Ryan's Blog

Composition HW #1 - Still Life

2009-02-25T09:48:00.000-08:00

Yes our easels at school are really that messy. Our first homework in Composition was a still-life. I'm running out of objects at home, and I really love books so I decided to do a shelf. This type of painting is called trompe l'oeil, which I believe means that you are trying to create the illusion that the objects are really there. So it requires a sharp realism across the picture plane and a typically has shallow space. Anyways as I was doing the lettering and my hand was shaking I wondered what had I gotten myself into. But people liked it, and I think the lettering is really required to make the painting work. I need to keep working on this, namely redoing the shelf and adding a flower to the vase. But this is how I turned it in.

Red Onion, Green Apples

2009-02-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

Crouching Onion, Hidden Apples. I really love this painting for some reason. This was the assignment where Jon threw out a ton of fruit onto the floor and we had to create some composition from them. It was really difficult at first because the cloths were such saturated colors. But as you stared at it you started to see patterns in the chaos as it were. I saw 3 apples that I felt were in a good arrangement, and they were over an orange and purple cloth that I felt worked together somewhat (as opposed to the yellow-blue-red cloths that were just glaring). I added the red onion on the blue plate because I thought the onion looked cool.

I really desaturated the cloth colors and I think those are working. My painting these days is still hit-and-miss because I think the onion turned out spectacular, while the apples are pretty mediocre. Also I'm a bit paranoid about my greens because I suspect that I'm a little green insensitive, so what looks good to me is too bright for other people. I'm still not sure about this, but I'm trying to over-mute my greens. Too bad I painted this on canvas panel, because I will keep this one.

Still Life Redux

2009-02-18T10:14:00.001-08:00

I'm only taking 2 classes again this semester, one of which is Composition & Painting. Comp is a cool class because we do still lifes, landscapes, and figurative paintings based on the composition and design concepts we learn in class. I was anxious to see how my still lifes turned out because I really haven't painted one since Still Life Painting last spring (which feels like an eternity ago). My painting was really bad at the start because I spent the 5 weeks break playing the warcraft expansion pack instead of practicing. But it's starting to come back now. And I actually like how these first two still lifes turned out. They feel quite different from the ones I did a year ago, though it's hard to quantify why.

Chicago Marathon

2009-02-18T10:09:00.000-08:00

This painting was for our final assignment in Clothed Figure Painting. It's from a really fantastic photo by Jyothi taken at the Chicago Marathon in 2002 (2001?). I guess there was this little girl high-fiving everyone, and she really caught the perfect moment in this photo. The other thing I like about it is the bands of sunlight surrounding that one big building shadow.

I've been delaying posting this painting because I'm planning on modifying it. Everyone tells me the bushes in the far background are too green, which is most likely true. Also the woman in shadow on the left looks really monstrous. But as I keep delaying the rework, I'm just going to post this now and update it later.

Copy of Homer's "Sailing the Catboat"

2008-12-21T10:28:00.000-08:00

For my final project in Watercolor Painting I did a copy of Winslow Homer's "Sailing the Catboat". I really like how this one turned out, primarily because I love Homer's paintings so much. He is, in my opinion, the greatest watercolorist ever, and one of my favorite artists. Also I find that many people in the class paint in a tight, illustrative fashion, and I was trying to do the same and was getting a little frustrated. But I realized that I prefer to paint watercolors in loose fashion like this, allowing the colors to run and intermix freely, creating a variety of spontaneous effects. It's strange because my oil paintings tend to be very tight, but I think I will stick with this loose style for my watercolors.

More Watercolors

2008-12-21T10:25:00.001-08:00

You guys seem to like watercolors, so here are two more I did for the class. I'm having trouble photographing the watercolors, so bear with me. The first one is from a photo I have of Central Park in January. It's very complex, so I think it turned out pretty well. But I tend to paint too light, so I have to layer a lot which makes the painting look overworked. This is especially a problem in the trees. The second picture is from Point Reyes Station. It's more successful than the first, but still a long way to go. :(

Workshop Drawings

2008-12-06T12:33:00.001-08:00

My drawings have suddenly taken a turn for the better. I think all of these workshops I've been going to have started to pay off. But also I'm noticing a synergy effect between oil painting, watercolor painting, charcoal rendering, and this comic book / manga-style drawing I've recently been studying. It's surprising that things I learn in one medium carry over so much to other mediums. We only have 2 weeks left in this semester, but the fact that I still seem to be on the steep part of the learning curve means I'll probably stay in school for one more semester.

Portrait

2008-12-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

This is an oil painting of my rascally nephew. I think he was having a low sugar moment, so he is relatively low-key. I've been wanting to paint this for awhile now, because I really like the sunlight effects. I think it's by far my best painting to date. The sunlight turned out well, but the major breakthrough for me is in the flesh tones. They are a lot more subtle and realistic than in my previous painting. It was nice to have this turn out well, because I had been suffering through a string of rather mediocre paintings.

Family Portrait

2008-11-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

This is an oil painting I did of my sister's family. In general I'm pretty happy with it because I've never done a painting of this complexity. I think the likenesses are pretty good, which was my biggest concern. However, as my teacher pointed out, the main issues are with the colors. Everything feels a bit too plastic and cut-out, and the flesh tones are too gray. Also the yellow bench, the blue jeans, and the red wall are actually the three primary colors (or 'Triad' scheme, thank you Adam), which looks kind of strange. I'm going to be modifying this, but I just wanted to post it the way I submitted it.

More Pen & Watercolor

2008-11-16T12:51:00.000-08:00

Here are two more, also watercolor over pen. The left one is based on a photo of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. The right one was done on location at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. I'm finding it hard to photograph these watercolors because they are kind of light.

Pen & Watercolor

2008-11-16T12:47:00.000-08:00

This one turned out really well. It's based on a photo I have of the Mission in Carmel. It's a technique where we do the initial drawing in pen, then add color on top of it using watercolor. Some artists use this to do travel sketches, one of my favorites being Delacroix's sketches in Algiers. This kind of looks like those, so I was really happy. However, this might have been a fluke, because nothing I've done since has looked as good. :)

Mosly Non-Naked People

2008-10-06T07:59:00.000-07:00

CLOTHED people?!? I didn't sign up for this!!! Hmm, actually I did sign up for Clothed Figure Painting this semester. My figure painting has really taken a step up lately. My classmate said that the month break we had probably helped, which I agree with. But also I find that clothed figures are (somewhat counterintuitively) a lot more interesting than nudes. There's just a lot more stuff going on with colors, textures, and shapes, whereas nudes are just these big masses of orange and pink.

More Watercolors

2008-09-30T23:32:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple more watercolors. The apples & pitcher was a class assignment. The fish paintings were done as homework to demonstrate different techniques (clockwise from upper left: salt, alcohol, masking fluid, spatter). I think watercolor is really effective in portraying water (duh), so I really like the way the fish turned out.

Watercolor

2008-09-23T23:10:00.000-07:00

My watercolor painting class has a couple interesting things about it. One is that there is an inordinate amount of female students in the class (I'm not complaining). Two, my professor is really awesome. She's an unbelievable artist, and also a very good teacher. Which is good because I sort of have a phobia about watercolors, due to a rather traumatic experience I had in a Sunnyvale class a couple years ago.

We are taking it step by step (which that other class didn't do). The first painting is black and white. In the second, we are trying different watercolor techniques like salt, alcohol (on the paper, not drinking), spattering. Watercolors are different from oils in that you build from light to dark, which sort of reminds me of charcoal. Also it's more difficult to correct/modify things, so you need to plan ahead better. I've found that it's also quite a bit more pleasant, because you don't need to deal with the fumes or solvents that are a problem in oils.

Landscape

2008-09-22T11:09:00.001-07:00

We painted these landscapes from photographs in the first class of Landscape Painting. The interesting thing is that despite my total lack of skill and training, it actually looks kind of nice. It's cool because you don't have to worry about total accuracy and can concentrate more on making a nice picture. I'm looking forward to trying more of these, but it may be a while since I dropped the class; dropped it like a used Kleenex.

Zhang Zi-Yi

2008-09-03T16:25:00.001-07:00

Before each semester starts, I like to do one big project. This time I chose the incomparable Zhang Zi-Yi! I've collected quite a few photos of ZZY, but this one is unusual in that it is a full profile. It turns out profiles are a LOT easier than full-on or three-quarter views. Also the hair is really cool in this one, which is good practice for a really complex drawing I am planning. I really like how this one turned out. The Char-Kole I used in the hair gives a really rich, deep black. Also I like the detailing of the shoulder of the dress.

More Portraits

2008-09-03T16:22:00.000-07:00

After all those toned paper portraits, I decided to go back to what I like the best: vine and compressed charcoal on white charcoal paper. These are two small portraits I did to get back into the swing of things. They turned out reasonably well. It's still difficult to work with the vine charcoal, especially when I'm out of practice. I used mainly vine on these, and they have a very gray feel to them, which I'm not sure I like.

Toned Paper Experiments

2008-08-09T08:38:00.001-07:00

This is a drawing of my coworker Resmi's daughter, Fajita. (Names changed to protect the innocent.) In Heads & Hands we explored different colors of toned papers, from grays to blues and greens. This one is the color "Sand" (which my professor insisted on calling "sandpaper", confusing the heck out of us). I'm not sure I'm a big fan of toned paper in general, but some people like it because in building up the lights, it's more similar to painting than drawing on white paper. I just think that the white pencil is a bit hard to control, and stands out too much, but perhaps I just need more experience. "Sand", though, is too dark and greenish, and I probably won't use it anymore.

Last Self-Portrait

2008-08-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

As a measure of redemption for all those I've massacred with my portraits, I was forced to paint this really horrible self-portrait for Heads & Hands. It's not a bad painting, but it doesn't really look like me, and I was totally unmotivated to put any time into it. It's interesting though to see how different it looks from my first painted portrait. We learned quite a bit even in the 3-4 weeks in betweeen.

Waterhouse Has Nothing to Worry About

2008-08-07T18:41:00.001-07:00

This is our final 3-session painting in Intro to Figure Painting. On the left is the artist-in-training. This was a challenging painting on several levels. The 18"x24" canvas was the biggest I've ever used. My prof told me that in the art world it still is classified as a "miniature", but it felt gigantic to me! The two figure composition is challenging because you have to get the relative sizes and positions correct. Finally, we had to design an environment for the figures. I got the background from a painting by one of my favorite artists, the British painter J.W. Waterhouse. Since I added the background after the fact, it looks a little contrived, and the perspective is way off. Still, it was fun doing it and my professor liked it. Like most of my paintings this semester, though, this one will probably get painted over at some point. :)

Portrait Overload

2008-08-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a ton of painted portraits for Heads and Hands and in the workshops. All of these were done in the last 2 weeks. It's really been a struggle, and my portraits have been very hit and miss. Slowly though I'm getting used to mixing up flesh tones and adding all the subtle facial features.

Figure In Environment

2008-07-31T19:59:00.000-07:00

I'm really happy with how this painting turned out. The assignment was to paint a figure in an environment. I took a casual photo of one of my classmates in Heads & Hands, and it turned into a really nice picture. I love the gesture of her pose, and the way the left knee comes forward. Also nice are the light shining on her hand, and the rim lighting on the sweater. It was difficult getting all the different gray values in the wall, but I think it turned out pretty effectively.

Two Portraits

2008-07-31T19:54:00.000-07:00

Here are two new exciting models. One is an ultra-powerful Korean businesswoman, and the other an elite Iranian textile designer. I have mixed feelings about these two portraits, because although I think they are pretty good to look at, the likeness is not really there. With the painting, I can blame it on the fact that this is my first real painted portrait, and the brushes are not quite as accurate as a pencil. But I'm not sure about the drawing. Seeing these together, one thing that is noticeable is that the painting seems much more vibrant because of the colors. But drawings have a very nice quality about them that doesn't translate well into photos.

More Stuff

2008-07-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

Mixing classes here. My painting class is sort of a survey, and the painting on the left was our first clothed figure. It was actually kind of a relief not to have to stare at a naked person. But strange too, as anything new is. My painting turned out pretty well, as I was able to incorporate a lot of the background elements.

The portrait on the right is from Heads & Hands. My prof wanted us to try blue paper, which I didn't like much. The model was cool though. He had this Beatles-like mop hairstyle. And he had this slight smirk that he was able to keep on his face the entire 5 hours of the pose. Amazing!

Go Figure

2008-07-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

With these two paintings I started to turn the corner a bit on my figure paintings. Especially the hands & feet one - I'm finally feeling more comfortable with the subtle colors and shading.

"Mablo"

2008-07-18T15:34:00.001-07:00

These are my first two homework assignments in Heads & Hands. They are drawings of two relatively unknown but up-and-coming models. To protect their identities I'll refer to them as Marcia and Pablo.

I actually don't like the drawing of Marcia. Even though it's a decent likeness, the drawing quality itself is not very good because I had a lot of trouble working on that type of paper (Strathmore Drawing). Whenever I would try to blend the vine charcoal, it would all rub off. Pablo's drawing is charcoal pencil on Strathmore storm gray paper, which for me is easier to work with.

Heads & Hands

2008-07-17T15:33:00.001-07:00

My second class is called Heads and Hands. I thought I was pretty good at portraits ... until I took this class. My teacher is really good, though also very tough. It's a very structured class, which I like, and these drawings are all full-day (about 5 hour) poses. These are from the 2nd and 3rd week of classes - my first couple of drawings were horrendous. The first drawing is using the 'lift-off' technique, while the second is done in charcoal pencil on a storm gray paper.

Painting the Figure

2008-07-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit behind on my posts because this semester has been really hectic. I'm taking two classes, which is a full load in the summer. The first class is Introduction to Painting the Figure. I had a lot of confidence going in because of my still life class, but that got shot down pretty quick. It turns out that painting the figure is much different than painting objects, because basically it's all one color, with a lot of subtle shades and blends. These are the first two paintings I did in class.

Spring Show

2008-05-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

Well the spring semester has ended! I've been in school for one full year now. It seems so long ago that first day when we were stressing out about drawing our sphere. :)

The Academy of Art Spring Show is running now, showing the best student work from the year:

when: May 23 through July 25, 2008, 10am-6pm, (closed Sundays and Holidays)
where: Academy of Art University

601 Brannan Street (at 5th St.)

San Francisco, CA 94107

I really recommend going to the show. I went to see the entries for Fine Arts, and there are some amazing pieces. It should be interesting because of the range of fields like art, illustration, fashion, animation, etc. The facility is pretty kid-friendly, and there is a lot of 2 hour parking near the Caltrain Station on Townsend between 4th and 6th.

It would be fun if we could get a group of people to go together on a Saturday. I'll coordinate, so email me if you are interested.

HW #4 - The Masha Objects

2008-05-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

For our final homework in still-life painting, we had to find a still-life by some master artist, then try to copy the composition, lighting, and painting style. I chose my favorite still-life artist, the 18th century French painter Chardin. This is the painting I chose:

Chardin's still-lifes aren't as complex or photorealistic as, say, the Dutch masters. But his paintings have a wonderful feeling of light and space. I was actually trying to get this effect in my HW #2, with unsuccessful results.

This fourth assignment is composed of objects found entirely at Marta and Pasha's house. :) I had run out of interesting objects in my apartment, and they have an abundance of cool stuff. For some reason I wasn't that motivated to do this painting (probably end-of-the-semester burnout), but it turned out extremely well. This one finally looks like a "real" painting. My reflective teapot painting is nice, but I always thought it was kind of flat. This last one starts to have that quality of light and space that I've been looking for throughout the semester.

High Key / Low Key

2008-05-14T23:04:00.001-07:00

In consecutive weeks we were to do a 'high key' painting, and a 'low key' one. 'High key' simply means that the painting consists mainly of lighter values, and 'low key', darker values. I really struggled with the high key one. Part of the problem is that I didn't get much sleep the night before, and all my colors and shapes seemed to be off. But the main problem was trying to paint in light colors. I usually start with the darkest values, which in this case is a middle value. However this leaves only half the value range usable, which is very constricting. In particular I found it very difficult to go lighter, since many colors were so close to white already.

In contrast, low key is very easy, and this is one of my best in-class paintings. My prof really liked the bottles on the left side. I like the way the green bottle fades into the background. The brass vase, though, is really weak.

Annunciation

2008-05-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

This didn't turn out super good, but I'm posting it anyway because it's interesting, and it's a nice break from those tiresome still lifes. Our final assignment for Anatomy is a two figure composition. I've had this idea floating around in my head for awhile now about a 'modern Annunciation'. The Annunciation shows up in a lot of Renaissance paintings, and depicts the angel appearing before the Virgin Mary to tell her that she is pregnant. I wanted to show Mary in a contemplative reclining position, with the angel sweeping around her.

I can't really draw figures from memory, so I had to find two photos that had the correct poses, which actually took quite some time. Placing them in position was fun, but I had to be careful to get the relative sizes correct. I was constrained a bit by the fact that we were supposed to show as much as the figure as possible. If I ever do a painting of this, it will be a lot more cropped in, and with more overlap. Also, again to show as much of the figure, I only put a hint of the angel's wings.

I think the angel turned out pretty well, but Mary is a bit stiff. Also the light around the angel really makes him stand out, but Mary is sort of fading into the background. It's been awhile since I worked on charcoal paper, and I'm a bit rusty. But also working purely in value has always been difficult for me. But it's a good exercise, because value is very important. In a color painting, you can differentiate by color, but if the values of those colors are too close, it can detract from the effect. The overall value pattern is important. One of my profs said that you should be able to take a black and white photo of a color painting, and it should still look good.

Complex Setup

2008-05-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

We inherited some pretty complex setups from the previous class. The issue with these is mainly time management - trying to get everything done before class finishes. I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. I've been wanting to paint that blue and white vase for awhile, and I think the old teapot turned out pretty well also. The flowers (supposedly chrysanthemums) are only marginally successful, but it's good to get in a few attempts before we do florals the last week of class.

HW #3, or As The Reindeer Turns

2008-04-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

I'm very happy with how this painting turned out. In terms of the whole process, from conception to planning to execution, this is easily the best painting I've done. (Though I'm still a bit partial to the "shoes" painting, if only for the patent leather pumps. Did I say that out loud?) But wouldn't you know it - as soon as I start to believe I can be a painter, today in class I painted probably the worst painting I've ever done. I had zero mojo, though possibly it's from sleep deprivation. Still, never mock the painting gods!

Painting the reindeer was really fun. I think that painting all those model airplanes when I was younger helps me with the small brushes. For sure I feel more comfortable with a brush in my hand than a charcoal pencil! My professor critiqued this today and he liked everything except the background. So I'll be repainting it as neon orange. Just kidding - he just wants me to make it less choppy.

Drapery

2008-04-22T17:19:00.000-07:00

This drapery assignment was tough. The whole class struggled with it; even the professor's demo went awry. :) The two girls next to me did a pretty good job though. The hard part about drapery is that the values in the folds are so close together. In my initial block-in, I made the colors too far apart and it looked horrendous. I had to wipe it all out with turpentine and start over, which shook me up a bit. Fortunately it turned out okay.

Pattern with Shoes

2008-04-21T16:12:00.000-07:00

We walked into class one day to find our professor had scattered all these shoes on the ground on top of these patterned cloths. I think the girls liked it, but the guys kind of freaked out for a bit. This turned out to be quite challenging. We were supposed to try for some unusual cropping, but since I like a more classical style, I'm not a very aggressive cropper. Plus I really like the nice diagonal created by this set of shoes.

I painted this one much looser than I normally do. The shoes are patent black leather, and a purple cloth type shoe, and our professor is always telling us to throw color into solid objects like this. So I put touches of pink and brown into the shoes. It looks a little strange at first glance, but I kind of like it - it has a very impressionistic feel. I probably overdid it on the first black shoe though.

The fabric was very interesting. It's a fruit pattern. Normally my instinct would be to wait until the white layer dried before painting the pattern, but since we had to do this in class I was forced to work wet on wet. Actually I think that was fortunate, because by keeping the pattern blurry it helps keep it in the background compared to the shoes which are done more sharply. It was tricky though with the color blending into the white paint, so I think if I did it again I would at least paint the white layer more thinly.

HW #3 - 50%

2008-04-13T23:26:00.001-07:00

Here is my setup and 50% for our third homework assignment. This assignment requires a reflective object and a patterned object. I kind of like these 50% pieces - they have an impressionistic quality that the finished pieces sometimes lack.

I'm trying for some different things in this painting. One is to make it very high key (light), versus the darker paintings I normally do. Another is to use more of the canvas. And I wanted to try for the cool light / warm shadows you might find in morning light, versus the warm light / cool shadows we normally use.

If you look very carefully in the reflection you can see me holding a camera. :) Fortunately I am fully clothed. I edited myself out of the painting, otherwise it would technically become a self-portrait. :)

Warning: Adult Content Ahead

2008-04-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

Recently I've *finally* started to make some progress in my figure drawing. There have been several factors. One is that we've done a systemic study of body parts and how to draw them - torso, legs, arms, hands, feet, etc. - and that has at least given me a clue about how to approach them. Secondly, the girl that I sit next to in Figure Drawing is an excellent artist, and watching her (i.e. blatant copying) has impacted my drawing for the better. Finally, I've simply decided to stop drawing like a dork. I've been drawing now for 10 hours a week in class for the past 10 weeks, and I should be showing better progress than I have been. Still-life painting distracts me because it's so fun, but figure drawing is very important for what I want to do, namely classical figurative painting.

Patterns

2008-04-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

Things are getting a bit nutty in still life class lately. This one was about patterns - 3 glass items on a patterned cloth, with a polka-dot tie. I tried to talk our professor into giving us a break with fewer glass items, but he didn't budge. There was also a funny episode where one guy in our group suggested putting the tie into the small bowl to add complexity, and then he went off and painted another setup!

Anyways this one was really tough, but the more I look at it the more I like it. It was really crazy painting in the stripes and polka dots. Btw, red-orange and blue-green are complementary colors, which heightens the impact of the tie. :)

HW #2

2008-03-28T19:06:00.001-07:00

Well here is the completed painting. It took me about 6-8 hours total. You can see the candle that I added. Ironically the book, which was the best part of the 50% probably has the most issues. The main difficulty is the representation of the type. Of course, you can't write out each word. :) So it has to be some type of simplification. I kept modifying it, and it ended up as gray squiggles, but I think I might do it a different way if I could do it again. I'm happy with how the glass, decanter, box, and table turned out. I still have a few issues with the colors in the brass candle holder.

HW #2: 50%

2008-03-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

I thought you guys might be interested in seeing this. On the left is a photo of the still-life setup currently dominating my living room coffee table. This setup was chosen by an elite panel of experts.

On the right is my painting at 50% completion. I need to bring this in to class on Wednesday to be picked apart by my prof (i.e. "grapes too small"), after which I will ignore all his suggestions and finish it.

This concept of the first layer is interesting. The intent is mainly to cover the canvas, because it's hard to measure colors and values against the white canvas. (Also as I'm finding out, the blank canvas is very intimidating!) It then serves as a starting point for subsequent layers. This started out looking really bad, but it ended up being okay. The book is looking good, but it's obvious that the candlestick is too bright. The decanter shape is good, but the cup is looking a little wobbly.

I've never actually done a painting in multiple layers. All of our classwork is done in one sitting, i.e. alla prima (Italian for "at once"). It's good though because it moves me out of scared-silly mode into problem-solving mode which is better for me.

Update: My prof actually liked it. He really liked the book. He suggested putting a small candle in the candle holder, and he also wants me to change my background color. :( He also said that my grapes, if I had included them, would have been too small.

Silver

2008-03-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

Technically this was our second attempt at metal, but we only spent 1.5 hours painting brass, so I refuse to display it. This silver one was REALLY hard. It's interesting how at school they keep increasing the difficulty, not totally unreachable, but enough to make us sweat! It's strange how with glass you're supposed to paint THROUGH it, but with metal, you paint what's reflected in it. It's almost like painting a mini still life in the reflection, but with shapes and colors all distorted. It was tough, but I think it turned out reasonably well. I really liked the old style teapot, otherwise I might have given up on it completely. The reflection is definitely too bright though, and I don't like how the horizon lines coincide so closely.

Glass

2008-03-10T17:45:00.001-07:00

The painting on the left is our first attempt at glass. I still love still-life painting, but glass is hard! But it turned out reasonably well, especially the jar on the left. However I think the blue and the red are a bit too saturated and are sort of overpowering the glass objects. Probably I could have toned down at least the red cup, if not both.

The painting on the right, I did for a class I took in Palo Alto in the spring of 2007 before applying to the Academy of Art, so it makes an interesting comparison. I used mostly tube colors instead of mixed colors, and the rendering of the grapes and the glass is much more primitive than what I can do today. But this painting was probably the biggest factor in my going to art school. From that class, it was the only painting that I thought turned out okay, and I enjoyed it enough to give art school a shot. If not for this painting I might still be at Yahoo trying to figure out how to allocate video spaceids. Fortunately that task has passed into more capable hands!

HW: Apples and Grapes

2008-03-05T23:04:00.001-08:00

This painting was for our first homework assignment. I learned my lesson from Color & Design, where I almost killed myself by picking overly complex designs. I kept this one simple and concentrated on painting it well. (These objects were from my charcoal still-life from the summer, so I was very familiar with them.)

I think it turned out well. It didn't take me very long - only about 4 hours. Part of that is I actually don't know how to finish a painting yet. And I did run into some interesting problems with handling the paint. In particular I am starting to use more generous amounts of paint, but once it exceeded the grain of the canvas, the workability changed quite a bit. The paint started to move around more, and blending was more of an adventure. But these are things that I need to learn.

My professor, Sheldon, really liked it, although for some reason he didn't like my grapes. :) I think he was expecting this huge mass of grapes, but the one that I had picked was pretty sparse.

Still Life Week 4

2008-02-25T21:27:00.000-08:00

This still-life turned out surprisingly well. Surprising because we lost 90 minutes when we attended a lecture on oil paints (which was awesome). And also because in the beginning it looked like crap. But I'm finding that whereas I'm a coward in almost all types of art, with oil painting I'm courageous. I am a superhero. :) I think because it's so easy to correct mistakes. As my expectations rise though I can feel the old fear coming back, but I am trying not to succumb to it. Anyways we're starting glass this week and I'm anticipating a string of failures.

Of all my still-lifes so far, this one has the best sense of light, and also the best unity of both color and light.

Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones

2008-02-24T18:21:00.000-08:00

These bones charts are for my Anatomy class (a.k.a. "Naked People Parts"). I wasn't looking forward to doing them, but they were actually pretty fun. In computer science class we never learned what a 'manubrium' was. Though they also don't teach us about singleton classes in art school...

Fun for All Ages

2008-02-20T21:24:00.001-08:00

Man I love my still life class. This was a full-session painting, so 6 hours. For some reason I found it a bit more difficult. I think because we didn't really have a warmup. Also this really pretty Persian girl was sitting next to me, which I found very distracting. However in the end it turned out pretty well. I found out some of my classmates really like my paintings, which is encouraging.

Adding a Bit of Color

2008-02-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

I'm really happy with how these next 2 still lifes turned out. In the first, we added yellow ochre to our palette to differentiate between warm light and cool shadows. That jar on the right was pretty complicated.

In the second we used a limited palette of cadmium yellow, cadmium red, ultramarine, white, and black. (I also used terra rosa for the background). I totally got infatuated with the cup on the right, and finished it before even starting the other objects, which we're not supposed to do. Then I had to rush to finish the other three. I really like this one, and I used many concepts from Color & Design.

I love my still life painting class - the 6 hours goes by like nothing!

Monkey See, Monkey Two

2008-02-08T08:14:00.001-08:00

I sat in on the first couple classes of Printmaking, although I'm probably going to end up dropping this class. The first day we did a block print. Interestingly we carved in linoleum instead of wood, because it is *supposed* to be easier to carve, and more consistent. Everyone was complaining about sore wrists and hands, and at least 2 people stabbed themselves with the carving tool, ouch! :) It was fun though, and this Japanese-style monkey print turned out pretty well. The inking is trickier than I expected, and you can see small differences between these two prints.

Still-Life 101

2008-02-05T17:35:00.000-08:00

Finally my first painting class! On the first day we did these black and white paintings. I took an oil painting class in Palo Alto before going to school, so these seemed pretty simple. But I really like this incremental approach they have. It's like little baby steps, each one teaching something new and building on the previous. It's the way I prefer to learn.

I think my shapes turned out well, but the paintings are too light. Same thing with my charcoal drawings. :) Hopefully it will correct itself like the charcoal did. The main thing is that this was insanely fun! I know I made the right choice majoring in painting.

Mailing List

2008-02-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

I've created a mailing list to notify people when I post something to this blog. Not that anyone really reads this blog. :) But if you want to join the mailing list, you can add yourself here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ryansblog3_notify/

(Look for the "Join This Group" button near the top)

Portrait

2008-01-27T21:52:00.000-08:00

Before school starts up again, I wanted to do one more charcoal portrait, preferably a profile, and something with complexity in the hair. I was going to do a random pic off the web, but as I was sorting through my photos I found this really nice one of my friend Swati.

This is my response to the issues I had with the photo-realistic style of the portrait of my niece. I just think it's too hard to compete with the camera, so in this one I tried to make it look like a drawing. I intentionally left some parts a little rougher, and concentrated more on gesture rather than getting all the details perfect. And I pretty much left out any kind of background. I wanted to get that spontaneous feel like Rembrandt's drawings, or the paintings of Velazquez and Sargent.

Wow it was hard. The problem is that normally I do the initial lay-in roughly, figuring I can fix it later. But in this style, adjustments need to be kept to a minimum, so the initial strokes are very important, and I was really afraid of messing it up. But I remembered what my Color & Design teacher said once in class, that if it's hard it means you're learning, and if you're comfortable then you're not learning at all. So I decided to just go for it, and somewhere in the middle of doing the hair it really started clicking.

The result is astonishing. I really feel like this is the best thing I've done. Not necessarily because of the accuracy or quality, but because this drawing really has life. I had hints of life in my still-life, and to a lesser extent in my Lauren Bacall and small Audrey Hepburn. But none comes close to this one. She really feels like she emerges from the paper.

The hair and face are obviously the focal point, and I tried to de-emphasize the dress and hands somewhat. In the hair I used two different shades of charcoal, and built it up in several layers, giving it a surprising depth considering her hair is black. This is especially obvious when compared to my large Audrey Hepburn where the hair feels flat. The dress also turned out well. It looked really complex in the photo. But because that part is de-emphasized, I could afford to render it more freely and sketchily. So it actually only took about 45 minutes to do, but still looks representational. I'm not that happy with the hands, but then I could never do those. :)

I really feel like this a breakthrough for me, as much for the thought processes that went behind it as for how it turned out. So this one becomes part of my permanent collection!

What Art Students Do For Fun

2008-01-27T09:58:00.000-08:00

I can confirm that all the wild rumors are true ... art students paint mute charts in their free time. :) Okay, maybe it's just me, and I was trying to use up my goauche paints. These mute charts are really useful though because of all the beautiful hues created between complimentary colors. And now I have a full set! The yellow-green/red-violet one is a bit off because I ran out of paint, but it's still indicative of the range.

Winter Break!

2007-12-29T17:12:00.000-08:00

The fall semester is finally over and we have a 5 week break. I'm more used to the quarter system from UCLA and Stanford, but even so this semester seemed incredibly long. It's strange though because in engineering I'd always be mentally drained at the end of the term, but this time I was emotionally drained. I think it's this pressure to continually create things, and then to be immediately critiqued on it is very tiring.

But it was a great semester, highlighted of course by Color & Design. It was definitely a more technical quarter, with less full-fledged projects. But I felt I really learned a lot. Now I just need to rest up for the next semester!

Final Sculptures

2007-12-29T17:00:00.001-08:00

Here are the final sculptures I did in Figure Modeling. The left one is a reclining figure that we did in one 5 hour session. The horse was from our 'animal' homework. I think everyone was relieved not to have to work on figures, so everyone did a great job with their animals. :) The final 2 pictures are from a standing figure we did for our final exam. It was tough getting it done in 5 hours, but I think it turned out pretty well. Overall the class was a lot more fun than I expected. I'll still not become a sculptor though, just because it's so hard to store them. I was lugging home 3 sculptures and 15 pounds of clay when I made this realization.

Portrait: Final Version

2007-12-28T11:34:00.001-08:00

Here is the final version. The reason I chose this picture is so that I could try to draw a clothed figure, and the dress and sweater turned out pretty well, as well as the boxes and door. The issues I have are with the face. I spent probably half the time trying to get it to look like her. It's amazing how small the margin of error is on the face, especially on the eyes and the mouth. I could make a change of less than a millimeter on the mouth line and it would totally change the expression. So it was pretty much just making a change and seeing how it turned out, and repeating that over and over. I still don't think it really looks accurate, though it's close. Another problem was that the shading in the original picture is pretty flat, so it makes it more difficult.

It brings up the question of whether realistic drawing is relevant in light of photography. I'll probably get some flak for this, but I think realistic portraiture at least has lost it's place. It's just too hard to get it really accurate, when the camera can do it so quickly. It makes me wonder if the Mona Lisa or other famous portraits really look like the people they portray. :) However perhaps the portrait doesn't have to look exactly accurate as long as it is a good drawing and it has areas of interest. I think that this drawing has interest because of the clothing and the surrounding areas, so it was not a wasted effort.

Portrait

2007-12-28T11:02:00.001-08:00

My sister had a really good photograph of my niece, and I decided to try to do a charcoal rendering from it. I'll have a lot more to say about how it turned out, but I thought people would be interested to see some of the intermediate steps.

The left image is the actual photo, and is 1/4 the size of the final 18"x24" drawing. I drew a grid on the photo and used that to transfer the outlines to the charcoal paper, as seen in the middle image. I try to keep the grid as light as possible so that I can erase it later. The outlines are done in charcoal pencil because vine charcoal can't withstand the blending of the next step.

On the right is the drawing with the initial values blocked in. This step is important because it sets the overall value pattern, and because it's hard to judge individual values when the paper is mostly blank. I spent quite a bit of time already on the face because that is the most important part. In some ways this drawing is better than the finished one. :) It has a better gesture, and even a better likeness. This unfortunately happens quite a bit, where in finishing the drawing you start to lose some edge control.

Mandala

2007-12-24T09:44:00.001-08:00

Our final project in Color & Design was a mandala. A mandala is a design featuring rotational symmetry, usually having spiritual connotations (i.e. the yin-yang symbol). Many of my classmates came up with beautiful abstract designs, but all of my designs were pretty representational.

The one I chose emulates a stained glass rosary. The 4 scenes are from the opening sequence of Beauty & the Beast. I've always loved those scenes, and this was a good chance to study them. The resulting design though was very complex, and took me forever to paint! I wasn't feeling too happy about it after I finished, but my teacher really liked it. I talked about it with a classmate and we think that there's always a bit of negative feeling after completion, because we are very aware of what didn't turn out as planned, and we are too conscious of small errors that people wouldn't normally notice. So as I get more emotionally detached from this work, I'm feeling better about it.

We were required to use an analogous split-complementary color scheme. So mine is predominantly blue, with the analogous range going from yellow-green to red-violet. My accent colors are red-orange and yellow-orange, which I've used for the rose, and the 2 rings. I've also used a little accent in each scene, and in the corner designs.

Figure Drawing

2007-12-11T08:41:00.001-08:00

I haven't been posting pics from my figure drawing class, because I'm still really bad at it. However I have been making progress. It's strange though because it's very incremental, as opposed to other classes where the progress will be in big jumps. This class is more of a long struggle. It's also really random, where some drawings will turn out nice, while others will just be garbage. I think that inconsistency is because I'm still so new at it. I've collected 5 of the ones that turned out the best posted them above.

Color & Mood: Final

2007-11-27T17:57:00.000-08:00

For the final painting, my teacher wanted me to do the lantern one, yikes! But this really is the stronger picture, and I might as well try it now when I can get her help. I'm finding that I agree with pretty much all her opinions.

It took me a horrendous amount of time, but I think it turned out pretty well. There's just a lot of things going on in the painting, and lots to think about. I managed to get things darker, and the lanterns stick out much better now. Also I tried to be less dependent on the posterization contours, and tried to approach it like a regular oil/acrylic type painting.

Color & Mood: Roughs

2007-11-27T17:21:00.001-08:00

This is our next big project, Color & Mood. The cool thing about this project is that it is specialized for major. So the illustration majors had to do a drawing, the interior design people a room, the graphic design people an advertisement, etc. So everyone was really motivated because we were doing things in our major. I know that I was really interested in this, because this was what I came to art school to do - these types of paintings.

I chose two daytime photos I had taken in Japan this summer. The first is some lanterns in Matsumoto, and the second is some boat stones in a canal in Kyoto. The lantern scene was much more complex and took me about 12 hours. I tried to convert it to a night scene, with glowing lanterns. I think I didn't go dark enough though and it turned out more like late afternoon. :) The boat one took me about 5 hours. I tried to give the impression of a foggy morning, but this was also only marginally successful. Really fun though.

Cartoon

2007-11-06T12:17:00.001-08:00

This was an insanely fun assignment. Actually the lecture was amazing also. It was about how light temperature affects color. In warm light, the warmer colors like red and orange get intensified, while cool colors like green and blue are de-intensified. And the opposite happens with cool colors.

In this assignment we were given a cartoon to color in with different light temperatures. We chose a set of local colors and modified them with orange and blue to show the how they look in different lighting. I probably accentuated the difference too much. But I love this cartoon, and painting it was incredibly fun. I wonder if I should become an animator. :)

Oops I Did It Again

2007-11-06T12:13:00.000-08:00

I was staring at my Audrey Hepburn portrait for the longest time because something didn't quite look right. I finally realized that it just needed to be darker! This surprised me because I was very conscious of making it dark, and the values matched the photos. But the darker version looks MUCH better. Actually I'm very happy with this now. I also make a few changes to the hair based on some comments by my coworkers. Thanks coworkers!

Note to self: I found out it's possible to work over an acrylic coating. However because the acrylic coating goes on in rather thick drops, it ends up making the texture very speckly. I think it's much better to use workable fixative until I'm totally sure it's done, then final coat with the acrylic.

Sculptures

2007-11-01T23:28:00.001-07:00

These are some projects we've been doing in sculpture class for the past month or so. The first two were 2 week projects on contraposto figures. This is an Italian term for the way the body parts like the hips, shoulders, and legs turn in different directions when the person is standing in a relaxed pose. In classical Greek and Roman art it was considered essential in achieving artistic beauty.

My first sculpture didn't turn out very well. It just feels kind of stiff. I think because I was thinking too much about the geometric figure we just finished. In the second piece I kind of went by instinct and it turned out much better. I'm finding that often it's better not to think too much about technique, because it can interfere with a good gesture. I didn't get as high a grade as I expected for either, but I'm also learning we shouldn't worry about grades.

The last 3 sculptures were our 'rapid studies', each done in about 45 minutes. This was really fun, because we didn't have to worry about refining everything and could work very loosely. I'm really happy with how these turned out. The model actually liked my last one and took a picture of it for his website. :)

Midterm: Portrait

2007-10-31T20:50:00.001-07:00

It's interesting that our midterm assignment for Figure Drawing was a portrait, since we did a portrait in Analysis of Form. I guess they expected us to learn something new before attempting this one. Anyways, it gave me a chance to do this Audrey Hepburn drawing that I was planning to do on my own. This drawing is not the equal of my Lauren Bacall, but the experience was interesting.

I used smooth drawing paper instead of charcoal paper to see what the difference is between the two. I found that the smooth paper smudges much more easily, and yet is not really that much better at blending. Perhaps it's because I left this as a more high-key drawing compared to the Bacall one. But also the drawing paper has kind of a pebbly look, versus the nice crosshatched look of the charcoal paper. This might be more a problem with my technique though since I've seen a really amazing portrait at school done on smooth paper. It was nice to try it, but I probably won't use it again.

This drawing also took much less time than the Lauren Bacall one. Where I spent about 25 hours on that one, this one took only about 12. For sure it is a simpler photo. But I find I am much more aggressive about putting in the values and in my pencil strokes in general. The hair in particular went amazingly fast. It only took about an hour, but I think it turned out very well.

Midterm: Color Portrait

2007-10-30T16:29:00.001-07:00

This assignment totally sucked the life out of me. I am walking around slower and am noticeably shorter. The assignment was to create a portrait using complementary colors + their mutes. I chose yellow-orange and blue-violet, which creates a very contrasty image. My troubles were mainly self-inflicted. I picked too complex of a photo - some of my friends used a much simpler portrait and still got very nice results. Also I might have been too ambitious with my color scheme. I used four ranges, one for the clothing, one for the hair/eyes, one for the face, and a small range for the background. The fact that the transparency cuts through 3 of the sections means 7 color ranges to mix, which was ridiculous. I also started way too late, and pretty much did all the painting in one day. I ended up around 2:30am and by then my mixed colors were starting to get way off. Also my transparency is too light. But I guess it's okay to go through these humbling experiences. In spite of many mistakes, it still looks alright, and my classmates and teacher liked it reasonably well.

Hand and Foot

2007-10-11T19:49:00.001-07:00

These are two homework assignments we had for figure modeling. On the foot, I totally procrastinated and just spent an hour on it and I got a really bad grade. On the hand I spent a lot more time and effort and it turned out much better. So maybe they are right that effort makes a much bigger difference than any innate talent.

I'm actually liking this sculpture class, although I will never be a scupltor. It's the most physically demanding class though because we're standing for 5 hours, and it's especially hard when the clay has dried out a bit and it harder to push around.

Analogous Color Portrait

2007-10-06T16:58:00.001-07:00

This was a very interesting assignment. We're starting to learn about color theory, in particular different color schemes. We were given a contour map of this portrait and told to fill in the areas with analogous color, meaning that the 6 colors used are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. Then we adjusted the values to match the sample by mixing in white and black. I chose the 6 colors from turquoise blue to violet. It took me a horrendously long time to finish this -- it basically turned out to be a big paint-by-number from hell. But I really like the result. It's doesn't look realistic, but by using analogous color and correct values it somehow feels harmonious. This is the key idea in the use of non-realistic color for expressionistic effect as pioneered (in Western art) by the post-Impressionists like Cezanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh.

Color Wheel

2007-10-02T16:43:00.000-07:00

Another nutty assignment in Color & Design. Don't get me wrong - this is my favorite class. But the workload is crazy. We were supposed to paint about 50 swatches for this 24-step wheel, but I went a bit overboard and painted over 100! Then the cutting and assembly was pretty nervewracking, especially working with the Studio-tac adhesive. It's worth it though because this is pretty cool to look at. One interesting note is that we used a two-primary system, so a warm/cool red, warm/cool yellow, and warm/cool blue. This helps create the most vivid colors. Another reason I believe is that there is no pigment that precisely matches primary red, blue, and yellow.

Focal Point Design

2007-10-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

Our next homework in Color & Design was to create a non-representational composition using ideas we learned about focal points, eye movement, etc. I really had a lot of trouble with this assignment, because this was really the first one where we were asked to come up with something on our own. Previously we pretty much just drew what we saw. Plus the fact that it is non-representational meant it needed to come straight from our imagination. I spent a lot of time trying to think of a design, and even a longer time drawing it in with all the different values. I actually stayed up until 4:30am the night before it was due. :) It reminded me of my days in the computer lab at Stanford!

In the end though I was pretty happy with my design. It's a gradually growing sequence of circles, triangles, and squares, following the golden section curve. Three diagonal lines from the upper left create interest and also lead the eye back to the focal point.

Domo Arigato, Mr Roboto

2007-09-27T21:04:00.001-07:00

The third class I'm taking this semester is called Figure Modeling, colloquially known as "Naked People Sculpture". This project does not look like naked people. It doesn't even look like people. It's our "geometrical figure", and it's simplified forms allow us to study the shapes and proportions of various muscles in the body. To be honest, I'm not really into sculpture, but I can see how this class helps us with our figure drawing. I did get a pretty good grade on this figure though, and I'm a pretty fast sculptor for some reason. I guess all those years of playing with Play-Doh finally paid off!

We spent 3 weeks on this figure, so about 15 hours in all. Then immediately we had to tear it up and throw it back into the clay bucket, which was emotionally very traumatic!

Value Scale

2007-09-18T16:49:00.000-07:00

I have an incredibly important class called Color & Design. It covers color theory, design concepts, and also presentation. It probably has the most workload of any class in the major, and is also really expensive. :) But I am really looking forward to it because the concepts are so crucial.

Our first assignment was to create a 9-step value scale. We first painted 25 shades of gray using gouache, then selected 7 shades between black and white such that each step is equally spaced! They are also very particular about the painting quality, and the mounting of the 'swatches' onto the cardstock. It's a bit dangerous because I can be very much of a perfectionist if provoked, and it seems like that is what they are asking. Maybe this is why so many artists are kind of crazy.

Figure Drawing 101

2007-09-18T16:40:00.000-07:00

I've started my Naked People, errrr... Figure Drawing class. Our first assignment was to do a 40 minute drawing to use as a starting point to map out our progress. I think this was also a way to make us feel inadequate, at least for me because I'm really lousy at figure drawing. I've shown my drawing on the left.

Then we did a really awesome exercise called "massing". Using the side of the charcoal, we coarsely draw in the figure silhouette. It's a way for us to get a good "gesture" for the pose, and to loosen up and draw more confidently rather than concentrating on small details. This was incredibly fun - I could probably do massing all day.

Lauren Bacall - Modified!

2007-08-31T11:11:00.001-07:00

Against the wise counsel of some of my friends, I decided to modify my Lauren Bacall portrait. I was convinced it would look better if I darkened the face. It was a bit nerve-wracking, but I'm finished. Here's a before-and-after pic to prove that I didn't totally screw it up. It's not a huge difference, but I do think it looks better. The larger value range on the face creates more of a 3D look. Of course, darkening the face required darkening of the sweater and some other parts of the drawing. It's done now - I won't mess with this anymore!

Audrey Hepburn

2007-08-31T11:03:00.000-07:00

This is a small portrait (9"x12") I did while on vacation in Japan. It's kind of an unusual photo of Audrey Hepburn, but I needed something fairly simple. I wanted to prove to myself that I could draw dark, and I think it turned out pretty well. Yes it's kind of weird hanging out in the hotel room drawing, but it was really hot there and also I was waking up very early.

Summer Break!

2007-08-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

I guess since I enrolled in the summer session, you can't really call it a summer break, but I have 4 weeks until school starts up again. Overall, Analysis of Form was a fantastic experience, even better than I expected. I was talking with one of my classmates and we were laughing about how just 7 1/2 weeks ago we were drawing ellipses, and poorly at that. It's amazing how fast the class progressed, and yet this is just the first small step of the program. I'm really happy with how my drawings turned out, and am looking forward to the next classes. Also my classmates and I agree that Jerry Boxley is an awesome teacher. He's perfect for this first drawing course. He talks alot, and is very detail-oriented: I remember the first day he told us how to sharpen our pencils. :) And he always has a positive comment about our work, and something that we can work on. And he can do that regardless of the student's level. It's really amazing.

HW #3: Portrait

2007-08-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

I have some misgivings about this assignment. With apples and drapery, your drawing can be a little off and people won't really notice, because it's not like we study apples and drapery. But somehow we are so keyed into the human face, and facial recognition, that we are very sensitive to things being even a little off. And it's not just the things that you would normally expect to make a face distinctive - like the eyes, or the mouth. But it's also little things like the curve of the jaw, the overall shape of the face, the distance between nose and chin.

So it's quite a challenge to try to draw a face, especially of a popular person. We used a grid system to help transfer the photo to the charcoal paper. My first impression was that this was kind of cheesy, but apparently it's a fairly accepted technique, especially when great accuracy is required. Our prof told us the masters used this technique to transfer sketches to the larger canvas.

I really love this photo of the young Lauren Bacall, so I was very motivated to make my drawing accurate. I think I spend about 5 hours just sketching out the face, and about 30 hours overall. I was really happy with how it turned out. But I seem to be falling into this pattern where I'll bring the drawing to class and mine will always be the lightest drawing. Somehow my classmates are much better at creating deep darks. It's getting to be very frustrating because I am very conscious of it as I am drawing. But it's like I have this mental block. They say it is common for beginning students not to go dark enough, so hopefully I'll overcome this eventually. Anyways my classmates and my prof seemed to like my drawing.

Classroom

2007-08-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

Here is a shot of our classroom. It's a bit crooked because I was trying to take it covertly. Those benches we use are more comfortable than they look, but still after 4-5 hours in them you can feel a bit sore. But they are surprisingly functional, allowing you to change the angle of your board, or spin it around as needed. My classmates look a bit sleepy because they are - our classes start at 8:30am, and we had a major homework assignment due today.

HW #2: Still-Life

2007-07-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

After a string of stinging defeats, I can finally claim one small victory over the charcoal. This still-life was our second big assignment. Our job was to create a focal point and a sense of depth. In my setup the sunflower is the focal point because it is highest on the page at the apex of a triangle formed by it, the apples, and the grapes. It is the brightest object, and also the most intricate. I actually don't have a lot of depth since the apples and the grapes are sort of at the same level. But the overlapping helps.

I was really happy with how the rendering turned out. Actually my favorite object is the foreground apple. I did that first, and it turned out really well and gave me confidence to finish the rest of the drawing. So that apple saved my life. And then I ate it. It's weird to stare at something for a week, then you eat it and poof it's gone.

I got two tips from a classmate, Joseph, that really helped. One was to use paper stumps for blending instead of my finger or Q-Tips. The other was to use charcoal pencils more for the darks, instead of trying to use the thicker Char-Kole sticks. For some reason I have trouble blending the Char-Kole with the willow charcoal, and also the pencils are much more accurate.

One thing I could work on is the darkest darks. I focused on pushing the darks, but when I saw my classmates work, they had REALLY dark darks. So that is something to work on. But still I am very happy with this. At the beginning of the class I would not have believe that I could draw something of this complexity.

I See Naked People

2007-07-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

Analysis of Form is sort of a survey class, and this week we did figure drawing from live models. It was pretty stressful, not because of the unclothed people, but because I really suck at it. It doesn't help that I sit next to 2 of the best artists in the class and have to keep staring at their awesome drawings. Hopefully things will improve when I take Figure Drawing in the fall.

The models did 5 minute, 10 minute, and 20 minute poses. All the models are really good, both in the poses they come up with, and in their ability to hold them for a specific length of time. One of the guys was kind of lazy and kept doing sitting poses, sleeping poses, etc. :)

HW #1 - Drapery

2007-07-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

My first big homework assignment at the Academy of Art! We were supposed to spend 20-30 hours on this drapery, and I ended up spending a little over 20. I thought my hanging turned out very well, and it created a lot of nice folds and details that kept things interesting. The whole project went very smoothly, with no need to do any major changes. The blending turned out well, and I did this one entirely with Q-Tips. I still have the same bugaboo though of not having a big enough range of values across the drapery itself. I tried to go dark, but I was a little afraid to mix the compressed charcoal with the willow charcoal. I'll work on that in the next assignment. The background also is not very good, because I got a little sick the day before it was due, and only spent about 30 minutes on it. I feel happy about how the whole thing turned out though.

During break today we looked at the sketchbook of Ji, one of our classmates from China. His drapery didn't turn out super well, but his drawings are sensational. They are characters that he is designing just from his imagination. So I see that I still have a long ways to go, but if I can eventually create stuff like that I'll be happy.

Female Torso

2007-07-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

Another step up in complexity. Instead of straight lines we are dealing with a lot of curves. This was another 2 session work, so about 7 hours total. Yes it was difficult staring at a nude female torso for 7 hours, but these are the sacrifices I make for art! Haha. :)

I think my drawing skills are pretty decent, and I'm happy with the way the overall shape turned out. And in spite of how it looks, I'm feeling a lot better about my blending after getting a few tips from the girl who sits next to me, Cheon-Whee, who is probably the best blender in the class. Still having a big problem with the value range across the form. It's difficult because the torso is totally white, and my mind keeps telling me to keep it lighter than the background. But this causes it to look washed out.

It's Curtains for You All

2007-07-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

This was quite a step up in complexity from the simple objects we used before. But as Prof. Boxley pointed out, we use the same measuring skills we learned before. In this case we start with the points around the drapery (the top 2 pin locations, the furthest side points, and the bottoms of the longest folds), then connect them with lines. Then we choose a few internal points like the bottom of the big 'V' and connect those. It made things a lot easier to break it up like that. We spent quite a while on this 'drawing' phase - about 2 hours.

My blending is still a bit of a struggle, although it seemed to turn out okay in this piece. One thing though is that the range of values across the form is too small, so it looks sort of grayed out. Rendering took about 3-4 hours.

Measuring Relativity

2007-06-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

Our next lesson was about measurement. With a pencil held out at armlength, we use measurements to make sure the objects are the correct size relative to each other. Then we use angles and additional measurements to get the relative positions of each object. I think my drawing turned out pretty well. When my prof came by he said it looked like a blueprint because I had so many guidelines and measuring points going on. Maybe it's those engineering degrees.

But another thing I realized is that my blending sucks. :( This is the first time I am using charcoal, and it's a bit of a struggle, as much with the charcoal paper as with the charcoal itself. I just seem to have a lot of trouble blending it. Blending with my finger doesn't seem to do anything at all, but using the chamois basically takes off all the charcoal! I really need to work on it.

The Music of the Spheres

2007-06-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

It all begins with spheres... I think because spheres are the simplest 3D objects. I suppose there are cylinders, but every art student knows how incredibly difficult it is to draw straight lines! This assignment is basically about shading, and we learned about the 5 value system as a simplification of the range of values. Here the background is 5 (the darkest value), while the foreground is a 3. A 4 value is used for the shadow on the sphere, blending to a 2 on the light side. The lightest value, 1, is used for the highlight.

I'll just be taking one class, Analysis of Form. I was actually a bit nervous going to school for the first day because it's been quite awhile, and I didn't know what to expect from art school. But I was pleasantly surprised. My classmates seem really nice, although basically they are young enough to be my children. And my prof Jerry is really energetic and funny.

Off to Art School

2007-06-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging alot, primarily because my Netflix queue has been full of episodes of the TV series '24' instead of movies. But also I have dropped down to part-time so that I could start taking classes at the Academy of Art in SF. I'll try to blog about my experiences there, and about the projects that we are working on.

Deep Impact

2007-03-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'm not quite sure how Deep Impact ended up in my Netflix queue. I think because it's directed by Mimi Leder, who also did The Peacemaker which I really liked. Deep Impact is not a good movie though. It's about a comet that is about to strike the Earth, and has a very similar plot to Armageddon which surprisingly came out in the same year, 1998. I wonder what sparked these asteroid-extinction movies? Perhaps comet Shoemaker-Levy in 1994?

In any event, Armageddon, in spite of being a bit stylistically overdone, was a really good movie. Another extinction movie, The Day After Tomorrow, was also a good movie. So what went wrong with Deep Impact, which ostensibly has a more noble purpose, dealing more with the relationships reactions of the people before the impact? I think it's because there's just too many storylines going on, and not enough focus put on any one of them. Out of all the characters, perhaps we get to know the Tea Leoni one the best. But we hardly get to know the others, and so they end up rather one-dimensional. Armaggedon and The Day After Tomorrow were much more focused, and so emotionally they hit harder.

Deep Impact was kind of cool in the number of familiar actors that show up in the movie. It's like a bizarre trivia contest of semi-successful movie and TV stars, including Tea Leoni, Robert Duvall, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Ron Eldard, Leelee Sobieski, Dougray Scott, etc. Although it does have Morgan Freeman.

Saturday Night Fever

2006-12-31T11:54:00.000-08:00

Saturday Night Fever is really one of the great American films ever. I know it's known mainly for it's music and dancing scenes. But what a remarkable story this is. It's been called an urban tragedy, or perhaps a tragedy of youth. John Travolta plays Tony Manero, who works in a hardware store by day, but is the undisputed king of his world by night -- on the dance floor and among his friends. Yet from his dead end job, the discord in his family life, and the small local dance competitions he practices for, we begin to see that that his world is too small. That his goals are not high enough. It takes his encounter with the ambitious Stephanie, and a tragedy within his circle of friends, to make him realize how limited his world really is. As such, it's a remarkable coming of age story.

This movie is not possible, of course, without John Travolta. This is the movie that made him a household name, and his megawatt star power dominates the film. It grabs us from the opening scene - that fabulous strut down the streets of Brooklyn. It's interesting that the success of his performance is due as much to raw charisma as to any technical ability.

The DaVinci Code

2006-12-19T11:53:00.000-08:00

This is the much-hyped adaptation of Dan Brown's mega-bestseller The DaVinci Code. I read the book and really liked it -- how would the film version turn out? This movie certainly has the star power to do the task, not just with Ron Howard directing and Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou in the lead roles. Even the supporting roles are filled with stars - Jean Reno as Captain Fache, Alfred Molina as Bishop Aringarosa, Paul Bettany as Silas, and Ian McKellen as Teabing. In fact, it's a credit to the casting that I could not name an actor I would have preferred for any of those roles.

Film adaptations of literary works though are always hit and miss, I think because they are very different media. Film is a very visual medium, while literature is a cognitive one. Literature also tends to be dialogue-heavy. So films adapted from books tend to work best when they try not to follow the story too closely. I'm thinking that 2001: A Space Odyssey was the best example of that. That film is very different from the book, yet still follows in the spirit of the story. Also I'd have to admit that the Lord of the Rings movies stake out their own territory from the books, although God knows I hated those movies.

Films that follow the storyline too closely tend to be too linear, and also end up being very long because it's almost impossible to squeeze into 2 hours what a reader might consume over several weeks. Also there is a tendency to model the cognitive aspect of the novel by having the main character narrate or monologue alot. Or you have the characters sitting around talking to get through all the exposition. The DaVinci Code suffers from this a little, but it is a credit to Ron Howard that it does not detract from the film too much. But make no mistake - this is a long movie, with a lot of story to sit through. Also I felt that the cinematography and the musical editing were a bit heavy-handed, though this got better by the end of the movie.

But I think what saves the film is that it stays true to the central idea of the novel - the story of Mary Magdalene and the theory that the Church has tried to supress it. It didn't try to turn into an action movie, or some kind of special effects movie, like *ahem* Lord of the Rings. It's a solid film, but a very talented crew. Oh, and for fans of Audrey Tautou (*raises hand*), she is beautiful in this movie.

The Best of Classic Star Trek

2006-12-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

I've run out of movies for Netflix, so I've queued up the entire Star Trek classic series. I'm going to list here my favorite episodes. This is for my own use, so if you don't like Star Trek please please please don't read this. Mainly the episodes I like deal with some interesting social or political theory, don't have a lot of cheesy scenes, and preferably have a hot bit of yeoman eye-candy. :) These are listed pretty much in chronological order.

The Naked Time: A mysterious virus makes the Enterprise crew bare their rawest emotions. Sulu running around with a samurai sword, Spock crying - it's all good.

Mudd's Women: Ah, I remember as a kid looking longingly at these three lovely ladies. Watching this again, they're starting to look a bit dated - a bit too 70s. But this episode does ask some interesting questions about beauty and self-perception.

What are Little Girls Made Of? This is an interesting episode about robots and all, but I have to admit the main reason I like it is that hottie robot girl. How did they keep those clothes from falling off?

The Conscience of the King: I've always liked this episode about a man suspected of being Kodos the Executioner. It's more serious than the usual episodes, with not a lot of special effects or weird ideas. Just grit.

Balance of Terror: This is the episode that introduced us to the Romulans, and is probably the best of the ship-based battle episodes. I liked the contrast between Kirk and the Romulan captain.

Arena: This was a great idea, pitting Kirk against a nasty super-strong lizard man on an arena planet. The ideas they use to concoct weapons are very cool.

Space Seed: This is the episode which the best of the Star Trek movies, Wrath of Khan, is based upon. Ricardo Montalban is spectacular as Khan. I'm amazed at his charisma and explosiveness in this role. It's interesting to see how they modified Kirk's behaviour a bit so that he wouldn't be eclipsed by Montalban. And he carries it off surprisingly well.

The Devil in the Dark: I've seen this one many times as a kid, so I was expecting to be a bit bored. But watching it again, I realize it has all the elements of the best classic episodes. The partnership of Kirk and Spock, which is the great strength of the classic series, is very prominent in this one, where both their similarities and differences are apparent. There is a lot of witty banter between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. And the story deals with some interesting ideas like how we fear things we don't understand, and the idea of working in cooperation with the world around us rather than forcing it into our own structures.

The City on the Edge of Forever: This is, hands down, the best Star Trek episode ever. Nothing else is close. The Enterprise crew discovers a time portal, and after a freak accident McCoy goes back in time and somehow changes history so that the Federation and the Enterprise no longer exist! It's up to Kirk and Spock to go back in time and try to stop McCoy from changing history. This episode just has a different feel about it - it's almost like it was created totally separate from the other episodes. There's hard any sci-fi tricks or special effects, just a riveting, gritty storyline. And Joan Collins is fantastic as Edith Keeler.

Amok Time: This of course is the episode about Spock's wedding. As I said before, Spock and Kirk are the real strengths of this series. And in this episode we get our first look at the planet Vulcan, and the exotic Vulcan mating ceremonies that are, well, 'fascinating'. Spock provides a lot of flavor to the crew, and we are always interested in learning more about Vulcans. It's curious why he is the only non-human crewmember, since they lead to a lot of interesting backstory. The crew of TNG, of course, is littered with aliens.

Mirror Mirror: This is my favorite episode after The City On the Edge of Forever. A transporter malfunction sends Kirk, Scotty, Uhura, and McCoy to a parallel universe where the Federation is brutal, aggressive, and imperial. It's interesting to see the contrast of this 'Klingon' like Federation, and there is a lot of tension in whether they will be found out before they can get back to their own universe. It's also funny how Spock is pretty much the same in both situations, and the episode makes good note of that.

The Journey to Babel: I didn't have much expectations on this one, but it's actually really good. It introduces a lot of things to the show. Mainly Spock's parents, and the tension between him and his father. (Did anyone notice that Spock's father is the same actor that played the Romulan captain in Balance of Terror? Well, I guess Vulcans and Romulans are very similar...) Also this idea of the Federation as only a semi-agreeable collection of different peoples is very compelling, and mirrors the countries in real life. Besides that there is the usual tension of a spy on the ship, a mysteriously powerful ship stalking the Enterprise, Kirk injured, etc. All good stuff.

The Trouble With Tribbles: This popular episode was actually rated the #1 favorite episode in a recent poll. I don't agree with that, of course, but it is a good story. The tribbles are cute and quite a departure from the normal scary-looking aliens. Also I really liked the interactions between the humans and Klingons. It presents the Klingons in a more personal setting, making them seem more like us.

The Gamesters of Triskelion: This is a very cool episode, even if there is nothing really earth-shaking about it. Kirk, Uhura, and Chekov are whisked to an alien planet and become gladiators of sorts, fighting on behalf of advanced, purely intellectual beings. It has some interesting ideas about personal freedom, and the girl in the silver suit is kind of cute. 200 quatlus for the human!!!

Return to Tomorrow: This is one of my favorites. The Enterprise finds a deserted planet, with only three intellects remaining of a highly advanced race. (Why does 'advanced' always mean intellectual, by the way?) They ask to possess the bodies of Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Ann Mulhall so that they can build android bodies. It's very moving to see the beings having bodies again after so many centuries, as well as the interactions between Sargon and Felezza. This is the first appearance of the appealing Diana Muldaur as Ann Mulhall.

Patterns of Force: The concept behind this one is very interesting. A Federation historian John Gill goes to an alien planet and sets up a Nazi-style government. The theory is that no country accomplished as much as the Nazis did in such a short time - basically pulling their country from near bankruptcy to world domination. The question is: could that government succeed if ruled by a benevolent person instead of a maniacal dictator. I think the answer given is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's an interesting idea and this episode develops it well - with two warring planets, a resistance movement, undercover agents, etc.

Assignment: Earth: This is an interesting episode in that it doesn't deal a lot with the Enterprise crew. The main characters in the story are the agent Gary Seven and his secretary (played by Teri Garr!). This episode even looks like some of the detective shows of the 70s.

The Enterprise Incident: This is one of the more popular episodes. It's a cloak-and-dagger story about Kirk and Spock on a mission to steal the new Romulan cloaking device. It has a lot of nuggets like Kirk dressed up as a Romulan, and Spock making out (pretty much) with the sexy Romulan commander.

Is There No Truth in Beauty? Well it's hard to go wrong with Diana Muldaur. In this episode she plays the aide to the Medusan ambassador, whose visage is so hideous that it drives humans mad! There's a lot of cool psychological stuff going on here, plus a war of wills between Spock and Diana Muldaur. To her credit she holds her own very well, which is not easy.

The Road Home

2006-11-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

This really is a beautiful movie by Zhang Yimou. It is one of his rural dramas and is more similar to The Story of Qiu Jiu than to his lavish period pieces like Raise the Red Lantern, or his martial arts films. So it may be a little slow for most people.

The story is simple enough - a young man returns to his home village after the death of his father, the village's teacher. In flashback he recounts the love story of his mother and father, and the movie becomes a nice treatise on love, and also on the value placed on teachers, something which is unfortunately lacking in the U.S. today. At first I thought the love of the young girl, Zhao Di, was rather obsessive, almost like she was stalking the guy. :) But in viewing this again I think I was being too cynical, and that the story tries to portray the innocence of young love. Also I have to remember that this is the work of Asian culture, and not American culture with it's preoccupation with privacy and personal space. Also Zhang Yimou using an interesting device where he will show the same scene over and over, with small modifications, to give the impression that these events are repeating themselves over time. And so it is easier to understand the depth of their love, rather than if we thought all of this happened in a week or something.

What really makes this film work is the incomparable Zhang Zi-Yi. This, along with Crouching Tiger, was one of her breakout films, and the beginning of her collaborations with Zhang Yimou that would continue in Hero and House of Flying Daggers. She is beautiful as the young Zhao Di, and Zhang Yimou really milks it. It seems like every other scene is Zhang Zi-Yi running around, Zhang Zi-Yi smiling, Zhang Zi-Yi leaning in a doorway. Which is all fine with me, but might be less tolerable to those that are not big fans. :)

X-Men: The Last Stand

2006-11-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

I've finally watched this latest installment (and, judging by the bodycount, possibly the last) of the most consistently good comic-book adaptation series (along with Spiderman). I really liked X-2, so I had pretty high expectations for this movie, and it didn't disappoint. I was wondering how well they would handle what is probably the most revered storyline in comic-book history - the Dark Phoenix saga. I think for the most part they did a good job, although they modified it A LOT. This idea of Jean Grey being the only 'class 5' mutant, with unlimited potential was very cool! But what I think was lacking was the different cause of the transformation. In X-2 it was caused by Jean saving the X-Men. In the comic book, she saved the universe in the heart of the M'Kraan crystal, so the scale is quite a bit smaller. Also in the comic book we had these awesome shots of her flying around the universe as a giant bird of fire, destroying entire planets. In the movie, she just gets a bird face and starts disintegrating things. It would have been nice if they had at least TRIED some cool special effects, especially considering the budgets they get in these types of movies.

Another major problem, and one that I think X-2 also had, was that too many plotlines are woven together. In the comic book, there were maybe 2-3 active storylines at any given time. In the movie there are like ten - the mutant vs. human dilemma, Angel's rejection by his father, the rivalry between Iceman and Pyro, Rogue's psychological problems, the authority struggle between Storm and Wolverine, etc. - plus more mutants than you can count. I feel it inhibits the development of each individual storyline, esp. Dark Phoenix. But maybe movies are different.

Syriana

2006-09-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

This is a very well-made movie, written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, the Oscar winning screenwriter of Traffic. Like that movie, Syriana is composed of several interconnected stories all centered around the social, political, and business events surrounding an oil deal in the Middle East. The story is a bit hard to follow - it's difficult to determine who's working for who, and who wants what. But I think this was intentional, because the allegiances of the characters are constantly changing in the movie. And also the movie never gets preachy, never takes a strong political or moral stand. All the characters have good intentions, along with other motives that are more questionable. In that sense, it's true to life.

The movie has that pseudo-documentary feel that we saw in Traffic. I almost wonder if the movie would have been more powerful with all unknown actors, so that we really would get that illusion of reality. As it is, whenever George Clooney or Matt Damon pop up on the screen, it's pretty obvious it's a movie. But I think when you have a chance to work with two great actors like that, you take it. I thought this movie would be a George Clooney star vehicle, but it is not. He has a prominent role, but it is truly an ensemble cast, and a good one. In particular I like Alexander Siddig (who I first saw in Kingdom of Heaven) as the idealistic Prince Nasir, fighting to bring democracy and improved human rights to his country. The fact that the CIA is trying to unseat him because he will not allow the U.S. to build military bases in the country, is perhaps the single clearest injustice portrayed in the film.

But the real star of the movie is the Middle East itself, this dangerous land of prayer, oil, sand, and blood. We read all the news stories, but the environment pictured on the screen seems so foreign to our way of life here. But the movie does a great job of showing common threads that run through both cultures - love of family, young people trying to find jobs, good people and bad people.

Moby Dick

2006-09-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

Through this American lit class, I have finally read Moby Dick, a book which many consider to be The Great American Novel. I, of course, am in no position to judge the accuracy of that statement, but here are some thoughts on the book.

It's a long book, 800 pages in the edition that I read (albeit with small pages, big font, and some nice illustrations). Because of the language it's a bit of a tough read, and it also requires perseverance. Because in between the moments of intense action are these canyonesque sections on whale anatomy, ship anatomy, every person on the boat, every duty they perform on the boat, etc. I wonder if Melville was trying to get the reader to empathize with the life of the whaler, who himself sees the thrill of the chase separated by these long days of monotonous duties. I have to say though that I was not comfortable with some of the details of the whale killing -- it's not quite politically correct in these days of environental conscienceness. But to give Melville credit, he really exudes the respect of the hunter for the hunted, unlike the impersonal, mechanized hunting of today.

There is quite a cast of memorable characters on the ship, but dominating them all is this figure of Captain Ahab. I'm not sure if he is some study in obsession, or perhaps some critical statement on the American workaholic? But his is the personality that drives this book forward. I also liked this character Starbuck, who seems to be the archetype for the 'right hand man' we see so often in American film. He serves as a voice of reason to the extreme behavior of the captain. They are always at odds, but in the end he is the only one that Ahab really trusts. There is this extremely poignant scene near the end where Ahab confides in Starbuck his doubts that perhaps he has wasted his life in this obsessive pursuit of revenge. Very moving. This is a long book, and tough, but the last 100 pages or so are totally worth it.

Braveheart

2006-09-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

This really is an incredible film, and in my opinion one of the most stunning achievements in cinema history. Mel Gibson, in only his second turn as actor/director (after the rather pedestrian Man Without a Face), decides to create not just an epic, but a historical epic, replete with period costumes, huge battle scenes, and tough on-location shooting in Scotland. The result? A film that garners 10 Oscar nominations and 5 wins, including best picture, best director, and best cinematography.

This is a long film (3 hours), but it doesn't feel that long, I think because Mel Gibson really gets us involved with the character of this man William Wallace, who struggles against the ruling British and against his own Scottish noblemen to win freedom for his people. We see many facets of this historical figure - his idealism, his leadership, his military genius. And yet we also understand that he is, as Gibson puts it, "a savage". And it is hard not to become enthralled with his story.

The movie benefits from a very good cast, most of whom were then unknown in the U.S. Sophie Marceau is radiant as Princess Isabelle, as is newcomer Catherine McCormack as Wallace's childhood love, Murron. And British veteran actor Patrick McGoohan is particularly good as the creepy and explosive King Longshanks.

This movie really is a great achievement, and brought the period epic back in to U.S. cinema, paving the way for movies like Gladiator, Troy, etc.

Inside Man

2006-08-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

After a string of Netflix dregs (re: The Babysitter), it was nice to finally watch a well-made movie! Because of quality of the people involved in the movie - Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster - I thought Inside Man had the potential to be a great movie. It is certainly a worthy effort, but it just didn't click for me.

The movie is about a bank holdup orchestrated by Clive Owen, with Denzel Washington as the lead detective on the case. The movie is well-shot, and full of tension. But the area which I think Inside Man is really lacking is in the depth of its characterizations. Strange, considering the great actors involved. But the characters are all fairly one-dimensional. Jodie Foster, in particular, seems to wander around the movie with this sly smirk glued to her face. The intellectual standoff between Denzel Washington and Clive Owen -- a la Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive -- never really materializes. And we never identify enough with any of the characters to really get emotionally involved in the film.

I believe that great characters are crucial to the success of any film, regardless of genre. Take The Matrix for example. Of course we all know about the special effects and innovative filmmaking. But it's really the characters - Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, Agent Smith -- that bind us to the movie. I think we particularly identify with Neo, or hope to -- this semi-clueless guy wandering through life who finds that he has a higher calling. Similarly, Titanic would have been just another disaster movie, except that James Cameron chose to show it through the eyes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. We fall in love with their characters, and so the disaster hits home much stronger. Finally, Gladiator is raised above traditional epic films by a very nuanced performance by Russell Crowe. I mean, what would Gladiator have been like if Arnold Schwarzenegger had been cast in that role? *shudder* I wish that Hollywood would concentrate on getting the story and the characters right, and not worry so much about big budgets, fancy special effects, or big-name stars.

Planking Layer

2006-08-14T11:42:00.000-07:00

A status update on the San Francisco. I've finished putting the first layer of planking. This is one of the most fun stages, since you can really see the hull taking shape. My skills have eroded a bit, so the first planks I did were not that great, but by the end I was getting better. It's also easy to rush this part, because you can always correct mistakes with a sanding block. But it's better to do a good job, to save work later on. As it is, I think I have a lot of sanding in my future. :) Next up is the second layer of planking in walnut - one of the most laborious steps.

On a side note, I've suffered my first injury. For some reason this generic X-Acto blade company has made the #11 blade a slightly larger shape than the ones from X-Acto. :( So I put my thumb where I was not expecting any metal, and sliced it open a bit. Most importantly though - the boat model was unharmed.

Love's Labour Lost

2006-08-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me say that I think Kenneth Branagh is brilliant. He is a great actor, and as a director/actor, his movies like Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, and Hamlet have made Shakespeare accessible to an entirely new generation of viewers.

That being said, Love's Labour's Lost is a lousy movie. First of all it's a musical, which surprised me. Now Love's Labour's Lost, because of its lightness, is probably the best candidate for turning into a musical. I mean, can you imagine a musical adaptation of Hamlet? (Although who can forget the priceless Gilligan's Island musical version of that play!) The movie is similar to Moulin Rouge in integrating popular music into the plot, though while Moulin Rouge used contemporary music, Love's Labour's Lost uses songs from old American musicals, songs such as "Cheek to Cheek" and "The Way You Look Tonight".

For some reason it falls flat. While I enjoy seeing old-time stars like Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers, for some reason it is much less appealing watching Kenneth Branagh and Alicia Silverstone dancing and singing. There must be some change in expectations of our current generation of film stars. Also the singing is obviously dubbed, and for some reason the songs are cut extremely short (which actually is a benefit in hindsight!). And the lighting of the movie feels very plastic. Perhaps they were trying to resemble the high-key lighting of musicals like Singin' in the Rain, but could not reproduce that Technicolor look. There is also the tendency for these stage adaptations to be shot too closely, and this film suffers from that, whereas Much Ado About Nothing, and Hamlet did not.

So I got very frustrated with this movie, and turned it off in the middle, which I rarely do. Still, no one can deny the creativity and daring of Kenneth Branagh as a filmmaker, and I always say that innovative films are always worth making, even if they don't always work out.

Building a Boat

2006-08-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

After a long hiatus, I have started to build another boat model. This will be my sixth one, a Spanish galleon called the San Francisco by the Barcelona-based model company Artesania Latina. At this stage, all the hull frames have been aligned, and the deck attached to the top. This model has a split deck, so it was a little hard to get everything aligned properly. There was actually a bit of twist in the keel, but that seems to have gone away (which is fortunate since I had no idea how to fix it). I am now sanding the sides of the frames. It's easy to be impatient with this part and do just a cursory job. But it's important to get this right because it goes a long way toward determining how well the planks attach to the hull, and the final shape of the hull.

Can Money Buy Happiness?

2006-07-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of Money magazine has a really good article called "Can Money Buy Happiness?" You should try to read the full article, but here is a summary of the main points:

Survey of people who said that they were "very satisfied" with life:

<$20K - 22%

$20K - $50K - 30%

$50K - $90K - 42%

$90K+ - 43%

This is very interesting. I believe that as long as you have enough money to provide for basic needs (so that you don't have to stress about paying the bills), more money beyond that does not lead to a proportionate increase in happiness. The article gave three reasons why this might be so:

You overestimate how much pleasure you'll get from having more. They said that intially after you purchase a new item, you feel very happy. But you quickly become used to having it around and it no longer makes you as happy. People make a mistake in thinking that perhaps they just bought the wrong item. :)

More money can lead to more stress. For example, having a big house in the suburbs might not increase your happiness if you end up spending 3 hours in commute traffic every day.

You endlessly compare yourself with the family next door. They said that your happiness depends mainly on how we feel compared to those immediately closest to us, and not to the ultra-rich that we see on TV or magazines. So if you have more money, but everyone around you also has more money, then you won't necessarily be happier!

So then, if money is not the key to happiness, what is? Again, three possibilities:

Friends and family are a mighty elixir. The people around us are most responsible for our happiness. Personally the happiest time in my life was getting my bachelor's degree at UCLA, which coincidentally was the time that I was the poorest. But all my friends were poor too, and we figured out all these creative ways to have fun without a big budget, and had a blast.

Doing things can bring us more joy than having things. I think this is really profound. You can surround yourself with things, but if you don't actually do anything you will just get bored. Interestingly, they also said that vacations are worthwhile, because even if we are stressed out on them, or things don't go as planned, as time passes we remember only the good things that happened.

Applying yourself to something hard makes you happy. Right on the money again. My satisfaction with work doesn't seem to be tied to how many hours I spend there (or how few), but on whether I feel that what I am doing is important and interesting.

In conclusion, they said that it important for us to 'Think Happy." They said that some characteristics of happy people are 1) they don't waste time dwelling on unpleasant things 2) they tend to interpret ambiguous events in positive ways, and 3) they aren't bothered by the successes of others.