i am from farmers and mechanics and boilermakers
loss of hearing and digits
carrot tops and ginger kids and little reds
i am from tea parties and tree climbing
nail polish and grass stains
barbies and legos
flower fairies and star wars
i am from michigan ice cream and indiana pizza
tchaikovsky and rich mullins
john dog and ria kitty
lewis and jacques and tolkein
our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name and you are my sunshine my only sunshine
i am quietly shouting my independence
identifying with those before
facing my future unafraid
In every year of high school thus far, one of the first english class assignments has been some sort of creative writing piece describing ourselves. This year we were to write poems about how our past has influenced who we are now. Mine opened up this post. I explained it and shared it with my english class, and so now I share it with and explain it to you, my readers. I believe there are four of you now. Hurrah!
The most obvious thing about my poem is probably the rejection of capital letters and punctuation. I really don't like capital letters all that much, and I generally skimp on punctuation in my poems, so Ms. Miller said I could just omit both altogether. She said it reminded her of e.e. cummings, so I decided to take after another one of his stylistic techniques. The title is purposefully ambiguous, especially when heard rather than seen. It says that I'm both a part of the whole and apart from the whole. While I love being a part of my family, I also seek to be something apart from them.
In the first stanza I talk about my parents and other older relatives. The first two parts of the first line are just as they appear (the farmer and mechanic parts), but the third (the boilermaker part) is not. Purdue's mascot is the boilermaker, and a lot of my family members have gone there. On my dad's side, my dad, his brother, both his parents, and his dad's dad all went there. On my mom's side, my mom, her dad, his brother (I think), and several of her first, second, and third cousins went to Purdue. If I go there as I'm planning to, I'll be the fourth generation there in a direct line on my dad's side and the third generation in a direct line on my mom's side. The second line refers to the fact that members of my dad's side of the family are prone to hearing loss and many members of my mom's side of the family are missing fingers or toes from various accidents. The third line is a reference to the fact that I've got red-heads sprinkled all over both sides of my family (including my parents, who both used to have red hair). That would explain why myself and four of my six other siblings have undeniably red hair.
The entire second stanza not only tells about things that I enjoyed as a younger child, but it also shows that I had a wide range of interests. While I liked girly things, I also loved getting dirty and doing some tom-boy-ish things. The third stanza is about memories and old traditions. Whenever we visited my mom's parents in Michigan, we used to go to the same ice cream parlor. They had all sorts of fun flavors. My mom's grandparents live in Indiana, and whenever we visit them we eat Pizza King pizza (it's delicious). For several years, my mom, my sisters, and I used to go see the Cincinnati Ballet's performance of the Nutcracker every winter. That tradition kindled within me a love for Tchaikovsky's music that continues to this day. My dad has several Rich Mullins tapes that we used to listen to on road trips. I can probably sing every single song by now. John Dog was the name of the dog that my older brother got for his fifth birthday. He died just two winters ago at the age of thirteen. We all miss him. Ria Kitty is a stuffed cat I got in Washington, D.C. when I was five. I had lost my Ria Baby and Oatmeal Bear on the subway, so I got Ria Kitty. C.S. Lewis, Brian Jacques, and J.R.R. Tolkein were three authors whose works I read often as I grew up. The last line of the third stanza got chopped in half, but it's still meant to be one line. The first half refers to a family tradition established longer ago than I can remember. Every night we all say the Lord's Prayer together. The second half is a line from a song that my dad and I sang every night when I was little. It had within it a line that we argued about every night as part of the tradition.
The final stanza is just some stuff about appreciating where I've come from, yet wanting to be something a little different that those before me. I pretty much already explained that part when I explained the title.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Shed Yool
The preferred pronunciation of schedule, in my opinion, is shed-YOOL. Yes, it's not the correct pronunciation, but it's more fun. I am now three days into my senior year of high school. Woohoo. Oh nine. Can't you sense that I'm brimming with senior spirit? Yes, I'm happy that it's my last year of high school, but I don't see a reason to be filled even unto overflowing with oh-nine exuberance. I enjoyed high school, but I'm ready to move on. Quietly.
Orchestra meets before school during x-period. The x stands for xtreme. This year's orchestra is rather small and 25-33% of them don't count. The people who don't count are either incompetent, lazy, or both. There were considerably more of them last year, and this year the people who do count care a lot more than last year's graduating seniors. This year could be a good one for the orchestra.
My first bell is AP Psychology. I signed up for the class because I needed it to graduate, and fortunately it looks like it will be much more interesting than I anticipated. Most of my classmates are ditzy junior girls, but I'm in the middle of a small rectangle of truly wonderful people.
Next comes Music Theory. I love the class already. There are only twelve of us, and our teacher loves music theory like I love tree identification. We have a lot of fun, and we're bound to learn a lot. His goal is to cram the content of an AP Music Theory class into a single semester. It's going to be awesome.
AP Art Portfolio is my third bell. There are only two of us in the course, so we're combined with the senior seminar art class. By the time my portfolio is due in May I need to have ten to twelve pieces within my chosen concentration and twelve other pieces that show by ability with a variety of styles and media. Both my teacher and I are excited about my concentration. My first piece will be a view of a forest from a distance, and then each piece will zoom in a bit until I stop at a chlorophyll pigment molecule. Instead of going the traditional route of picking a single medium for my concentration to promote unity, I've picked a color scheme. I have plans for eleven pieces. I already have an abundance of fine works of art from previous years to use in the breadth portion of my portfolio, and I'll have a few more to work with that I make in my other art class, so I will probably only need to do eleven complete projects along with tweaking some old projects.
After that comes chorale. Chorale is our school's selective audition choir. Last year's chorale went to state competition in class AA and received a superior rating. This year's chorus may not accomplish such an impressive feat, but I feel honored to be a member of it. Honored and also intimidated. I haven't been in a choir since eighth grade, and I've never had to sight read vocal music. I harmonize all the time, but I get my harmonies from listening, not from reading. The first day was overwhelming. In the few days I've been in the class, my sight-reading has already improved and consequently I'm feeling much more comfortable with the whole thing.
English, english, english. I shake my head sadly and sigh at the thought of my AP English class. It has twenty-eight students, including several that I don't want in my class. They're immature enough by themselves, but when they're all together, they're so much worse. The majority of them were also in my english class last year, and things got rough. Fortunately my current teacher seems much more capable of controlling my unruly classmates than my last teacher. The aggravating fact is that all of these people are incredibly bright, so they deserve to be in the class on an intellectual basis, but they're astonishingly immature.
After the trials of english class comes the joys of another art class! Hurrah for Mixed Media! This class may appear to be a typical choice for a senior slacker, but I do plan to at least minor in studio art, and I may take it on as a second major. I want all the art experience I can get.
The day ends with AP Calculus presented by Mr. Rahn. The man is sometimes referred to as Mr. Yawn. His voice combined with the heat of his classroom can send unwary students to sleep in no time at all. He's an excellent teacher, and if you listen to him you'll find that he has a well-developed sense of humor, but it's hard to focus in his class. I could tell Mr. Rahn stories for an indefinite period of time, but I won't get into that at this time.
The only thing missing from my schedule is a science class. I'm managing to cope by assisting friends who are taking AP Biology this year (I don't know if I mentioned this, but I did get a 5 on that test). Sometimes I look for reasons to spout scientific facts, but I've been able to control myself for the most part. I'm just waiting for the day when some unwitting english class neighbor will ask about the significance of a chemical mentioned in a poem we read. They will wish they had never thought about carbon tetrachloride, and I will exhaust my mind of all the information I have about the chemical. I'll enjoy it even if they give up on listening after a few moments.
Orchestra meets before school during x-period. The x stands for xtreme. This year's orchestra is rather small and 25-33% of them don't count. The people who don't count are either incompetent, lazy, or both. There were considerably more of them last year, and this year the people who do count care a lot more than last year's graduating seniors. This year could be a good one for the orchestra.
My first bell is AP Psychology. I signed up for the class because I needed it to graduate, and fortunately it looks like it will be much more interesting than I anticipated. Most of my classmates are ditzy junior girls, but I'm in the middle of a small rectangle of truly wonderful people.
Next comes Music Theory. I love the class already. There are only twelve of us, and our teacher loves music theory like I love tree identification. We have a lot of fun, and we're bound to learn a lot. His goal is to cram the content of an AP Music Theory class into a single semester. It's going to be awesome.
AP Art Portfolio is my third bell. There are only two of us in the course, so we're combined with the senior seminar art class. By the time my portfolio is due in May I need to have ten to twelve pieces within my chosen concentration and twelve other pieces that show by ability with a variety of styles and media. Both my teacher and I are excited about my concentration. My first piece will be a view of a forest from a distance, and then each piece will zoom in a bit until I stop at a chlorophyll pigment molecule. Instead of going the traditional route of picking a single medium for my concentration to promote unity, I've picked a color scheme. I have plans for eleven pieces. I already have an abundance of fine works of art from previous years to use in the breadth portion of my portfolio, and I'll have a few more to work with that I make in my other art class, so I will probably only need to do eleven complete projects along with tweaking some old projects.
After that comes chorale. Chorale is our school's selective audition choir. Last year's chorale went to state competition in class AA and received a superior rating. This year's chorus may not accomplish such an impressive feat, but I feel honored to be a member of it. Honored and also intimidated. I haven't been in a choir since eighth grade, and I've never had to sight read vocal music. I harmonize all the time, but I get my harmonies from listening, not from reading. The first day was overwhelming. In the few days I've been in the class, my sight-reading has already improved and consequently I'm feeling much more comfortable with the whole thing.
English, english, english. I shake my head sadly and sigh at the thought of my AP English class. It has twenty-eight students, including several that I don't want in my class. They're immature enough by themselves, but when they're all together, they're so much worse. The majority of them were also in my english class last year, and things got rough. Fortunately my current teacher seems much more capable of controlling my unruly classmates than my last teacher. The aggravating fact is that all of these people are incredibly bright, so they deserve to be in the class on an intellectual basis, but they're astonishingly immature.
After the trials of english class comes the joys of another art class! Hurrah for Mixed Media! This class may appear to be a typical choice for a senior slacker, but I do plan to at least minor in studio art, and I may take it on as a second major. I want all the art experience I can get.
The day ends with AP Calculus presented by Mr. Rahn. The man is sometimes referred to as Mr. Yawn. His voice combined with the heat of his classroom can send unwary students to sleep in no time at all. He's an excellent teacher, and if you listen to him you'll find that he has a well-developed sense of humor, but it's hard to focus in his class. I could tell Mr. Rahn stories for an indefinite period of time, but I won't get into that at this time.
The only thing missing from my schedule is a science class. I'm managing to cope by assisting friends who are taking AP Biology this year (I don't know if I mentioned this, but I did get a 5 on that test). Sometimes I look for reasons to spout scientific facts, but I've been able to control myself for the most part. I'm just waiting for the day when some unwitting english class neighbor will ask about the significance of a chemical mentioned in a poem we read. They will wish they had never thought about carbon tetrachloride, and I will exhaust my mind of all the information I have about the chemical. I'll enjoy it even if they give up on listening after a few moments.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Red Car
I drive the red car. Note that I do not call it my car. It is not mine. I would not have bought that car. It does not fit me personally at all, but I could live with that if it didn't have such a vast quantity of problems. I once gave Stephanie/Alex/Alephanie/Stephalex (take your pick) a ride home, and he made the following accurate observation: "It sounds like your car is falling apart as you drive it."
It is red. Red is, by far, my least favorite color. And the red car is, well, redder than the reddest red times infinity. All of my readers have seen the red exterior. Some of them have looked into the car and observed that every bit of the interior is also red, with a few bits of chrome and black.
The air conditioning does not work. Most of the time I can deal with this. My windows are pretty much perpetually rolled down. However, there are some days when the atmosphere is so vilely hot and humid that having the windows rolled down is not enough. Then there are the rainy days. I am more than happy to leave my windows down while I drive in the rain, but my passengers don't always share that sentiment. In addition, when I drive on the highway with my windows down my hair flies in my face and I can't hear my music.
It literally stinks. It's not bad when it's completely dry, but if too much rain gets inside, I'm doomed to endure a strange musty scent faintly reminiscent of stale pop-tarts. This can last for days or weeks, depending on how much water the seats and carpet absorbed. Closing the windows after it's already been raining for quite some time (my dad does this all the time) makes the smell nearly unbearable when the doors are opened again. I have an air freshener, but it's taking its time in doing what it does. My air is much fresher than it was a few days ago, but I still dread driving it after it has spent the day in the sunny school parking lot with the windows rolled up.
The stereo and radio are completely out of whack. The front passenger speakers don't work. Normally. On occasion they will roar to life when least expected. This isn't really a big issue for most songs, but there are some songs that have certain sounds coming from each side, so you don't get the full expreience unless all the speakers are working. Sometimes the radio flat out dies, only to rise once more anywhere between a few seconds and a few days later. The first time it happened, I had no clue what was going on. I tried turning the volume on the radio all the way up. I tried turning the volume on my ipod all the way up (I listen to my ipod rather than the radio). I tried skipping forward and backward on the playlist. About a minute after it had died, it came back. I had not yet turned down the radio or the ipod, and the song that came on started with a loud yell/scream noise. Jonathon and I jumped (maybe that's an understatement). Every time the song starts we laugh. Ask him about it sometime, and I'm sure you'll get some exciting and elaborate tale.
The seat does not come up very far. It comes up far enough that I have a perfectly safe view of the road, but it's low enough that people can barely see me over the steering wheel and low enough to render the sun blocking apparatus completely useless. Despite the sheer awesomeness of my sunglasses, they aren't dark enough to ward off much of the sun's mighty glare.
The hood will not open. Or at least I can't get it to open anymore. I've watched people open it, and I've opened it myself in the past, but it will no longer open for me. I kind of really need to refill on windshield wiper fluid. I can't completely blame the car for this until I ask someone else to try to open it, but I really do believe, based on how it's behaving, that something is jammed in the simple mechanism that normally allows one to open the hood.
From time to time, the rearview mirror will fall off of the windshield. This is obviously dangerous and unnerving.
The alternator recently gave up on life. Fortunately, it was easily repaired, but I don't know how long that will last. I like being able to start the red car.
It makes strange noises. We call it the cricket car, because the sound it constantly emits sounds somewhat like a herd of crickets (do crickets come in herds?). We've tried replacing all sorts of bands and belts, but nothing keeps the crickets quiet for long. It can get really annoying. When turning left, oftentimes it sounds like a turning podracer. I like this noise, but I have no idea why it happens and that makes me nervous.
The speedometer is off. However, once I figured out that I was really going 3-5 mph slower than it was telling me, I had no issue adjusting.
The gas gauge doesn't work. It normally tells me that my tank is either full or way below empty. I have to watch the odometer instead and reset it every time I fill the tank. This means that I can't fill the tank only partially, for I will have no idea when to refill it if I do so.
Now, the engine is unhappy. When I push the gas pedal, the engine wills to disbelieve that I am pushing it as hard as I am. Sometimes it disbelieves that I am pushing the pedal at all. Then it snaps back into reality and jerks forward. To anyone listening to the engine or monitoring my speed, it would sound and look like I was pumping the gas pedal. It normally only does this for the first several seconds after I stop or apply the brakes. Yesterday, it was so bad that I was surprised to have made it home.
Even though my mom and I know that the poor red car needs to be put out of its misery, my dad is in denial of that fact. He believes that it's not as bad as I say it is, or that it can easily be fixed. To be fair, all of our cars have been nicer to him than to anyone else (someday I might tell tales about my mother and the demented car), so he really isn't getting the full effect. But he also develops attachments to cars and hates to give up on them until they're completely dead. Or until they catch on fire. That happened once, after my mom had insisted that something was amiss with the car. My mom has decided that he will get to drive the red car for a day or two on his hilly ride to work. Then he can judge whether or not the car has issues. I the meantime, I get to drive the old blue truck. The old blue truck is a topic for another time. It is nowhere near as bad as the red car or some of our past vehicles, but it's got a few oddities of its own. I will look exponentially more ridiculous driving it than I do driving the red car. There will be no skimping on wearing the sunglasses as long as I drive the truck. The sight is sure to make people smile at the very least. I love to make people smile.
It is red. Red is, by far, my least favorite color. And the red car is, well, redder than the reddest red times infinity. All of my readers have seen the red exterior. Some of them have looked into the car and observed that every bit of the interior is also red, with a few bits of chrome and black.
The air conditioning does not work. Most of the time I can deal with this. My windows are pretty much perpetually rolled down. However, there are some days when the atmosphere is so vilely hot and humid that having the windows rolled down is not enough. Then there are the rainy days. I am more than happy to leave my windows down while I drive in the rain, but my passengers don't always share that sentiment. In addition, when I drive on the highway with my windows down my hair flies in my face and I can't hear my music.
It literally stinks. It's not bad when it's completely dry, but if too much rain gets inside, I'm doomed to endure a strange musty scent faintly reminiscent of stale pop-tarts. This can last for days or weeks, depending on how much water the seats and carpet absorbed. Closing the windows after it's already been raining for quite some time (my dad does this all the time) makes the smell nearly unbearable when the doors are opened again. I have an air freshener, but it's taking its time in doing what it does. My air is much fresher than it was a few days ago, but I still dread driving it after it has spent the day in the sunny school parking lot with the windows rolled up.
The stereo and radio are completely out of whack. The front passenger speakers don't work. Normally. On occasion they will roar to life when least expected. This isn't really a big issue for most songs, but there are some songs that have certain sounds coming from each side, so you don't get the full expreience unless all the speakers are working. Sometimes the radio flat out dies, only to rise once more anywhere between a few seconds and a few days later. The first time it happened, I had no clue what was going on. I tried turning the volume on the radio all the way up. I tried turning the volume on my ipod all the way up (I listen to my ipod rather than the radio). I tried skipping forward and backward on the playlist. About a minute after it had died, it came back. I had not yet turned down the radio or the ipod, and the song that came on started with a loud yell/scream noise. Jonathon and I jumped (maybe that's an understatement). Every time the song starts we laugh. Ask him about it sometime, and I'm sure you'll get some exciting and elaborate tale.
The seat does not come up very far. It comes up far enough that I have a perfectly safe view of the road, but it's low enough that people can barely see me over the steering wheel and low enough to render the sun blocking apparatus completely useless. Despite the sheer awesomeness of my sunglasses, they aren't dark enough to ward off much of the sun's mighty glare.
The hood will not open. Or at least I can't get it to open anymore. I've watched people open it, and I've opened it myself in the past, but it will no longer open for me. I kind of really need to refill on windshield wiper fluid. I can't completely blame the car for this until I ask someone else to try to open it, but I really do believe, based on how it's behaving, that something is jammed in the simple mechanism that normally allows one to open the hood.
From time to time, the rearview mirror will fall off of the windshield. This is obviously dangerous and unnerving.
The alternator recently gave up on life. Fortunately, it was easily repaired, but I don't know how long that will last. I like being able to start the red car.
It makes strange noises. We call it the cricket car, because the sound it constantly emits sounds somewhat like a herd of crickets (do crickets come in herds?). We've tried replacing all sorts of bands and belts, but nothing keeps the crickets quiet for long. It can get really annoying. When turning left, oftentimes it sounds like a turning podracer. I like this noise, but I have no idea why it happens and that makes me nervous.
The speedometer is off. However, once I figured out that I was really going 3-5 mph slower than it was telling me, I had no issue adjusting.
The gas gauge doesn't work. It normally tells me that my tank is either full or way below empty. I have to watch the odometer instead and reset it every time I fill the tank. This means that I can't fill the tank only partially, for I will have no idea when to refill it if I do so.
Now, the engine is unhappy. When I push the gas pedal, the engine wills to disbelieve that I am pushing it as hard as I am. Sometimes it disbelieves that I am pushing the pedal at all. Then it snaps back into reality and jerks forward. To anyone listening to the engine or monitoring my speed, it would sound and look like I was pumping the gas pedal. It normally only does this for the first several seconds after I stop or apply the brakes. Yesterday, it was so bad that I was surprised to have made it home.
Even though my mom and I know that the poor red car needs to be put out of its misery, my dad is in denial of that fact. He believes that it's not as bad as I say it is, or that it can easily be fixed. To be fair, all of our cars have been nicer to him than to anyone else (someday I might tell tales about my mother and the demented car), so he really isn't getting the full effect. But he also develops attachments to cars and hates to give up on them until they're completely dead. Or until they catch on fire. That happened once, after my mom had insisted that something was amiss with the car. My mom has decided that he will get to drive the red car for a day or two on his hilly ride to work. Then he can judge whether or not the car has issues. I the meantime, I get to drive the old blue truck. The old blue truck is a topic for another time. It is nowhere near as bad as the red car or some of our past vehicles, but it's got a few oddities of its own. I will look exponentially more ridiculous driving it than I do driving the red car. There will be no skimping on wearing the sunglasses as long as I drive the truck. The sight is sure to make people smile at the very least. I love to make people smile.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Summer Reading (in retrospect)
As usual (and as predicted), I spent a considerable amount of my summer reading. Some of the books were books I planned on reading, and others were not. Here's what I did read and my brief opinion of each.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
I can only stand the even numbered books in this series. This was not an even numbered book, therefore I couldn't stand it. It was very melodramatic. Harry should have died. She could have just skipped the epilogue. It was pointless. - the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn)
The first book was okay, I developed an intense dislike for the heroine in the second and third books, and the last one was horrible, but at least the heroine made a much better vampire than she did a human. - Heart of Darnkess by Joseph Conrad
I was prepared for this to be a dull and depressing book. It was somewhat depressing, but I wouldn't describe it as dull. It was thick at times, but I enjoyed it. There was so much there to be drawn out. I loved the style in which it was written. I do think he could have ended the story sooner and skipped the part with Kurtz's wife. It seemed so out of place. - The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingslover
I didn't know what to expect of this book, but it turned out to be a delightful book. I loved the narrator and all the other characters as well. Kingslover does an excellent job crafting characters that come to life. - The Road by Cormac McCarthy
It's hard to see how this book made it onto Oprah's book list. I've never read a book with as much carnage and cannibalism as this one. Not to mention the pervading sense of despair. It was a good book though. It managed to communicate a lot more than was directly stated. I didn't exactly agree with all of it, however. - The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
This book was definitely not what I expected. In a bad way. Worked out the chronology of the whole thing quite excellently considering the fact that one of the main characters is a time traveler. - The Legend of Drizzt: Books I-VIII by R.A. Salvatore
I love this series. Out of all the books I've read, Drizzt Do'Urden ranks among my favorite characters. I started to try to summarize it, but I realized that that would take a lot of writing and probably wouldn't make complete sense without a good deal of further explanation, so I'll just skip my summary. Cattie-Brie, one of his companions, is another one of my favorite characters. She and I have a lot in common, and more often than not I find myself mentally integrated into the story from her point of view. - Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
I read this book for the second time through this summer with three people from the college group at church. Unfortunately, we only got together to discuss our reading thrice. I'm really not sure why I'm writing even this much about our attempts to organize discussion, considering the fact that I think I'm down to one reader. And you, o reader, were also a reader of Mere Christianity. And you were always prepared to discuss it. - Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce
I love the first book, but not so much the second one. More specifically, I loved Nawat Crow in the first book, but not in the second. He was so adorable and innocent, and then he wasn't either anymore. I did like the heroine all the way through both books, for the most part. She made an excellent spymaster for the revolution on the Copper Isles. - Mr. Bliss by J.R.R. Tolkein
Technically, this is a children's book, but it's nearly fifty pages long and it provides fun for all ages. There is a man named Mr. Bliss who loves to wear tall hats. He has a blind girabbit (giraffe/rabbit) living in his yard from whom he gets his weather forecasts. It's absolutely delightful, and comes with watercolor illustrations drawn by Tolkein himself. - For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
I began looking for this book when I was in a Hemingway mood. It was not in the library until three weeks later, by which time I was no longer in a Hemingway mood. I checked the book out anyway. I couldn't really get into it, and I was in the middle of a book from a fantastic series (The Legend of Drizzt, to be exact), so I returned it a few weeks later without having finished it. The portion I did read was decent, but I had more interesting books to read and more pressing tasks to complete.
I'm not letting myself read anything else until school starts. I would never finish my summer artwork or keep on track with my other duties. Once school starts, I'll be reading The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Legend of Drizzt Book IX: Siege of Darkness.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
New Art
I'm just going to comment on the ones that I didn't have pictures of last time. Most of them are the bi-weekly sketchbook assignments I did last year, which accounts for the over-whelming dominance of graphite as my medium. I can inconspicuously carry around all sorts of pencils, making it easy to work on my assignments in spare moments during class.
I believe I did this the summer between ninth and tenth grade based off of my second grade yearbook picture. It definitely has its issues, but I'm very proud of it considering when I drew it.
In the last batch of art pictures, I displayed the ink drawing I made from this graphite drawing. I think this one turned out better, but the medium of ink is much more interesting than the medium of graphite. I prefer to work in graphite - it's a much more familiar medium - but I like the way the ink drawing stands out a bit more.
I wrote a bit about the complexity of this project while I was working on it, but I never showed the finished product. My copy of the collage is virtually dead on, except for the fact that it's about two shades lighter. I wanted to fix that, but the more I worked into the paper, the more it started coming apart. It wasn't very good paper.
Here's a closer view of the collage...
...and here's a closer view of my colored pencil drawing. I think my favorite part of the collage is the bee-homes and my favorite part of the drawing is the fir bonsai in the lower left-hand corner.
This was my second-to-last project from this past year. I just now realized that I should've had Ronda take a picture of my final project. I wonder where I put it. Back to the point, this is my piece of social-political art. I did not like having to do social political art, but I didn't have a choice. I chose Christian persecution as my issue. The words were painstakingly hand-written headlines and scriptures relating to persecution. Contrary to the common assumption, the red streaks aren't supposed to symbolize the fires of hell. I just used red because it was an attention-grabbing and violent color.
Here is my second sketchbook assignment of the year. I stayed up until 3:30 am the day before it was due. It was after that that I decided to simplify my sketchbook assignments. This is somewhat based off of reality, but I took some artistic license. The gerbera daisies were actually red, the little pink flowers (I can't remember what kind they were) were actually yellow, and the pot was actually terra cotta. Plus, I was getting pretty tired by the time I started and the pink flowers and their leaves, so most of that part is completely made up. I was done caring way too much about how close to reality it was. The important thing is that the daisies are beautiful and the attract the eye.
This may have been my final assignment. I don't remember for sure and I don't feel like checking. Although I completely finished it in one evening, it's one of my most realistic pieces. I can see how much I learned over the year. Especially in regards to speed. I still draw at a snail's pace, but I've moved from the speed of a comatose snail to the speed of a robust snail.
For our sketchbook assignments, we were given a list of possible topics and were to choose a new one every two weeks. I liked to take the topic and twist it in a slightly unexpected way. The topic for this one was "mirrors". That can be a fun subject all by itself, but mirrors reflecting into one another is even more fun.
And this is just a close-up of a grasshopper. My teacher commented that it looked incomplete. It is incomplete. I decided at 1:30 AM the day before it was due that it looked good enough and that I'd probably get at least a B as it was, so I just left it unfinished. That decision took an awful lot of will-power. I have a major issue with leaving things unfinished.
I kind of rushed through this one, so it's less realistic than many of the others. Yet I can't be dissatisfied with it. It has such a fascinating perspective. I'll admit, this is one of the few assignments that I did based on a picture from the internet, but I did tweak it a bit to make it mine. I normally work from life, from pictures that I take myself, or from my head.
This is the inside of a water bottle. My teacher complained that there wasn't enough contrast. In my head, I replied that it's hard to push the darks when you're drawing a clear plastic bottle, but I decided I should just keep my thoughts to myself. I'm content with it even if it's not even close to the best I can do. I'm learning to appreciate the reduced stress I experience when I let things go and realize that I don't have to make everything perfect.
This is my shoe. I should have sprayed a sealer on it, but I didn't so now it's covered in smudges. I paid particular detail to texture on this assignment. The shoelaces are actually shaded using nothing but minute cross-hatching, and I tried to show the difference in reflection between the parts that were unpainted and painted canvas.
This picture is completely from my head and was done the day it was due during my other classes. It could use some work on contrast (more so than the rest of my work). I do like how the cup turned out.
I believe I did this the summer between ninth and tenth grade based off of my second grade yearbook picture. It definitely has its issues, but I'm very proud of it considering when I drew it.
In the last batch of art pictures, I displayed the ink drawing I made from this graphite drawing. I think this one turned out better, but the medium of ink is much more interesting than the medium of graphite. I prefer to work in graphite - it's a much more familiar medium - but I like the way the ink drawing stands out a bit more.
I wrote a bit about the complexity of this project while I was working on it, but I never showed the finished product. My copy of the collage is virtually dead on, except for the fact that it's about two shades lighter. I wanted to fix that, but the more I worked into the paper, the more it started coming apart. It wasn't very good paper.
Here's a closer view of the collage...
...and here's a closer view of my colored pencil drawing. I think my favorite part of the collage is the bee-homes and my favorite part of the drawing is the fir bonsai in the lower left-hand corner.
This was my second-to-last project from this past year. I just now realized that I should've had Ronda take a picture of my final project. I wonder where I put it. Back to the point, this is my piece of social-political art. I did not like having to do social political art, but I didn't have a choice. I chose Christian persecution as my issue. The words were painstakingly hand-written headlines and scriptures relating to persecution. Contrary to the common assumption, the red streaks aren't supposed to symbolize the fires of hell. I just used red because it was an attention-grabbing and violent color.
Here is my second sketchbook assignment of the year. I stayed up until 3:30 am the day before it was due. It was after that that I decided to simplify my sketchbook assignments. This is somewhat based off of reality, but I took some artistic license. The gerbera daisies were actually red, the little pink flowers (I can't remember what kind they were) were actually yellow, and the pot was actually terra cotta. Plus, I was getting pretty tired by the time I started and the pink flowers and their leaves, so most of that part is completely made up. I was done caring way too much about how close to reality it was. The important thing is that the daisies are beautiful and the attract the eye.
This may have been my final assignment. I don't remember for sure and I don't feel like checking. Although I completely finished it in one evening, it's one of my most realistic pieces. I can see how much I learned over the year. Especially in regards to speed. I still draw at a snail's pace, but I've moved from the speed of a comatose snail to the speed of a robust snail.
For our sketchbook assignments, we were given a list of possible topics and were to choose a new one every two weeks. I liked to take the topic and twist it in a slightly unexpected way. The topic for this one was "mirrors". That can be a fun subject all by itself, but mirrors reflecting into one another is even more fun.
And this is just a close-up of a grasshopper. My teacher commented that it looked incomplete. It is incomplete. I decided at 1:30 AM the day before it was due that it looked good enough and that I'd probably get at least a B as it was, so I just left it unfinished. That decision took an awful lot of will-power. I have a major issue with leaving things unfinished.
I kind of rushed through this one, so it's less realistic than many of the others. Yet I can't be dissatisfied with it. It has such a fascinating perspective. I'll admit, this is one of the few assignments that I did based on a picture from the internet, but I did tweak it a bit to make it mine. I normally work from life, from pictures that I take myself, or from my head.
This is the inside of a water bottle. My teacher complained that there wasn't enough contrast. In my head, I replied that it's hard to push the darks when you're drawing a clear plastic bottle, but I decided I should just keep my thoughts to myself. I'm content with it even if it's not even close to the best I can do. I'm learning to appreciate the reduced stress I experience when I let things go and realize that I don't have to make everything perfect.
This is my shoe. I should have sprayed a sealer on it, but I didn't so now it's covered in smudges. I paid particular detail to texture on this assignment. The shoelaces are actually shaded using nothing but minute cross-hatching, and I tried to show the difference in reflection between the parts that were unpainted and painted canvas.
This picture is completely from my head and was done the day it was due during my other classes. It could use some work on contrast (more so than the rest of my work). I do like how the cup turned out.
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