maybe people will make fun of me for using cheap material or doing such a standard rainbow land thing...People never do. Say any of those things. It doesn't matter though. I've already done it for them. I think I tell myself that because I'm citicizing it, its better. That I'm accepting my flaws, that I know them so no one needs to point them out. They've already been claimed so they have to find something new to make fun of. And because its me, its ok because I like me. And I woudln't really mean to hurt my feelings. Only... I do. I start believing it. That its worthless. That its flawed. That its medeocre. And I kill that excitment of having created. Murder it in cold blood and leave it in peices in the dumpster along with any "personal best" thoughts I might have. An hour, a day, a week after finishing something, I almost cant bear to think about it, let alone look it over without feeling embarrased that I thought it was good. And that little excited girl inside me who wants to show everyone "look what I did" is scolded into sad and embarrased silence...
Sorry for going all emo. Thats a worse case senerio. I dont generally let me get myself down that bad. But I do try to find everything wrong with my art that I do. Arguabley it helps me improve, if I dont let it cripple me. Its strangely motivated though. I'm afraid of what others think. So I try to come up with what they might be thinking, as a defensive measure. I don't want to care what others think, so what I think is most important. Somewhere in there though it turns into I only care what I think and I think it sucks. So anyone who agree's I said it first, and anyone who thinks its nice, I'll graceously accept the compliment even though you must be wrong! But the excited girl will smile to herself anyway.
And I plugged through that tissue paper collage I thought up a while ago. I'm not satisfied with it quite yet though. Mind you, its not that I'm hating it because of any inferiority complex I might or might not have. Yes, according to my strict guidelines it could be better. I wish I had worked the coat a little differently. I would have liked to try more folding for the layering, instead of just adding more cut outs. But I'm ok with that. Its not worth redoing as its beyond return, and it isnt terrible. What rankles me... it feels like its missing something. It needs a snow covered tree... or more texture. Maybe tissue glitter sprinkled accross the snow... Something a little more detailed. The snow was a reflexive option. I didn't think about it enough to really develop it beyond something to cover bottom... But this I can still fix. Just have to decide what exactly to do.
I want to clarify that I'm really not feeling down about either of these. I do find their mistakes, but I'm not feeling vindictive about them. The stream of consciousness just turned into providing clarity on my thought patterns and some moments of angst a couple weeks ago. Understanding negative thought patterns seems like the best way to break them. Or correct them...
Monday, September 21, 2009
Hermit
I run the risk of becoming a recluse. Like the spider only less deadly. Unless I turn into a murderous recluse in which case I hope to earn the name 'necrotic' because it just sounds hardcore. Necrotic is the type of venom brown recluse or the hobo spider have. It kills your flesh and then I think you can die of gangrene because the bite is rotting off your body. That is also pretty hardcore. Not that I'm discrediting neurotoxic venom that the black widow has, because that stuff effects your nervous system. Things like your brain, which happens to do some pretty nice things like let you move and feel and think. Neurotoxic is pretty cool too, see. Its just necrotic does have that slick latin root which makes my imagination turn to angsty stories of the undead...
Anyway, I'm getting a job. I'm also getting some classes. This does require me getting an appointment with a councilor because I have no idea how they work it this collegy place. The problem is they have almost no classes, so I'll probably go online and drop 500$ at BYU because they do have some cool sounding courses. First I have to get that 500$ though so its back to the appointment with the counsilor. Which for some reason my head tells me I cant do because thats talking to people and setting up appointments, and I dont do that, and thats where the recluse part comes in. I could become a hermit. On accident. And that's pretty scary.
Short of hitting the bars there isnt much of a social life in this town, so soon I will require a foray into a different town with new people and maybe a town with people awake after 6:30. I'm not one for really living up the night life, unless 7pm to 11pm counts. In that case I'm party hardy. Rambling.... I'll go now.
Anyway, I'm getting a job. I'm also getting some classes. This does require me getting an appointment with a councilor because I have no idea how they work it this collegy place. The problem is they have almost no classes, so I'll probably go online and drop 500$ at BYU because they do have some cool sounding courses. First I have to get that 500$ though so its back to the appointment with the counsilor. Which for some reason my head tells me I cant do because thats talking to people and setting up appointments, and I dont do that, and thats where the recluse part comes in. I could become a hermit. On accident. And that's pretty scary.
Short of hitting the bars there isnt much of a social life in this town, so soon I will require a foray into a different town with new people and maybe a town with people awake after 6:30. I'm not one for really living up the night life, unless 7pm to 11pm counts. In that case I'm party hardy. Rambling.... I'll go now.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Way of Anime
I enjoy anime. I enjoy the sometimes deep and intense plots. The angst. The animations and character designs. I enjoy watching anime, but I cannot recall a single series in which the ending was completely satisfactory. Not one. So I can only recommend proceeding to the end with caution. Be it the last episode, or the one just before, the end is there. Avoid it.
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