Silent Images

I'm deciding how I'll be using this Vox in the future. It worked pretty good for the class, but it's not a substitute for a real portfolio. But it'll probably be a while before I can get a real one up and going. In the meantime is it really productive to sign into this account to post every little doodle? Or should I just start putting them in Cap'n Manta's Tomfoolery with my every day type blogging and leave this one alone? These are the deep, life changing questions I think of.

Since most people I know on Vox I also have contacted in Flickr now, posting stuff to Vox almost seems redundant. Unless it's for a Vox Hunt or I need to explain at length, I probably won't need to post much to here anymore. So for now I can predict that if I have anything to post on Vox it'll go to the Capn. Same thing for any portfolio reviews. If there's a change I'll let you know. We'll see.

No, I don't mean it's an incomplete feeling. I mean I'm not finished with this.

that feeling v2 (unfinished)

Like Casino, it's just simple Photoshop paint over job of a picture. This time I took it of the light seen on my early morning rain walk.

I'm struggling because I have no idea where to go here. My only goals, really, are to give it a black in white "noir" feel without actually painting in black and white. I also need to figure out how to soften up the image while sharpening up the rain. Hmm. Besides that there's just some something that it's missing.

I'll work on it.

Allow me to over think something for a moment.

The inspiration here came from a few different sources. Part of it was a chapter in Blink about how our minds make immediate choices, and the difference between those choices and what we think we would choose. There was a study on a speed dating service where attendees would write down what they were looking for. In the end what they perceived as the perfect guy/girl had no bearing on who they actually liked. The example they showed was a girl looking for an intelligent, sensitive guy. Odds are good that she'd forget all that if faced with a handsome guy with a sense of humor. If asked the next day she'd say a perfect man was someone good looking and funny. But a month later and she'd again say she wanted the nice, smart guy.

This got me thinking about something that's bothered me since grade school: the difference between wants and needs. For instance: just because the girl instinctively is attracted to the funny guy doesn't mean it's what she really wants. It doesn't mean the smart guy is who she wants either. This can be applied to all things in life, of course, but I can't think of a cause more fretted over in my age demographic than finding true love. 

And really, it shouldn't be like that. What I've read from Blink and my own past experiences have taught me that I've no friggin clue what I need OR want. So trying to find the perfect woman or waiting for Mr. Right is pointless. You're going to screw up the relationship regardless if you both listen to the same music or like long walks on the beach. And if you do find your soul mate, I'm betting their favorite color didn't help you get to that decision. If you love someone but they don't fit your profile, is that really going to stop you? Don't think. Live.

Wants and Needs

Based on a picture I took of a local Casino. Other than that the story is I was bored while IMing some people and I needed a new wallpaper for my computer.

Casino

This is pretty funny.

This semester had it's share of ups and downs, but without trying to sound like a cheesy 80's coming-of-age film I think I'm a more mature student and I'm starting to settle in comfortably with the idea of working on different media projects for the sake of betterment instead of a grade.

Now then, on to rationalizing my short comings and lauding my strengths. Here's the final check list:

Weekly
Short Works: 10/12. That's not to say I'm giving up, just that I ran out of time on the final two. The audio SW is going to take some creativity, something which I find myself tapped out of by now. The final, semi-secret short work is just going to take a lot of time. They will both be finished if you care to stop by and check now and then.

Portfolio Studies: 12/12. They are complete. Or, will be as soon as I finish the last one tonight and clean up a couple others. Ignoring the numbers I'd have to say I still came up short. The actual concept was for me to casually study various styles of on-line portfolios on a weekly basis. Instead I ended up doing several at once to get them done. Like the short works I'm going to continue past 12, however, and this time only when I have free time.

Midterm

The Vox portfolio site: Look! You're looking at it! Isn't that neat?

Tea Party: It's 70% complete, which is good enough for the syllabus a crafted. Good for the class requirements, bad for personal goal setting.

Final

Face: 120% complete and still unfinished. This thing was a near obsession for me the past couple of weeks, and I don't think I'll ever be satisfied no matter how much more time I spend with her. I could make a "that's what he said" joke but I won't, because I'm a professional.

Reviews: Uh, no? Only one person has consistently made comments on my portfolio (thank you very much Caprice). Of course, the only people aware of this portfolio are the students in the class and neighbors on my personal Vox Blog. So as planned I'm going to make a formal request for review of my peers now that the semester's work is complete, but I was secretly hoping it would get some attention beforehand. Oh well.

Website: Strictly speaking I never foresaw myself creating an actual website. I do wish to make one eventually, but when I have the time to teach myself, not during what might be my busiest semester in college (I say that every semester). So I'm not too disappointed that I never completed this optional component of my syllabus.

Final Thoughts

I'd like to point out a couple things, and it's neither to defend nor praise myself, just to archive the facts. First, I'm not much of a professional artists. I've always thought I had an odd sort of artistic talent but have always lacked a proper way to express myself. Which is why most think I'm just crazy.

But starting with the creation of my Flickr profile and encouraged by the workload demands of my own syllabus, I'm going to start worrying less about developing my technical skill and just learn while I create, in my own way.

Also: I didn't even get the software until about halfway through the semester. Just saying.

The Next Step

As far as the Vox portfolio goes, it's here to stay. I'll continue posting my works, eventually (hopefully) on a weekly basis as well as continue maintaining my Flickr website.

Personally, now that the semester is over I've a feeling that I'll be able to do equal the semester's workload with twice the quality, if nothing else than being without the pressure of a deadline. 

I really hope that's not one of those declarations I laugh at years later.

Show us something that only occurs during winter.

The occurrence of a snow monster. Like the one I found yesterday.

121607 101

2 comments

Tea Party is about 70% done and I'm not working on it anymore for the semester. I would have liked to have finished it, but we got back later than expected and 70% matches up a-o-k with the syllabus.

tea party

The concept here is, of course, the tea party from Alice in Wonderland. Inspiration thanks to my profile picture and this years Halloween costume.

More accurately, this is the after party. For those not obsessed with the Lewis Carrol books for some strange reason, the only reason the hatter (never referred to as "Mad Hatter" although he was a little crazy), the March Hair and the Door Mouse were at their perpetual tea party is because their watch was broken. So I wondered what would happen if they fixed the watch and were freed from tea time. My imaginative theory? They'd leave.

My idea is to make many kinds of chairs in many kinds of styles surrounding a mess of a table with cups and plates strewn everywhere. My natural style in Illustrator tends to work the scene, including scenery as separate objects  in a sort of collage, which explains the shape of the grass and hedge (yes that's a hedge). The explanation for the floating chair parts is "Hey, I have leftover chair parts, I'll just randomly place them floating in the air.". Wonderland, after all, isn't a bastion of logic.

As a postscript the angled point of view is inspired by  Judy Chicago's  The Dinner Party. I'm not a big fan of the feminist movement myself (Frida Kahlo give me the heebie jeebies), or really any movement that uses art primary as a vehicle to promote their ideals. But ignoring that random tangent I enjoy the perspective of The Dinner Party and was struck by the table's lack of legs. I don't think I quite pulled that off myself, but when I finish Tea Party I'll work on that.

Not much to say here. This project went pretty smoothly from start to finish. The client is happy and so am I.

I didn't add much for the final design she chose. The only thing I did actually was add a black background, cut out the stars with Pathfinder (I'm lazy so initially I just put white stars over the logo) and created a couple no-fill stars with a
darker pink stroke to outline the holes.

Courtney: The Real Milk

Client: Courtney

Purpose: Create a personalized, non-business oriented logo for her day to day use.

Concept: Based on my own idea and refined after studying a tattoo she already has. She's in an orchestra, so I took the basis of the Real Milk logo, modified it so that the right curve resembles a bass clef. From the tattoo I took the idea of having double stars. After that I tried several versions, one where the stars are placed inside the logo object itself. This is the final version.

real C

If you've ever asked me I would go to lengths about how much I hate my college. It's not really because it's a terrible place (quiet Ashley, I don't care what Reno's art department says) it just..could use some improvements. And the visual media department always gets shafted.

But ignoring that, we have an awesome teaching staff. All...two of them. But they've taught me more than an entire full legion of art professors could. They've even taught several of the classes for free this semester due to too low enrollment since there are only a handful of seniors needing the upper level classes. And by "teach for free" I mean we paid for the classes and the school kept all the money.

Anyway, my point is, the school may be crap, but it could be worse and often is. Even if I went to a college that's been around long enough to know how to run itself, the teaching staff could be.....less than helpful. As seen here. View it twice for the full effect. I'm still laughing every few minutes or so. In fact, you really need to just go to the YouTube page and read the story, if you don't already understand. Do it! I command it!