summer class finale & yard work

Well, I'm done with my summer classes. I had my last exam in public speaking yesterday. The prof let us grade our own tests, so by my calculations I made about an 83 (he goes back and adjusts the score up or down). Not as good a grade as I wanted, but it's pretty good considering how I bluffed my way through some of the answered. Honestly, who reads the textbook anyway?

For anyone who's interested, I made an A- on my final project in 3D design. Hopefully I'll make an A in that class, and raise my GPA a bit. It's not really low in the first place, but I like to stay in range of the Dean's List.

I had to work with my dad today, and it was absolutely exhausting. He does lawn maintenance and cuts down trees. After the first yard we did, I was ready to be through. See, he makes me edge around the yards, that where you used this machine--an edger, go figure--and you go and around where the grass meets the sidewalk and it trims it up all nice and pretty. However, it's better if you have a lot of upper body strength, which I don't. So I'm all achy and stuff, and my dad wants me to go back out working tomorrow. :/

self portrait, Artgyrl history

I've drawn another self-portrait, but the concensus is that it doesn't really look like me. It seems that when I actually try to draw someone that looks like me, it doesn't, but when I draw, say, artgyrl, she looks more like me than my supposed self-portrait. . . hmm. . .

So, therein lies the dilemma. See, Artgyrl started as my online personality/avatar. Then she developed into a character of her own, with only a few of my character traits, such as artistic ability, intelligence. . . and hot looks (j/k). But you get the picture. Anyways, she's not me, as a lot of people have come to believe. She's her own person.

But anyway. . .here's the pic. You be the judge of the actual resemblance. I'll slap some colors on when pretty soon, so hopefully it'll look more like myself after that. :/

movie experience: POTC

Yesterday afternoon I went to see "Pirates of the Caribbean" with my older sister. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. Johnny Depp is great in practically any role, and Orlando Bloom was his usual hot self. Now that I think about it, the movie reminds me a bit of "The Three Musketeers." You know, the one starring Keifer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Oliver Platt and Chris O'Donnell. . .? Well, Orlando Bloom's character reminded me of Chris O'Donnell as he portrayed the young D'Artagnan. I guess it was the whole head-strong-young-lad-trying-to-prove-himself-andcome-into-his-own-while-at-the-same-time-trying-to-live-up-to-his-father's-example thing.

Well kiddies, only one more week of school left. (woohooh!) Then I get a little break before school starts back in the fall. :( Oh well, you can't have all fun. But I'll finally be taking some major specific courses, such as Intro to Graphic Design and Typography.

Tomorrow I've got my final speech in public speaking. It's supposed to be an entertaining "after dinner" speech, and I'll be bringing my younger sisters in as visual aids. ; ) I'm just going to talk about the annoying and insane things that people say about us. For example, they think that my and my little sis, who is six years my junior is my twin. So that means I look like I'm 14, sixteen at the most. Yeah. It gets on my nerves just a bit.

Art Progress: 3D models, Stevie Nicks, Chloe

I thought I'd clue you guys in on what I've been working on as of late.

First off, I've got my final project for 3D design. We have to make a self portrait up to 18'' tall. So we've been working on miniature models of what we want to do.



I'm also working on a commission portrait of Stevie Nicks. Here's what I've got so far:



Oh, and here's a drawing I did of my baby cousin for my aunt as a gift to my uncle. He was quite pleases with it. However, the photograph doesn't to justice to the original piece.

Photos: wedding, itsy, china garden sign

I've taken alot of pics over the past couple of weeks. . .

Sunday night I got all dressed up for a wedding.


actual size
This spider made a home right above the door to my 3D design class


Is this not the most ghetto name for a restaurant? They have really good food, though. :p

Hello kiddies. . .

Well, I bombed on the speech I mentioned in the last entry, making a C. But today I had another speech. We had to give a special occasion speech (i.e. eulogy, acceptance, presentation), and I did a lot better on this one. I chose to do a eulogy, and little did I know that a eulogy isn't just for funerals. It's the general name for a speech given to praise or blame someone.

Right now I'm working on a commission for one of Jamaal's co-workers. It's a portrait of Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mack(sp?).

As for the comic. . . it's coming along slowly, but surely. =)

booo. . .it's 2:00 a.m., and I've got a speech today that once again I've ill-prepared for. It's dealing w/ affirmative action. . .such a controversial topic, so much I could say, but I've only got 5 minutes. And it's not good to rethink your speech plan at the last minute. I'll just stick to my original idea, and if it goes to terribly, I have an opportunity to redo the speech Wednesday.

Madelyn's litter

Almost two and a half weeks ago, my dog, Madelyn, gave birth to eight healthy puppies (hooray!). Sadly, Madelyn developed mastitis. Consequently, we have to ween the puppies early. Madelyn has to be separated from the puppies completely, so see will stop lactating and the infection will go away. They were supposed to nurse for at least another week, but the vet gave us formula to feed them, and we started them on puppy chow. I was surprised at how quickly the puppies took to the new food, but they can't get enough of it. However, it's a big responsibility having to feed them every four hours. . . but they're so darn cute that it doesn't really matter.



The puppies are super muts. Their dad is part rottweiler and some kind of husky/wolf dog; he's got white-blue eyes, but looks mostly like a german shepard. We don't know what the heck Madelyn is. She's a pound puppy. But we love them all. =)

madelyn


max

gymnastic girl sketches

I had a great week spending time with my sweetheart. But fear not, I actually managed to sketch some things while I was with him. Last Thursday we went to a cheerleading gym where Jamaal's best friend, John works. I saw the girl walking around, stretching, and fixing their hair after doing a tumbling passed, and I did a few sketches from that.

gym gyrls | lil gym gyrl

The comic is coming along slowly but surely. I need a lot of references to work from since I have mostly experience drawing people and nothing else. But this will be great practice for me. I'd give y'all a sneak peek, but then I'd be giving away a lot. ;)

Character designs

::new artwork: character designs - tuan | dhani | carmen & rita

I can't believe it's already been two weeks of school. Time is sure flying. Everything is going pretty well. I had my first speech. It had to be informtive/teaching, so I did my speech on how to draw using a grid. It was ok, I guess, but I had trouble with the visual aids. Oh well. Still I liked the handout I did, so I think I'll post it here when I get a chance.

Drawing a comic is hard. : /

Fine art update and Public Speaking

Lots of new artwork in the fine art gallery. My mom was cleaning up and found one of my portfolios containing a lot of the art I had done for my AP Studio Art class in high school. My bristol pad was also in there, so I was glad to have that again. I took the time to add descriptions of all of the artwork in the fine art gallery, so you can get a bit of insight into the art process. I hope you take the time to read it cuz it took a long time for me to make all those pages. . .

Today is the first day of summer classes at USA. My fist class was Public Speaking at 8:00 a.m. I actually loathe public speaking, but I've learned to get used to it, since it is a required course. ::sigh:: There are only ten people in the class, but there are some interesting characters, and my instructor, Mike (he says even his grandkids call him that), literally wrote the book on public speaking, so it should be fun.

I'll have some more character sketches a little later.

Laura's art

Breakdancer - a drawing my youngest sister (14) did for her school project I showed her how to use the grid system to draw it as accurate as possible. She's been buggin' me for the longest to put this on my site. I think it's pretty good for her first try.

Character drawings: Dyanna, Neera (redraw), Carmen

::new artwork: dyanna star colored

Wow. . . I'm on a role. ^__^

Well, I've decided to redraw some of the character sketches I did. Neera and Dyanna look really good, and the rest are drawn in kinda different styles, especially Carmen and Rita—probably because of the references I used. Anyway, I really want to get this comic going, but it's going to take a lot of work on my part. I'm going to have to start drawing. . . ::gasp:: . . .backgrounds.

It's not that I can't draw them. I just get lazy after I've drawn the figure. Plus, I hate doint perspective and having to use a straight edge. I like doing, soft, curvy lines. However, if I'm a real artist, it shouldn't be that bad. We'll see. : /

6000 hits!

I almsot forgot to mention it. . .

Thanx to all you who keep coming back to see my site--even though I probably contributed about a thousand hits myself. : P I think I've really come a long was as far as design and all that, and I'm glad that I get a positive response to what I'm doing.

new art: carmen & rita profiles

I went on a drawing spree last night after I took a break from a commission I was working on. I cranked out two more character profiles. I would have done one more, but it was already two o'clock in the morning. I think they turned out ok.

carmen | rita

I also updated the color and fan art galleries. Enjoy. =)

Ground Zero initiation

I went to a new/different comic book store today. I'd never been there before, and I'd heard it advertised on the radio for while, so I decided to check it out. It was a lot more spacious than the other comic store that I'd been going to. Inside, there was this guy at a table sorting comics (turned out to be the manager, Scottie) and this goy sitting at one of the tables playing a hand-held game. The manager turned out to be very helpful. It took him quite a while to find the new Gen13, but I applaud his efforts.

I ended up buying four titles: Gen 13 #9, X-treme X-Men #21, Sojourn #22 and #23, and Peter Parker: Spiderman (Khary Randolph did the pencils). With each book being about $3 a piece, my total was only $8 and some odd cents. I'm definitely shopping there from now on. =)

::New link:: Eddie Holly—an excellent artist. I absolutely envy his line quality an the little details he puts into his drawings...it constantly reminds me that I should draw waaaaaaaay more than I do.

::New art:: AG summer colored—not exactly new—but here's a larger version.

aced Brit Lit

Ok, you may have noticed the new color scheme. It looks really plain right now, but I'm not done yet. I'm still working out how I want this thing to look.

Oh yeah. . . I got my report card today. I made the dean's list again. whoohoo! ::does a little dance:: I managed to pull an A in brit lit. I don't know how that was possible, but I guess my writing on the final exam and paper was pretty darn good.

Is all. =)

movie experience: matrix reloaded

I saw The Matrix: Reloaded yesterday afternoon. It was so awesome. I could have done without the first third of the movie. It was really slow. However, after that, some very intriguing characters were introduced, such as Seraph, the Gatekeeper, Merovingian, and Persephone. I can't really say anything else w/out spoiling the movie. Plus, there's a lot I can say, and I don't want to get into it.

I'll have more art up soon, hopefully, so stay tuned. =)