Tuesday, November 27, 2007

About Digging Your Own Grave

It's generally a bad idea. However, I very nearly managed to do that very thing (figuratively). And who knows, I could very likely still pull that off in a different fashion by the end of this week. Instead I just dug a very deep hole and I should be able to climb back out by tomorrow morning, although a bit sleep deficient.

What I did was this: I created a complex, detailed photo montage of a surrealist landscape that I was to later ("later" originally meant by Thursday, if my art teacher hadn't decided to be amazing this morning, which I'll explain later) reproduce in an accursed style known as photorealism. Photorealism is just what is sounds like - drawing and coloring so that the final product looks realistic enough to be a photo. Normally, I'd have no issue with this method. Sure it's incredibly tedious, but it can be fun in a challenging, make-your-head-want-to-split-open kind of way. I mentioned earlier that I made my own "photo" to copy, but I think I'll mention some of the detail I was stupid enough to put in.
-a unicorn 3/8 of an inch long (yes I measured)
-a school of narwhals that easily fit into a one-inch square
-a wisteria bonsai
-a gorgeous sky full of clouds with indistinct boundaries
-a grove of bonsai, each plant being about 1.5 inches tall
-and an orange-ish colored river (or blood-colored if you're my slightly disturbed friend across the table) with more contrasting hues than you can shake a whole bundle of sticks at
-you get the picture, it has massive amounts of minute details (I wish "details" started with an "m", because I had a neat little string of alliteration going there)

This 9"x12" piece of cruel, beautiful masterpiece was orginally due this Thursday, but Mrs. Ficke is pretty much one of my favorite people in the world right now. It's now not due until next Friday! We don't get any more class time to work on it, but I always do more work on my projects outside of class than inside anyway so that doesn't impact me much.

Unfortunately, I've spent the last three nights staying up late (like 2 a.m. or so) to work on it, and I can't regain that sleep until winter break. Plus I still have a 50 point bi-weekly (full projects are 100 points) assignment due tomorrow, which I started this morning... I made quick progress, but I'll probably be up until 2 again because of that combined with the homework I didn't do last night.

That was "Part I: Art from Art Class" of my near disastrous week. "Part II: Art from French Class" and maybe "Part III: Why A.P. Bio Sucks My Life Force Away" will come in the next few days, if I still feel like writing about them. For now, I need to make sure Part I remains simply a hostile visitor, start diminishing the postponed doom of Part II, and make sure that the immutable dangers of Part III don't come up push me back into the grave I so ignorantly began to dig.

2 comments:

Thorvald Erikson said...

We could start a club, you and I, for those who must lick the hands of the ones who kick their backsides on this final week of November. I too have found of late that 2:00 AM is a really groovy time to begin sleep, but only after slaving obsessively over one's appointed tasks. There is nothing quite like having no will whatsoever to wake up in the morning!

Do try not to die.

maria said...

Oh I'm really trying very hard not to die, and it looks like it's going to work. If not, it'll all be okay if I just remember how little it matters in the medium scheme of things, not to mention the grand scheme.