On Vacation

Hi everyone,

hope you and yours have a great turkey day. Back in a week! Cheers!

30 Days of Cryptids Day 15: Elf

Here he is! I am glad to present the midpoint of Cryptids, #15, the musically talented elf. Note his mastery of the mandolin. Is it a part of elf culture? Well...no. I just thought it looked cool.

Enjoy!

Cryptids

Yes yes, and I know you're wondering "Where are the cryptids?"
I had to put them on the back burner this week as I received a lot of new stuff I had to put away AND I've been applying for jobs. Be happy if you have a job! This economy stinks but I am confident that I will have a full-time gig by Christmas. I hope.
Please pray and think happy thoughts I find something awesome. Thank you!

Art Class...Meh

I had my final fundamentals of drawing class tonight. And I'm glad. I enjoyed the class but I didn't like the teacher. I felt like I was being punished for being competent. I found that my teacher gravitated towards the students who complained the most about the assignments and needed the most hand holding in order to figure out what to do. I on the other hand tend to be pretty quiet in class. My philosophy on art is that what you consider garbage someone else will consider gold, so why complain? You're in class to learn, don't put yourself down. So I would show up, do the assignment and leave. I didn't ask for help most of the time because I had a good sense of what I was doing. I felt like the teacher was unduly critical of my work because I didn't ask questions, so she picked at things to complain about, often choosing aspects of the picture I was not remotely finished with when it was obvious that I hadn't gotten to what she wanted.

I feel like the reason she did this was because I was not your average beginning student, i.e., I had self confidence. Since she didn't know how to react to me not whining, she chose this route. I noticed this even more when I started to listen more closely to how she dealt with the other students. She liked talking to the students who complained more because it allowed her to be the good teacher fairy. And when I would ask a question, sometime she answered it, sometimes she didn't. For instance, I asked how to draw a nose, and she didn't go into any detail. Another woman asked the SAME EXACT THING, and she practically drew the entire nose for her. Eh? And tonight, that same woman and I both didn't bring our first drawing to class, because we didn't know we had to. Woman A said she didn't bring it because it was in her other drawing pad. Teacher let it go. I said the same thing, teacher asks me, "Well, do you have anything from a previous night's session you can show?" Um, no. See previous answer.

Just goes to show that some people are bizarre. I will not be taking another class with her but I will take other classes at the League. I also believe that I acted as graciously as I could, listening to her criticism and asking for advice when I felt like my work warranted it. I would even tell her goodbye even though she often said nothing. Except tonight. Tonight I just left.

We are encouraged to fill out reviews of the class. I put all of this in my review. She needs to know for her own edification so that she treats future students like myself better.

So here's my last drawing for class. I am proud of it and proud to have worked so hard. Nothing's stopping me from doing art. NOTHING.



And here's a close up of my favorite section:

Dr. Sketchy's November

I returned to Dr. Sketchy's this month and was pleasantly surprised to see so many people. At least 20 people attended tonight's drawing session, and Vivienne Vavoom was back to host.

We had an excellent model tonight who was tons of fun and had great costumes - including sexy librarian! Yay!

And I won a prize. Again! A crazy book on enchantments. More money from ebay!

For the winning drawing, we drew for one minute, then passed the drawing to the person to our left. We did this for ten minutes. The part I drew is in pink.



Here are my fave drawings of the night:

Life Drawing Class

I loved today's model. She was so confident and relaxed. I wish every model was this professional and cool!

I experimented with colors today. My drawings came out rougher due to less practice over the past two weeks, but I felt pretty good about things by the end.

Back from the Dead - HOORAH!

Oh man. It feels good to be back in the fray. I have been so sick the past two weeks. Something was going on in the Colorado air. Glad to no longer subsist on Tylenol. I never want to eat chicken soup or drink OJ again. YUCK.

And all these crazy things happened while I was out of commission. Obama creamed McCain. Yeah! 349 electoral votes! Michael Crichton passed away last week. Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience passed away this week. Scientists photographed extrasolar planets. GAS IS CHEAP AGAIN! Which would be cool, except tons of folks can't go anywhere because of massive layoffs. And the government may bailout GM. And Sun Microsystems will lay off 5,000 - 6,000. And American Express became a bank.

Wow. A lot happens when you spend most of your day asleep. Yikes.

In more pleasant news, now that I am back, I will have life drawings to post. And Cryptids will resume with their cryptidity goodness next week. I've missed drawing them dearly and look forward to completing the final 15.

See y'all soon!

VOTE!

Make your voice heard America!

Web Comic Review: Crowfeathers

Found a great webcomic this week,Crowfeathers by Amy Watson, a sort of Bleach meets Inuyasha set in 1800s Arizona. A young Native American boy discovers that he is half human, half nature spirit, and must learn to control his power in order to protect those who are caring for him after the brutal death of his mother. Angels, demons, spirits and crazy townfolk populate this manga that delves into fantasy and intrigue without the requisite elves, fairies and wizards typical of the genre.

The story masterfully uses humor, drama, and death as it chronicles the protagonist's journey and is definitely not for the kiddies but great for teens and adults. Beware it looks like there is a yaoi spin to two of the characters later in the story. Not my cup of tea at all but if you are quesy about that sort of thing you can still enjoy the tale even with that side note. Updates on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Dance Party Halloween Pics-O-Fun!

Hey hey kids,

went to a Halloween Swing Dance Party last night that was quite great. There were some awesome costumes and dance fun fun fun.

Here are some of the pics of the evening.



Barbie Michelle



Retro Girl Jessica



Daphne and Scooby (Me and Scooby!)



All three of us



Shaun of the Dead



The King!!!




And fun dancing kids!

Hope all of you had more treats than tricks!