Cincinnati Art Museum Field Trip!

So, the art museum was awesome.  I did NOT get to spend nearly the amount of time I wanted to so that I could see everything; I spent most of my time on the second floor.  The third floor was rather sparse, thankfully, although there were several amazing sculptures including a HUGE one by Frank Stella.

Also saw paintings by multiple artists I now recognized from my Art History II, Modern Art, and  Art Appreciation course; it was like a three hour summary of three semesters of work. (Of course there were other paintings to see as well that I had never heard about, but those courses gave me a good foundation to understand the majority of what I was seeing.

Of course these were just a few of the amazing things I got to see, and I did not even get to see that much of it!  I brought my sketchbook, but I was too busy looking at things and reading plaques and trying to take it all in and remember as much of it as I could! (Impossible task.)

Messed up registration!

So for classes I get to sign up tomorrow since I am a senior.  Or rather I would, but the online registration is messed up for the art department with its stacked classes.  So I need overrides for Painting III and Print II.  This is how it goes: There are only eighteen spots in studio classes that accept students from levels 2 and up.  The computer is reading each of those level as 18 EACH.  So they have made the number of students in each class II-VI read as 0. 

Everyone now wanting to get in an advanced class must get an override for it from the adviser and faculty member who teaches that class.  Only the first 18 are accepted. 

What worries me is Painting III, which I need to apply for a BFA in painting-- but I am not Pre-Painting major in my Degree works;  I read as Liberal Arts, because they messed around with how to change majors and I was going to do it at the end of this semester.  If the Head of the Department reads that, he may nix my getting into Painting III since he has the final say in such matters because he may think I could wait another semester to take it.  Which I can't.  I'm already going to be at EKU two more years.  Let's not make it FIVE SEMESTERS.  

Also Print II, which I need to apply for BFA as well.  He doesn't like the Print Professor apparently, and it sounds like the feeling is mutual, so he's even less likely to accept Professor Dave's overrides, even though I did the things correctly. 

ARRRGH!  I already have all the prereqs for these classes, it should not be this difficult!

To top it off the lady working in the office wasn't there today so I have to wait even longer to hear anything at all. 

Nanowrimo, New Class Schedules on Monday!

So I have decided to go for a BFA after all in Painting.  I was thinking Liberal Arts, but really BFA is only one semester longer.  That means I will be at EKU two more years; next semester they consider me a senior.  I'll get to take all the painting classes, though, whereas otherwise one can only take 3 studio classes so as to get a minor without wasting one's time elsewhere.

I'm thinking of taking Art Criticism, Photography I, Painting III, Printmaking II, and I also need a physical science class.  Or maybe even take the Art History class offered for Graphic Design.  I need a bunch of 300+ classes and Writing Intensive classes to graduate.  If I go BFA route, I'll also need to take Wellness and another Humanities class.

I will apply for BFA next semester, which means submitting a bunch of artwork for the professors and Head of Department to look at before deciding whether I will be able to advance in the program and do something useful with myself.  Hopefully I'll get in on the first try.

Also, I am participating in National Novel Writing Month of November, which means I'm trying to write 50,000 words in one month.  (Insane, but I'm still going strong right now and my story is keeping me entertained for once!)

drypoint etching!

So this is my latest project from my printmaking class; I just learned how to do drypoint etching on plexiglass and ran it through the press.  It's such a fun process!  I enjoyed myself today and will definitely print more of this image.  Maybe I will eventually get to the point where I can clean it properly, too; that's what all the smudges are.  >.<  

I will definitely do more of these: you take a sheet of glass, and an etching stylus, trace your design and then coat the glass with ink when you are done.  After that it's a simple matter of wiping away the ink and then pressing the bad boy.  The paper is given enough pressure that it picks up all the ink in the grooves of the glass from the scratches, and then when you are done you have a lovely reverse image!

Also, If you will excuse me, I just picked up Terry Pratchet's latest book from Amazon: "Snuff."  I'm going to go read it now!

Paste Papers and Ponyo

So, today I went to the library on campus and checked out Ponyo!  It's a Studio Ghibli movie and one of their latest, so I knew it was going to be fun; I had already seen some of it online, but the fan "translation" is really BAD.  Not so bad you can't understand it, but not great, either.  Misspellings and bad grammar, etc.

In other words it's worth it to see it on DVD even if you've already seen it online.  I watched it in English Dub (not something I usually do with anime, but Ghibli movies are the exception because it's usually very well done) with my brother, and enjoyed it a lot.  I'll watch the original Japanese with sub sometime soon as well, of course.  :-)  It's a great family movie and mainly for a younger age set than any of Miyazaki's other movies, but it can still be appreciated by even adults like me who still enjoy watching animated movies.  Beautifully animated water and a sense of movement in everything.

The dub was all right; Sasuke's voice actor was a bit too old so I jolted out of the movie a bit whenever he said anything more than "PONYO!" which is 80% of his dialogue; there's of course the strange technical details of matching english dub to Japanese words which cause a few odd sentence pauses as well, but overall it was definitely worth watching again, even with the English voice-actors.  It's not the best Miyazaki dub, though.

Anyway, as for the story, Ponyo is rescued by a boy named Sasuke and ends up wanting to become human; when she runs away from home she messes up the balance of the world and has to choose between having magic or love.  Cute, cute scenes and gorgeous animation.  I liked this movie better than either Kiki's Delivery Service or the outdated-feeling Nausica: Valley of the Wind.

OKAY, enough Ponyo!  At the library I also got a book on making paste papers since it's a project I've been wanting to try!  I'm going to attempt to make some at school next week in the print lab; we'll see how it goes.  It can't be that hard, after all.  http://lilbookbinder.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/paste-paper-tutorial/ and http://www.inward-bound.us/pastepaper.html look like good resources online as far as tutorials are concerned.

7 Wonders!

Found this image on Board Game Geek for 7 Wonders-- the newest game I have played so far this year! Exciting indeed.  I've wanted to try it for a while, and my sister had a 40% discount for any game at Barnes and Noble.  They've got a decent game section so we had fun browsing and deciding what to get.  

So far we have only played this with two players, but I'm looking forward to playing it with three because the 2-player version requires a dummy city that each player controls every other turn.  

The basic idea of the game is to build up your city with resources, science, military, and your wonders; at the beginning of each turn you have seven cards.  You pick one card to build or turn into cash, then change out your hand with another player.  It seems like an extremely strategic game, and I'm not sure I've wrapped my mind around it yet since I have only played three times.  The first time I lost miserably, the second time I won with military, and the third time I tied but my sister had more coins than I did, so she won.  I'm not sure if the game will prove to be fairly even or wildly erratic as far as scoring is concerned, but there are several different strategies to winning and they seem to be fairly equal as far as the amount of effort in them.

Ceramic Coil Pots!

So this weekend on Friday I finished my pots and smoothing them out; I thought I would post pictures so you guys could check it out.  The first pot we had to do was symmetrical, had to be as large around as a basketball at the widest point and have a 4-inch closure. 

You can see all the other pots in the background which are HUGE.  My pot is one of the smallest in the class. 

The second half of the project was to build an asymmetrical pot; the rest of the requirements still applied.  Here it is, but you need a couple pictures to appreciate what I did with it since the back does not equal the front at all. 

Anyway, I think it ended up looking pretty awesome, if very female in shape.  (But still much, much better than my friend's concept, who deliberately chose to design her pot in the shape of a specific abstracted male anatomy. *.*) Other than my pinch pots at the beginning of the semester, this class is the first time I have ever worked with clay.  If you get a chance to take a ceramics class, go for it!  It's great fun, especially if one has a great professor.