Working From Home

    So to start off, these pictures are from last Sunday, but they're still relevant to what I'm talking about today.

    One of the things Allison and I have been doing for most Sundays since we started dating almost 2 years ago now is work on art every Sunday in the small studio at her house. Most of the time we're working on homework, but occasionally we'll work on our own stuff[can sculptures/paintings]. Last Sunday and today we had some work to get done for our Painting, and Drawing I classes.

[Allison working on homework]

    For our painting class last Wednesday we had to reproduce an "old master" work in only 5 different values in a greyscale. Similar to the assignment we did in class with the donut rings. Allison chose to use an Edgar Dega painting, and I had done a Francisco De Goya[which may not have even been painted by him ironically]. Then for drawing we had to create and draw a still life of mostly cylindrical objects on multiple levels to work on drawing similar objects in varying heights in correct perspective.

[Cody's still life in progress]

    So while we watched 101 Dalmations on the little TV in the corner we drew from this still life, to be critiqued in class on Thursday. The critique went well I just had a few ellipses to fix, which we had then talked about in class at this point, and add another planar object[box] to the bottom tier. Which we ended up finishing today, and I of course brought my camera and forgot to take any pictures, that's alright though it's not that interesting to look at anyways.

    Just picture a tissue box under that shelf to the left of the peanut butter.

-Cody
"Prepare for titanfall" -IMC robot dispatcher

The Perspective Thrill

    On Fridays I have my Perspective class in the mornings. Most of the class is spent going over different "methods" to achieve drawing different shapes, planes, and lines in linear perspective. There's a lot of measuring, angles, and connecting the dots involved. I actually quite enjoy doing it when we have a clear goal. ie. Draw this square as a cube in perspective. Like  in my math class I like figuring out the problem, and knowing that I've solved it correctly.

   
    My instructor calls it "the perspective thrill", which of course is now an ongoing joke with some of my other classmates. So I've got a picture that's a little more interesting to show though, I'll talk briefly about what we were working on in Drawing I yesterday.

[ellipse studies]

    We were studying how to draw ellipses in perspective[all of the classes concepts overlap] by practicing drawing more vases and cylindrical shapes. Instead of measuring though when we draw from life we learn about the things we know to be true about drawing circles in perspective. Like an ellipse should never have points, the half closer to you should be slightly larger than the one receding into space.

    So our understanding of mechanical, and visual perspective should allow us to create more accurate looking drawings even if they're not measured out perfectly. I'm going to be working on some environment concepts for a project I've been helping with off an on now for a while this week. Hopefully I can get some more accurate/believable perspective into the paintings.

-Cody

We've Already Been Introduced...

    So one of the classes I'm taking this semester is called "Introduction to Digital Imaging". Which in short is an intro to  the program Adobe Photoshop. Which in case you don't know for some reason is a photo manipulation program, that can and is used for so much more.

    So for our first three sessions we were pretty much "assigned" to work on whatever we wanted to using the tools we knew, and a few that our instructor taught us. So I worked on a few fun photobashes for them.

 [Cookin' With Pope]

[Shark Ship]

[Dino Warfare]

    We were pretty much given no assignment, and just expected to produce something by the end of the class/week. I was hoping for a little bit more instruction, but the more I go through school/college/life the more I realize that I'm just going to have to dig through the resources I have access to, and push myself.

    I'm getting to a point where I see all the other "kids" around me and see that they aren't dedicated or even sure what they want to do with their art. I do though, and I need to push myself harder if I expect to get anything done/get anywhere anytime quick after school.

-Cody

"That's dedication Holmes" -Bungie[among others] 

Be Still My Life...

    In our Painting I class so far we've been given two colors to work with up until this point, Raw Umber[a dark warm brown color], and Titanium White[it's white, what do you want]. For this project we got to introduce THE COLOR BLUE[ultramarine blue to be specific]. 3 COLORS!

[Cody's 3 color still life]

    I had a lot of trouble working on rendering the funky oblong shape on top of the overturned pot, but I was told the boot looks pretty well rendered. I spent a lot of time trying to get all the tiny plane changes on the boot I think I was seeing. I think I nailed down the likeness of the boot pretty well. 

I think for our next one we get to paint with the 3 PRIMARY COLORS!

-Cody

    I like this piece, and I hate it. I finished early and the teacher hadn't come around to talk to me for like two hours while I had been working on it... I felt like I was missing something. I added in highlights, like those dots on the gold thing that were the ceiling lights. The teacher told me " I laughed when I looked at your painting" wow. 

[Allison's 3 color still life]

    I'm in a learning environment and I'm trying new things and nothing is more upsetting than when someone laughs at what you've done. She also compared people's homework paintings to others who copied the same original painting. You wouldn't compare a Degas to a Van Gogh . They are two different painters, with different styles so why would you compare one girls to another girls assignment. She kept saying one was more correct than the others. She practically made fun of the paintings "this one looks like it's having a bad day haha, who did this?" Which calls out the person and now they are embarrassed. They did the assignment, it doesn't matter if they couldn't copy it well. The original assignment was to use 5 values and block out the shapes without blending. 

     Sorry it's been a bad day, English class was awesome though we talked about some ads and manipulation within advertising. And some other things I can't mention...

-Allison

"You've been dead for a while, you're going to see some things you don't understand." -Your Ghost[Dinklebot]

Skull-pture Part II

    So today Allison and I got our skull sculptures to a nearly finished point I think. I may go back before class on Tuesday and look at it with fresh eyes, but for now. I think I'm satisfied. I can't tell you how many times I was working on another part of the face and went, "his eye sockets are wrong" and had to re-work them. In the end though I think they look pretty good, there are many nuanced shapes, valleys, and crevasses just within the sockets alone.

[Cody working on his skull]

    I really do enjoy sculpting in any form, as a form of extra-credit our instructor Kim suggested that we come up with our own side project based off of something that interests us. I may look into grabbing some extra clay to work on creating a maquette of some sort of creature/ character design.

[Cody's "finished skull]

    I'll share the sketch/design for the maquette project when/if I get something I like.

-Cody

    Our skulls came out great this week. I finished early and made a cast of a hand to kill some time. I added a bow tie and some indication of eyes and a mustache for humor to mine, but that started a bunch of people to add stuff to theirs even though they weren't done...

   
    I think I did a great job on my skull. The teacher encouraged me to really get things identical. She was being picky because she knew I was capable, which I'm glad because I like challenges. If she said i was doing good and walked away, like she does with some people because they obviously weren't seeing the skull correctly, I would have been discouraged.

["Aye, what'do ya think yer doin'!"]

[Allison's skull selfie]

    I'm excited and not excited for our self portraits... I just got the hang of getting my 2-D portraits to finally resemble me. So a sculpture should be... interesting. 

-Allison

"And he prays!" -Skeletor

English Paper Draft #1

   Do you ever have the urge to correct peoples grammar? Maybe even help others with their sentence structure?

Well, it is your lucky day!

I have an English assignment this week, and I have a draft of something I really loved to write. Keep in mind it will be changed to accommodate the jumping around/lack of information in some areas. I was supposed to write a page or two in hand written form, and I went five and a quarter pages long.  What you are about to read is a little snippet from Cody's birthday I experienced. If you enjoy reading awfully written things, and like to know every detail about some of our days together. I mean, who doesn't. Here it is:

       Recently, it was my boyfriends 24th birthday. We wanted to do something special since last year we just went out for dinner. As someone who always over does things, like spending money on someone, or elaborate surprises. I'm always doing things for Cody he would never suspect. 
               Unfortunately, we have been short on money because the start of school has now turned our wallets into ghost towns. With such a lack of money, it was hard to think of something we both could do that was romantic and cheap. I figured out you don't have to spend money to give someone the best gift, and to show them how much you appreciate them. 
              When Saturday arrived I had decided to go to his house while he was at work. I could set up  the surprise until 8:15 pm. Which at that time he would then open the tired door and lug his meat stenched clothes that draped over his body into the hall and carelessly toss his bag into his room. I had thought of a perfect way to induce a wave of exhaustion and then blow it away with butterflies in his stomach.
A birthday dinner at 8:30pm
            Such a late time for dinner. Although I wasn't going to drive somewhere to pay for Cody to fall asleep in warm spaghetti. I was so eager to set up my surprise, I paced back and forth like a dog ready to go outside for the first time after a long night of sleep. I had a problem with timing things correctly. I would always cook the food too early, or too late and there was never a happy medium. Where the cooking gods would bless my oven with perfectly cooked pasta and the clock would strike for dinner. 
            7:00 had shown on the clock, and it chimed like a gunshot at a marathon. As if the clock was telling me "Go!"  seven times with every ding. I took out some chicken and flopped it on the grill. Then, I scattered for some sticky notes until I stumbled upon an old pad of Betty Boop ones. The poorest excuse for "sticky notes" I had ever seen. The notes lifelessly fell from where I needed them to be. 
          I stuck the notes with tacks and moved on. I had created a maze of notes to walk him through the house and twice again. I quickly reminded my self I had chicken cooking on the grill, which I cut into succulent perfect strips and dropped them into a sauce pan filled with mixed ingredients ready to boil. I leaped down the hall and swiftly jumped into my semi-fancy clothes I had carefully picked out the night before.I set a table on the back porch with a few candles, sparkling apple cranberry cider with some champagne glasses, and the essential plates and silverware. The clock crept to 7:45, was I going to make it?
           I busted into the bathroom and took a look in the mirror. The mess of lions mane that bends and twists like used and forgotten pipe cleaners starred back at me. I needed to straighten it, to tame the wild beast. A hair tie, 3 bobby pins, and 4 burned fingers later I had managed to fix it. It looked as if it was trying to escape the perfectly straight look and would curl to rebel against me. I sighed, this hair was not made to be on the cover of a magazine. It wanted to run free with the fly-aways and the amaturely cut bangs. 
          The clock struck 8:00. This was it, I went into the kitchen where my nose flooded with sweet tomatoes and Parmesan and scooped up the chicken and pasta that had been keeping warm in the oven. The smell made my stomach growl, which had not been fed since noon. I dipped my finger in the warm sauce and pinched a rotini. My mouth watered with excitement. It tasted so perfect, this was the best dish for a surprise birthday dinner. I put it into a glass bowl and covered it with its matching lid. I then proceed to bring the prepared food outside. I took a seat and kept my happy fidgeting to a minimum. 
          At this time Cody was slugging out of work and ready for the short commute home. I was quietly sitting in the back yard listening to a never ending noise of cars zooming by on the highway. It crushed my mood, this was not romance. Police sirens and angry honks from across the yard and down the hill flooded into my area of the sweet  well cooked meal along with the smell of burning wax. I hear the front door creak open and slam as the springs put up a fight with the opening force of his hand. His foot steps drag an eternity down the hall and a beam of light hits the back yard. 
          It seemed like years before I heard any noise coming from inside. I decided to find something to listen to so it could drown out the constant arguing between cars on the highway. I found a great three hour track of the score for Skyrim,  a beautiful game with mystical atmosphere and dragons. 
          My notes led him through the front door and around to the back yard. The darkness shielded my eyes from seeing my over worked boyfriend with hat hair and an 8 o'clock shadow. The suspense was pushing on my heart. Is he standing there? Do I look like a fool peering into the darkness?  "Allison?" , Codys silky voice was coated with the roughness of a long day. I jumped, dropping my iPad onto my lap. He was standing on the deck already. 
        "Happy Birthday , Cody!" I smiled so quickly. He had waited 12 hours for this moment. Even though he had no clue he was even waiting for it. To finally start his birthday and end it with me next to him. I had done it, I had given him the best gift I could give him with out paying a penny. 

Alright so give me your thoughts, I figure Mondays can be personal days about our lives or something equivalent.  Don't worry though, the posts wont all be this long..
-Allison 

 "Essays suck"- Me

 

Allison Pre-Lyme Academy

   This section is some background history of myself before I went to Lyme Academy. It gets more personal towards the end though, so I've included a short version before hand.

    I was normally "okay" at art in middle school. My mom made a lot of paintings so I was semi-interested. My best friend at the time already drew cartoons and was really great (in my opinion) at drawing characters from our favorite TV show Teen Titans. I would record the show on tape, pause it , and draw the characters from the screen. I  then went to Norwich Free Academy and didn't know I wanted to do art until my last semester of my junior year. Better late than never, because I'm here now doing things I love.  I wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn't taken that intro to drawing class my junior year. I could have been a biologist. I loved biology, science, things like that. I have a bad taste in my mouth from chemistry (not literally)  Bad teacher, its a long story.

If you want a short version of my Pre-Lyme history read this next part. If you want the dinner and dessert of my back story skip this :

    I went to Norwich Free Academy[ 2007-2011], started my interest in art my last semester of my Junior year. I went to Three Rivers Community College, went into a depression then I met Cody and my life turned around. Then graduated with an Associates degree in Visual Fine Arts [2011-2013]. Now I'm going to Lyme Academy to finish what I thought I didn't need to do, but now I want to. (Finish my BFA)

Long Story:
   My senior year in high school was mostly art classes. I enjoyed it a lot, and I learned so much. I also had the hardest time in my first studio class. I misunderstood the assignment. We were drawing bikes. My teacher had told me we could make it into anything. I didn't know we could make it into a painting or an abstract piece. I drew the gearbox into a mechanical wing for a demon like creature sitting in a canyon...I quickly learned what he meant during critique.

Here are some works from my Senior year in high school:

[2011]

As you can see I had a theme of rustic/industrial/steam-punk going on

   My Three Rivers Community College experience felt like a pause in my path towards my career. I was doing assignments, but I felt like I focused more on my art grades and just getting the work done instead of carefully planning my compositions. I suffered in my academic classes, I'm paying for that now (literally). I should have focused more on my academic grades rather than rushing my work and not studying. I honestly didn't think I would continue my education after TRCC. I figured I'd have an associates degree... why bother go on. I was depressed during most of my college experience. All I wanted was to graduate and stop going to school. I had gathered fake happiness for a few months at a time. Then everything would whip back at me and I hated it.
 
    I went to Three Rivers for two and a half years. In my second year there, 2012 around August/September I had met Cody. We were both in Three Dimensional Design, a class of crafts and bizarre sculptures. It wasn't until October til we went on our first date. I wasn't sure how things were going to work out because my past relationships turned into train wrecks. I was afraid to be in a relationship. I gave him a chance though, and we ended up going on a second date. Now, here we are 2 years later and still swooning for each other. 

   
    My look on my career changed because of Cody, I wanted to continue my education after Three Rivers, I was more focused on my art, I was so much happier. A weight of 4 years of pain had lifted off my shoulders. Even though what was about to get thrown into my life was equally as bad or worse ,  with out him I'd probably have sunk into a depression that I couldn't even pull my self out of because of it. My family fell apart and It holds together by threads. Each month someone comes by and snips the threads one by one. Cody is like the duct tape that keeps me from falling apart.

    Alright, so my Community College experience was a shit storm. Here was what I had produced in those wonky years:

 [2011-2013]

    Do well in school, It really is worth it. You will regret it if you don't try. I'm paying $$$ for a class that had cost me 200 bucks before.

-Allison

"Art is the only way to run away without leaving home." -Twyla Tharp

Skull-pture Part I

    On this fine day, of September, we started a new sculpture project. Skulls. I have to say, this is much more difficult than the casts of the facial features. I've never worked from a three dimensional object. You might argue that the mouth and such are 3-D but they are different planes on a flat surface. That's how I see it. This is going to be a challenge and I'm excited. I've got a good likeness down in the time we were able to work on them in the first class. Now, I have to get in deep and make sure I capture the details correctly.

[Allison's skull in progress] 

    Our wallets parish at every project... I scavenge through the garage at my house for hardware to make the armature for the sculptures. Which reminds me, do you wonder what to get me/Cody for holidays and birthdays? Don't want to waste money on something we might not use/like?  THERE IS A SOLUTION. Lyme has a beautiful thing called a " Lyme Gift Card"  It is a refillable gift card that can be used anywhere on campus. Including the school art store. If any of you are ever interested in donating $5 (or maybe if your generous $10) once in a blue moon. Contact us! We can give you some more info on how to donate some of that pocket change you've collected in a jar somewhere. It's very simple too, just a call away.

-Allison

[Cody's skull in progress]

    As I write this now, it's been a few days since we actually started these sculptures, 4 to be exact, because I just remembered to bring my camera to school. I've got to do better with that next week, we need some more pictures of what we've been working on. We've also started on new paintings, and done a few drawings this week.

    Back to my skull here though, I like where it's going to far, but I've been having trouble seeing exactly how to form the outside shape of his eye sockets[I believe the skull is male?] so he's gone through a few different phases of expression. For a while he seemed elated to be here, now he looks a mid more melancholy than he needs to. I still haven't given him any teeth yet either so it's a little silly looking anyways. We'll get some more shots up once we've finished them here.

    I'm heading back from Allison's house now and I'm going to do some much needed sketching/painting for myself with my tablet, maybe I'll share that tomorrow.

-Cody


"To be an artist, you have to nurture the things that most people discard."  -Richard Avedon

Dear Math...

    So I sat down to do math homework tonight and discovered this note in it.

[archived note from math text]

    To summarize it says, math sucks more than Satan, I'll never use this in my life, boo you suck. I thought it was pretty funny, especially since I bought it used from a seller on Amazon. So either the seller left me this note, or whoever was selling it didn't take it out. Either way I'm glad I got it, I might leave one myself.

    I actually enjoy what we've started with here, normal algebra is more like a puzzle to me than it is math. I'm not as hateful towards math as this presumably girl was, but to leave a piece of the past in the hands of someone else could be fun.

-Cody

Dino A Day #7

    A little sick today, don't know if it's intense allergies, or a cold, but my nose is running. At least I can try to stop it, a Brachiosaurus can't even reach up.

[Brachiosaurus sketch]

-Cody

Dino A Day #6

    Here's an "egg thief" that was wrongly accused of stealing.

[Oviraptor sketch]

-Cody

Dino A Day #5

    A quick sketch of an Ankylosaurus before some Destiny and bed.

[Ankylosaurus sketch]

    See you tomorrow hopefully with something a little more fleshed out.

-Cody

Take a Seat, Not That One(That's The Still Life).

    I just wanna take a few words to mention September 11th 2001, and thank any of you who are emergency responders/military reading this for risking your lives for hundreds, maybe thousands of people. There may be a time in your life that you will be called to respond to a devastating terrorist attack or mass shooting.  We respect/thank you and those who fought the flames, and fought through the smoke for those who could not help themselves in New York City during the terrorist attack on 9/11/2001. 

   On this cool summers autumn day, we were in drawing class , as we are every Thursday. We have finally moved from boxes to chairs! Hallelujah! Today's exercise was to draw the negative shapes first, then fill in the positive planes. If you don't know what negative space is: if you put your hand up and touch your pointer finger with your thumb, and make a " Okay" hand signal , the empty space in the middle  of your thumb and pointer finger  is called negative space.

[Allison's negative space focused drawing]

   
     As "skilled" artists as we are, drawing negative space first throws the drawing a little off, due to the fact you can underestimate the scale that you are drawing at. My first drawing was too narrow in some places and fell off the page on one side. My second drawing fell off the page on the top and on the bottom. I pay attention to negative space already, but I don't draw negatives first naturally. I was taught, that if you cant figure out the shape of something on the first few tries, focus on drawing the negative space, it will give you a better view of what the edges are suppose to look like. It worked like magic. I concentrated on the pupil of an eye less often to figure out where its looking, I focus on what shapes the whites(or negative space) of the eye look like.

Sorry for boring you, here are some of our class drawings.

-Allison

    I was having trouble when we first started with our drawing class, I felt like I could draw much more complex things, but for the life of me I couldn't draw the box before me. when I took the time to sit and see what was before me though I became much more satisfied with what I was producing by the second class. Now into the third class and our instructor decides to mix it up, and asks us to draw in a way I don't typically start with.
 

[Cody's negative space focused drawing]

    As Allison before me I had been told to watch the shape of my negative spaces while drawing before, but never to draw them exclusively. I actually feel like I ended up with more accurate drawings working in this manner, and may continue to start with all negative drawings for other assignments.

-Cody

    A couple bits of info here at the end, Allison now set up the blog so that ANYONE can comment on our posts. With our without an account! So I encourage anyone reading here to leave a comment about anything, or just say hello.

    Also if anyone is interested in getting an email whenever we update the blog so you can see what we're posting, we can add you to the "mailing list". So if you would like to get email updates you can leave us your email either in the form of a comment here or on any post, or if you'd rather keep your address private you can email me at caveryart001@gmail.com.

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. " -Edgar Degas

Dino A Day #4

Sorry for the last post, I had a late class last night and didn't have time to post. Number 4 is the king himself, Tyrannosaurus Rex!

[feathered Tyrannosaurus Rex sketch]

Today's will be up shortly as well as a main post by Allison, and I together. 

-Cody

Dino a Day #3

    A quick one before bed, I know it's technically Thursday now, but I did it before midnight I promise.

[derpy/sleepy Brachiosaurus sketch]

    "Life finds a way" -Ian Malcolm 

"Is This a Doughnut or a Bagel"

      During our painting class today, we broke up the time for two paintings. They were the same subject but with different techniques. The objects we painted were rings of foam under strong lighting. I had a good time painting, I'm getting used to oils. Yet I'm having some difficulty figuring out a good ratio of solution and oils for a base layer and which paints are transparent. A lot of people told me my first painting looked like The Lord of the Rings movie, meaning the atmosphere and the resemblance of a ring I had painted. (See below) It honestly looks like a Panera Bread painting of a bagel...

[Allison's first donut]

     As far as friends go, a bunch of people found out I'm not 18. They don't think I'm silly like some other kids that are new at the school. I told them who else was older among the new students. Also they knew who I was without knowing who I was, as in someone is talking about me and they know the description of who they were talking about but not who I actually was. I'm not surprised, Cody has classes with people who have been there for more than a year. It could pass around during conversation.

[Allison's second donut]

     Anyways, English class is alright we are reading lots of essays. Tomorrow is drawing class, we get to draw something other than boxes now! 

-Allison

    I'm actually learning a lot from doing these paintings of geometric shapes we've been working on. If you were to look at them in order, you may not see a straight progression of quality, but I take something different away from each of them.

[Cody's first donut]

    While working on my first one today I ended up having way too much paint on the canvas, and with oils it makes it very difficult to put any more paint on without everything smoothing all together. For the second painting today we were assigned to only use 5 different values to represent all of the form in front of us.
 

[Cody's second donut]

    I ended up having a few too many values being very close to each other, which makes it harder to create contrast. I'm trying to remember to slow down, and work in a particular sequence while painting in oils. I really don't like the way the black, and white one looks at all compared to the raw umber, and white one either. Lessons learned.

-Cody

"Learning is fun!" -Us I guess...

Eyes and Ears and Mouth No Nose.

     Today was another sculpture day, Cody forgot to take pictures of our sculptures so we don't have any photos yet. We sculpted ears, along with our mouths we had for homework and the eyes we did last week. We learned how to make casts of sculptures as well. I fell asleep in class because I went to bed at 11:00 last night. So tonight I'm going to bed  at 10:00. At least I'm going to try, as soon as I finish typing this. I need to read a chapter for English tomorrow, because I've been so busy.

     I also bought a stupid game for $4.99... It's both a curse and a blessing. Blessing is to entertainment as curse is to this was a poor choice and it scares the pants off of me.

Happy almost hump day,

-Allison

Dino A Day #2

    Day to in the week long series here. Spinosaurus, the big bad guy from Jurassic Park 3, not the best JP movie, but still a fun dino flick.

[Spinosaurus sketch]

    Now onto my Destiny, it came in a Limited Edition box in the mail from Gamestop. 

-Cody

A Dino A Day... #1

    So our Monday isn't completely without a post, I've come up with an idea to keep myself drawing everyday outside of my required school based work. Starting today I'm going to do a different dinosaur sketch/drawing/painting/something everyday for a week here. If I can do that, I'll try to stick to it for a month, then maybe even longer.

    No guarantee it'll be a different species of dinosaur everyday, but I'll try to mix it up, and work on more interesting/dynamic poses for them. To start out the week, here's something in a nearly static pose[against what I just said I know].

[Carnotaurus sketch]

    Just something quick while I was watching Disney's "Dinosaur"[on VHS] not the most accurate dinosaur movie, but it's pretty fun.

-Cody

"A dino a day, keeps the mammals away." -No One 

'Tis I Sculpting Thee

    As Allison had posted before, we've started our Sculpture 1 class now as well as our Drawing 1, and Painting 1 that we have together. Three core/fundamental classes that may seem like something we'd have taken before, or know something about right? I may have taken plenty of art classes before, and have some "experience" doing all three of these things, but to be honest I wasn't in the right mindset/environment to get as much out of them as I could have.

[both of our sculpture assignments]

    Here at Lyme I've decided to dedicate myself to working seriously on my school work, and art in general, which I really wasn't mature enough to do before. So today I got some homework done with plenty of time to spare before class next Tuesday. We were assigned to recreate features of the human face based off of casts of Michelangelo's David[you can see one of them in the first picture].

    Then tonight I'll be working on what I guess can be called product design, for an idea my mom's friend had, and working on a contest entry with my brother for the current Master's of the Universe comic series. I've got those, and a list of other projects I've got going written in my sketchbook here. Being in school and around other artists definitely motivates me to work on stuff outside of class as well. 

-Cody

[Cody's sculpture assignments] 

   

    Today, I went into school early to do some homework in the studio. As you can see below and somewhere above, I worked on some lips. Mmmmhmmmm. Nothing too interesting, because today was pretty simple. I had art history class, and I constantly want to leave because we talked about one Egyptian relief sculpture for an hour. The professor did not even know what it was about, so everyone was throwing out ideas as if we were trying to guess. So I finally went " I think... you should tell us what its about,"  and he goes, "Oh I have no clue"... neat. Just because we have 3 hours in the class, doesn't mean we need to spend an eternity on a photograph in a slide. 

    There was an ice cream social today. I feel more like a part of the "older" folks that go to school now, because we hung out with them and talked for a while during our hour lunch break. It's nice to know people don't think I'm 17.

[Allison's sculpture assignments] 

-Allison

"Allison, did you know that birds are dinosaurs?!" -Cody

Open Boxes, "Revenge of the Rectangles of Death"

    So we drew MORE RECTANGLES AND BOXES TODAY. For 7 hours. This time the tops were opened..
 
    I'm seeing improvement in many of our classmates, including Cody and myself. Each of us are improving in different areas. For instance, I'm working on my full-arm strokes with my pencil, instead of short strokes, and I need to stay away from erasing a lot. Cody is working on not making dramatic exaggerated perspective in his still life's like many of his sketches have.

     Although I feel confident in myself to do well in school, I worry for my Art History class grade. I'm pressured with a lot of reading. On top of that I have to read short stories for English. I'm not worried about it, but with the pile of reading I have to do I'm sure I'll fall behind.
Quickly.

    Side note: I'm unsure of the format I should be writing in when I write for the blog. I enjoy the "to art school with love, Allison"  format, because it represents the blog title. Yet, this format is alright.

    You'll have to excuse my grammar and sentence format and structure... and spelling(Is that grammar?). I'm a poor writer and was a D student in English class ever since I was in 7th grade.

    I noticed Cody wrote a little about himself so I was prompted to the same, but this is the first time I'm writing on my computer instead of my iPad. Which means I'm lazy, and I'm procrastinating doing my homework right now as you read this. 

As always,

-Allison

"The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it." -Banksy

David, oh David, who is sculpting thee

To: Art school

    It's Tuesday, and here's your routine insight to our hopes and dreams. Even though our scheduled posts aren't on track yet, school hasn't been in session two Mondays in a row, so we can't talk about art on a Monday yet. BUT TUESDAY, we're talking about Tuesday.

       
    It was our first sculpture class, our teacher got us right into sculpting, which was great. We had to replicate the "Statue of David's" eye. Everyone was sculpting the same thing, most looked really close to the original, but so different from other students' work. I've never sculpted before, I've only made some ceramic cups and an ashamed Pooh Bear piece, which I wouldn't have called sculpture. I did alright for a first try, we will post pictures tomorrow!(hopefully) 

     
    My wallet is also more empty today, I had to spend $51 on a tool and a little bit of clay... 

Send help, and Michael's gift cards.

With love,

-Allison

Some of My Prehistory...

    I've had many influences and particular subjects I've always loved to draw, and I can trace some of those things back to when I was very young. One of them, and maybe the most relevant was dinosaurs.
 

[triceratops sketch]

    Ever since I was a kid I've loved animals and learning in general, but the thing that always stuck out to me the most was the idea of giant creatures that once roamed the the earth. Dinosaurs were very popular in the beginning of the 90s when I was young due to a movie you may have heard of, Jurassic Park. I may have been a little young, but I remember my dad showing my brother and I the movie and we wore out two tapes we had watched it so many times.

[utahraptor sketch]

    My second grade teacher didn't help either, Mrs. Lawrence's classroom was full of posters, toys, and two giant paper mache dinosaurs. This will all become relevant to our art blog, I assure you, just bare with me.

[dino concept, work in progress]

    Recently I've had a reinvigoration of my passion for dinosaurs[I've got a few drawings/sketches in this post]. So it was to my surprise when I learned that one of the instructors at Lyme Academy, and also my assigned advisor, Peter Zallinger, and his father Rudolph Zallinger were once a paleo artists. I had seen their work before apparently too, Zallinger Sr. had painted the mural at the Peabody Museum "The Age of Reptiles", needless to say I'm very excited to be working with someone who's worked in a field I may very well be looking to get into myself.
 
    Or at least continue to be interested in/influenced by for the rest of my life. Tomorrow I have Sculpture 1, and hopefully the last math class I'll ever have to take in my life. Should be fun.

-Cody