About a week's worth of updates. WITH CERAMICS.

It's going to be used for Brown Sugar. I'm so excited. 

The runes down the side corners there? Those are Tolkien Hobbit runes for "Brown" and "Sugar."

The other runes are just celtic gibberish. 

Started serious works on my dad's blanket again. He's moving to New Mexico in a few months, and he and Jill said they're only bringing homemade sentimental things, so I've really got to bust this out and get it done.

(Learn more about his trip out and trying to live off the grid here! )

(The word "here" is a hyperlink. If you can't see it. I think they come out black.) 

"Amanda" modeled for us again. All these words are things my teacher said or told me to do.

I liked inkwashing... I didn't want to add anything else... I HAD to for class :(

A Frank Miller style of my coffee table with John's mixing board on it.

An adaptation of the previous drawing.

YAY MAINE.

ALL THE MAINE.

More Monotypes

They're mono TYPES. Mono PRINTS are prints that can have many made that are all the same, and then they are edited and worked on after printing. TYPES means only one unique one can be made.

So Mary the Model came in and posed for us, and we did more monotypes from her.

Blue!

Terrifying profile portrait.

The original of these two prints, the paint dried a lot before I could take the print.

I was determined, though, so I went back into it. I really like both of them for different reasons.

The print itself was soaked with water while I made it, and then I went back into it with colored chalk.

I dumped all my paint out on the table and then finger painted into it.

And my drawing class took a trip out to Bates College and wandered around their museum which had two exhibitions going on: a collage exhibition (which was actually really cool, but I have no pictures), and Chinese Shaman artwork. IT WAS AWESOME.

 These are the messenger gods. They interested me the most.

And

AND

'Ishah and I went to an Oriental market on congress street, and normally I would have felt too weird to go in there. But she wanted miso spoons, so I wandered in.

I LOVED IT IN THERE.

The guy at the counter was more than helpful- he basically gave me a tutorial on how to make miso soup, and when I thought that was too complicated, I grabbed a bag of pork and leek dumplings, and the guy explained to me that I should use oil based sauce, because they had thicker wrappings, and if I just used soy sauce they'd be way too salty...

It was great.

They came out DELICIOUS.

Also, Greg.

It was awesome seeing you this morning.

I want to see you again soon.

You wish I made you food.

It's a constant conversation in my house that John and I are going to open a Bar/Diner. I'll do breakfast and baked goods and sometimes lunchy foods, then at night he'll open up his bar.

This are pictures of some of the foods I made that inspired our dream.

My Aunt Linda's tollhouse cookie recipe. Light and cakey.

Laura's double chocolate recipe with white chocolate chips.

Grilled toast with spinach, bacon, egg, and cheese.

The same sandwich only with TOMATO, as well.

Steak, beans, and potatoes. 'MURICA

And then I made scratch beef stew with the leftovers.

Pancake with peanut butter and banana

Chicken pot pie, pre-baking. All from scratch- Started off sautéing the onions and celery and carrots, adding chicken stock and cream, seasoning it, and making a simple crust out of flour and butter.

Chicken pot pie post-baking

Dear lord that came out well.

Scratch turkey soup (Yes, I even boiled a turkey carcass to make real broth) and buttered sautéed asparagus

Bacon, spinach, egg and cheese on a biscuit

Crusty bread cut in a grid pattern and filled with cheese, then topped with bacon, garlic, and scallions (half without bacon because Bryn doesn't like it).

Cupcakes. Duh.

STEAK

Chocolate chip banana bread muffins and Corn muffins

11pm french toast.

Yeah.

You wish you ate my food.

I don't have pictures, but I make a mean Baked mac and Cheese with scratch béchamel sauce, and REALLY GOOD PANCAKES.

Like.

really good ones.

Monoprints were fun.

So in my experimental drawing class, we painted.

Right onto the table.

Then we covered the paint with our paper and pressed it down, and it made designs that looked a lot like when you painted on one side of a page and folded it like when we were kids.

It was REALLY HARD to make things that didn't look like kids made it.

Here were my attempts.

Leaves! See? LEAVES!

KaaaaaaaaAAAABLAM!

I like comic books. Leave me alone.

It's a teapot.

get it?

I don't even know. I kinda hate this one.

Creepy face!

And then, my favorite one:

Great Gatsby eyes!

This one was the one my classmates liked the most. 

And then, this is the super colorful drawing of "Amanda" that I did. I loved how it came out.

Ceramics continues to be really hard.

Hnng.

Well that was awkward.

So our model was late.

Finally, my teacher asks (name changed, just in case) "Does anyone know our model?"

"Who is it?" I reply.

"Amanda."

"Amandaaaaaa...?"

"Amanda Smith."

"AMANDA SMITH! I totally DO know her! I don't have her number, though. ...this is going to be interesting."

Yeah.

She was fine with me drawing her, though. So it was okay.

It was really awesome to draw someone who wasn't just a boring stick skinny girl my age. I mean, I draw and paint Mary the Model, so she's my practice for old women, but "Amanda" was differently sized. It was actually really interesting to draw her. She was also very confident with her figure, despite it not being 'mainstream'. 

Go "Amanda." I'll probably draw you again someday.

This is a painting I did of Mary the Model. Just a reminder for ya. Of who she is.

Also I wanted to show off this painting again.

And, over the course of the semester, I will be doing more Noir drawing work, like Frank Miller. 

This is a copy from a panel in one of his books.

This is going to be fun.

I will try to keep you up to speed on my Ceramics work as well. I tried to use the pottery wheel today. It was HARD.

BUT I AM DETERMINED.

Okay. School computer.

Dave.

I am so sorry it took me so long to update.

Not that I've been doing much.

So this is where I am going to sum up what I've been doing for the past semester.

Such Art. Many wow.

Yeah. I took a film photography course. It was a lot of fun, but it was extremely time consuming and expensive.

I only got a B-. *shakefist*

BAKING!

More cooking, actually. But this was my neon cake. It was very tasty, but kind of terrifying.

I haven't been drawing as much as I should.

This is a self portrait I drew for my mom when I was in New Mexico.

I DID, however, draw cartoons for charity.

People came up and asked for specific commissions, and I drew it right before their very eyes. I made $115 in total and donated $75 to the Barbara Busch children's hospital, and the money I kept I used to buy steak and potatoes and feed my apartment.

Aaaaaand my D&D group killed a skeletal dragon. Actually it was a zombie dragon. Filled with spiders.

I almost died. Einar SHOULD have died. Oof.

So this semester I am taking intro to ceramics, another Intermediate Drawing course, an ITT course (hence my having access to this machine where Blogger works), Stage Movement and Voice, and of course, Chamber Singers. This ITT course sounds like it's going to be really difficult, and of course the professor is soft spoken and monotonous. His sentences keep trailing off. Oh goodness gracious.

Anyway.

I hope to be updating more, soon.

(Thanks for caring, Dave. <3 )