Superstorm School!

It's been a hectic week. School started on Monday and I have classes Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

I have discovered a perk of NOT attending a private school: flat rate tuition. I am taking 18 units (well, 15 until my independent studies section is approved) for the price of 6.1-12 units.

Say what?

At AAU, the same number of units would run about $14k.

I have also crashed my first class, ever. In all my years of college, I've never had such restrictive enrollment. Typically I just enroll like the first day enrollment opens (community college and AAU worked this way). This time around it was tiered enrollment. I could enroll in up to 7 units at orientation, then I had to wait a month to enroll in up to 15. Then a week after that I could enroll in up to 19.

Unfortunately, every single class I wanted was full by the time my enrollment time for the second round came up. I had just checked class enrollment levels half an hour prior to my enrollment time. I logged in at 1 minute to 5 and by the time I entered the class numbers, all of my classes were full.

Eventually I got enrolled in some classes. Some that I really didn't want but I had the units. One of the classes had an instructor that was half an hour late, swayed back and forth and had voice modulation issues. I had a severe case of motion sickness by the end of class. Here's a sample of what I sat through.

The next night I saw that there were 5 seats open in the Gerontology class I really wanted. I made the bold choice to try to crash that class even though I had another class at the same time. Well, apparently everyone else had the same idea. There were 65 seats in the class. The instructor had already given 8 add codes out and was capping enrollment at 75 students. A total of 90 people showed up. I was totally making myself sick with trying to decide to sit it out and see what happened (hoping a bunch of people really didn't want to study death and end of life issues) or run over to the gym to the class I was actually enrolled in.

I stayed. And so did 15 other people. It came down to putting names in a box and randomly selecting 3 people. Thank Jebus I was the first name drawn! I was so worried I skipped the first class of leisure and recreation for nothing.

As far as my independent studies class goes, it is going to basically be artistic reproduction using new and emerging technologies. I will do 4 projects (from creating the artwork in physical or digital representation reproducing those works using various methods incorporating technology) and write a final paper. I'm super excited about this. This means I get school credit for stuff I would normally be doing 4 days a week anyway (with my school schedule, there's no real way I can go to the Gnomery on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday).

I am also fairly stoked on my textiles class. Textiles? Yeah. After discussing with the department chair my ultimate goals, we came to the conclusion that textiles would be a great place to focus my energies. People are intimidated by fine art. If you aren't an artist, you aren't really going to feel comfortable painting a picture or drawing or sculpting. But people are far less intimidated by crafts. I'm learning hand sewing, crocheting, embroidery and the like. These are skills that are far less intimidating to most people.

Not quite underwater basket weaving. Maybe that's a more advanced class.

Mind-2-Matter

You may remember Gnorman from earlier this year.

This was my free sculpture for my figure modeling class during the Spring 2013 semester at AAU.

This may be the piece of work that I am the most proud of ever. EVER. (and I've made a lot of art in the last 30 years). Needless to say I was most saddened when I was too busy to properly finish Gnorman and have him fired (I went straight from work/school to wedding prep/work and he dried out!).

I had been crossing my fingers that we could get him scanned before he was a total loss since June/July. Our method of scanning wasn't the easiest but Justin and I worked through a variety of methods using Kinect cameras for another project and I figured that we would, at some point, rig that set up again.

Well, we didn't have to.


The Gnomes (thanks to the Elder Gnome) have acquired the Sense 3D Scanner.

A few minutes time and we had a model to print. I was so excited I could barely contain myself last night! The original Gnorman is 8" W x 13" D x 24" H. New Gnorman is about 1" W x 1.5" D x 4" H!

So exciting!  

And it was just in time. Gnorman's ear fell off after we finished scan!

365 Days of Zentangles - Day 30

Day 30! I had to go on an epic journey to find some place to get a money order, so that ate a good portion of my morning (I didn't get Placerville apples).

I made a killer coconut banana mousse (I had planned it out to be pie filling, but am currently out of arrowroot - I made it anyway to test the flavor/texture).

I finally listed cupcake toppers in our Etsy store,

Justin posed an interesting question to me about the current project. Could the tangles be adapted to a 3D model environment, therefore allowing me to create 3D sculptures daily.

I don't know any organic modeling software, so I'm on the hunt to find one that I can learn easily.

I checked out the 123D suite from Adobe today, thinking "oh awesome. 123D Design would be an enhancement over some of the limitations in TinkerCAD. It's not.

There is no import/export feature. I use illustrator to create a lot of my line art and import into TinkerCAD. I thought "woo, I can add chamfers and fillets using 123D Design" Nope. Not at all. Because I can't bring my work from illustrator (another Adobe product) into the app.

So then I was thinking "oooo 123D Sculpt could be an option for this idea of digital tangles to print." To my dismay, it is only available for iPAD. WTF? Seriously? It can't be utilized as a web app? It can't be made available to android? No thanks. I'm not a fan of anything that is iOS only.

Keep an eye out for reviews of various entry level 3D tools. I'm pretty good with the 2D and illustration, but AAU's IDS program didn't really have a huge emphasis on 3D modeling (it was very much still grounded in the olden ways of hand rendering and hand modeling). 3D printing was entirely glossed over in my production processes class.

So awesome - grateful day

I wrote most of this post last Thursday on my phone after class.  I forgot to sync my phone and pc, so it didn't show up here until today (and I didn't really want to finish it on my phone - I wanted to read and edit on a full screen!): 

Today we started on our character studies in figure modeling.

I chose a gnome (like there's anything else to choose) and when class started, we began to morph our "Amy" busts into a character of our choosing.

I have to say this project may be the first piece I am amazingly proud of in the last 4 years. Granted what I've been through physically in the last 2 years, I am beyond grateful to be able to take this class.

I am amazed at the things we can overcome when we try to maintain a positive attitude and keep trying. 

Even a year ago, I was in too much pain to think about sculpting. I have found that  I really enjoy it. And I think that gratitude I feel contributes to how I feel about sculpting.

I've posted pictures of the progression starting with Amy at the start of class to my gnome at the end of class. These will be considered for Spring Show. I have two weeks of homework assignments and one more class period to refine this. I hope to at least be considered for the Spring Show. I would love to have at least one piece in the show before I graduate. 

This is where I was when class started at 12:30 p.m. We take a half hour break for lunch and we took about half an hour that day to check out an amazing new installation at the gallery across the hall that is a collaboration between the architecture grad department and fashion department.  I also had gotten a ways into the gnome and had to tear it down because the scale wasn't working.  

This is where I was at 5:15 when it was time to wrap up. I have to say I teared up a bit with tears of JOY when I was writing this on the bus because I am so excited and so grateful to be able to do this.  I am grateful that I have been able to find a way to get beyond the pain (and grateful for someone as wonderful as Justin who has stuck with all the changes and weird things I've had to try to get here).  

I'm not sure what....

is wrong with people.  We just finished week 5 of school.  I actually had an instructor open last module back up for comment (we did a California poster), because only one person critiqued anyone's work.

Can you guess who that person was?  It was me. Of course.

As much as I hate critiques, I understand they are a part of the learning process and it allows us to practice our art criticism skills as well as teaching us to accept criticism.

It is the end of the following module, giving an extra week for critiques of the California posters.  I am still the only person who has critiqued anything.

Here is the poster I submitted.  The goal was to create some sort of informational poster representing California to the world for the period right around the Great Depression (I sort of crammed this in to an all nighter last weekend after Justin's grandparents' 50th anniversary party - poor time management on my part)

If this lack of participation was just in 1 class, I'd think it were a fluke. But it's not.  It's happening in ALL of my online classes.  And normally the instructors are harping on critiques by the 2nd or 3rd week.

Not a word has been said.

In a way it's frustrating because there are a lot of "oooh, I like that" or "ooh that looks really good" going around, but never anything concrete.  In fact, most of the time only a handful of people will have any comments on their work (the aforementioned comments included).

I've not received a single critique from a student so far this semester.  For the campus based classes, we don't crit every week.  In fact, last semester, we only did crits at mid semester and finals.  Class would take forever if we were doing the number of crits expected.

And when did people stop learning how to write a coherent thought?  It just feels like students are LAZY these days.  This school is not cheap.  I bust my butt (and Justin did too) to make the most out of a very expensive situation, but it makes it hard to take seriously when the other students are always just like "DERP".

Anyway, enough about that.

On to some assignments.

In class work over 2 weeks

In class work over 2 weeks

In class work over 2 weeks 

In class work over 2 weeks

Homework - basic foot shape study

Homework - Basic foot shape study

Homework - Basic foot shape study

Homework - Basic foot shape study

I've worked from the model we used previously.  I always would draw him too willowy and make him super elongated.  I was sort of doing the same here.  From the sides, I think I did pretty well with his proportions (I'd like to think I did a damn fine job on the knees).  looking at him head on, he just looks too narrow at the waist.  Unfortunately, we're tearing this one down on Thursday and staring anew.

I didn't do any artwork for my California Art class this week.  Instead our assignment was to write a "virtual tour" presentation teaching a specific audience about the Gold Rush or Native Basketry.

Here's my work from my graphic design class.  I swear to pete I hate cutting magazine paper or newsprint.  Worst task EVER.  Every time you think you've got the perfect piece picked out, the damn x-acto catches and crinkles or rips the paper.  Besides that, it's not like a lot of people have magazines or newspapers sitting around.  I most definitely am not going to go buy a bunch of magazines to cut up so I can have varying fonts (magazine layouts are pretty samey, so you need a variety of magazines to get a variety of text).

For a coming assignment, I've chosen to use the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund as my non-profit to create collateral for.  I think the work they are doing to help protect food freedom is really important.  So that will be an interesting assignment.  

I'm not sure if I'm getting better at tuning out the stupidity of my fellow students or if maybe they've quit being so obvious as I have no amusing stories to report this week.  

Running late..........

Oh I know I'm getting behind in my blog posts.  So much work and so little time (and the addition of my garden plot just adds to the busy-ness).  I've been fighting off a cold this week as well.

Last week (since I skipped it in blog form) I was waiting for the frightfully late shuttle bus (the idea of a school run shuttle is fantastic, but the execution is poor - apparently they have added too many runs/stops and don't have enough drivers), I was speaking with a guy who was waiting as well. I was talking about R2 and my hopes to teach kids 3D modeling skills and expose them to 3D printing. I then mentioned that kids should have no problems adapting because of their tech savvy nature these days.  The guy thought about it for a moment and said "well, I guess that's true here in San Francisco.  Kids don't get iPads in Texas, where I'm from." That led me to say "well, there were no iPads or iPods when I was growing up.  Kids learn quickly."  You could see the wheels turning as he tried to figure out the before time.... Before i devices.

I actually remembered to take my camera to school last week to photograph my geometric model before breaking him down and the start of working from a live model.  I have to say that this is the first class EVER that I have really enjoyed completely.  It's still early (we're on week 5), and this class does make my arm VERY tired, but I'm doing so much better than I had expected (especially stamina wise).  I am glad I didn't enroll in Form Dev for IDS at the same time though.  I don't think my arm could have handled both.

Geometric based model 

Geometric based model

Time to tear him down - so sad to do

Time to tear him down - so sad to do

Back to the armature and time to start all over again. 

Working from live model

Working from live model

Working from live model

Working from live model

Working from live model

 I've worked from this model before and I have a tendency to make him look to willowy. I think I did a great job this week of bulking up the figure. I'll post pictures in another blog post for the current weeks work (and I'll try NOT to do it a week late).

I had an interesting, albeit one sided, discussion in my Art Education class about the legitimacy of digital art and the value of digital tools in the classroom. I feel that digital tools can be a great asset, especially when schools do not have the budget for consumable materials.  In no way do I think that all art should become digital, but if you are trying to scrap to keep art in schools, take ANY tool you can to keep it there.

It seemed as though most of my classmates deem digital art as less valuable and less artistic than "traditional" art forms, even going as far as to say that the computer does the work for the "artist".  When I asked my classmates to define what they consider art, it was the usual "art is in the eye of the beholder and creator" drivel.  They seem to have definite opinions on what does NOT constitute art, but no real definitive opinion on what DOES constitute art.

Where do you weigh in?  I'd be interested to hear what you consider art.

Really?

It's the end of another week of school. I've made it through 3 weeks, only 12 more to go until summer break.

I still can't believe what people think constitutes a "discussion post" for my online classes. No one seems to care about punctuation or spelling (if they typed their responses in Word, they could at least use Spell Check). Most of what is being submitted is gibberish that is incoherent.  It is a rarity when people write a clear sentence.  These are my complaint just on syntax and grammar alone.

It seems that most people think that "I like it" or "That's good" or "I agree with you" should count as their participation in class.  Granted, with the amount of discussion postings we are expected to contribute, we are doing far more work than people in the classroom situation.  If everyone in the class were expected to speak as much as we are expected to type, class would be 10 hours long including lecture.  It can be hard to come up with substantial posts each and every time, but with some thought and effort you can keep contributing to the discussion.

We're on week 3 and I am still the only student actually critiquing the other students' work.  I was glad to see that the things I have been saying are being considered by my fellow students, but it is important that they develop the ability to look at artwork critically and thoughtfully.  "I like it" and "You did a great job" don't really imply that they are looking at the work critically.  The instructors usually have started cracking down on critiques by this point, but it seems as though they don't care this semester.  Weird.

I at least remembered to take photos at my figure sculpting class.  I'm really starting to enjoy this class, which is a first for any class I've taken at the Academy.  Here are a few pictures from class.

We have started working on typography in my graphic design class this week.  We had some fun with "making words move" and here are my results.

I also tried out the school's shuttle bus system this week (after last week's disaster of $32 parking AND almost 2 hours to drive 3.5 miles across town to go home).  Getting there was great.  I picked up the bus a few blocks from my house.  The buses are clean and comfortable AND there was a TV on the one I caught.  They were showing Iron Man 2.  I got to class on time and relaxed.  Let's just say getting home was NOT that easy.  I stayed behind to take pictures of my model, so I missed the bus by 1 minute.  Not so bad, I thought considering there was another bus in 1/2 an hour.  Well, that bus never showed up.  Finally an hour later the next bus showed up and I hopped on.  Well, the "next" bus was a different route and it was taking so long I hopped off by the dorms and walked the rest of the way home.  I probably could have walked across town faster than my trip home took, but once I caught the next shuttle, I wasn't entirely certain where I was.