The Need to Pick up a book

       So this week, things start picking up for me when I have all my classes. Due to the sudden delays, due to the snow storms cause me to wait on classes. But finally, I had my first Art history 2 class. At first, it had a different process because I had different teacher so I have to retrain myself to record notes for this class. However, it is all in the order of our art history books so it is easy to access the information whenever. We are starting to learn about the 14th century, the Renaissance and further on.

        Then for Painting Color & Light class, we are starting off with painting in grid charts of value shades, tints of temperatures and the color wheel. The more grids we paint, the more skill we'll have when painting in the oil paints. This is my first time using oil paints and it seems to be alright to use. I cannot really say how it is but it's very different from watercolor and acrylic paints because it doesn't instantly dry up. Layering paint is more fluid but some of the oil paints have different time periods for dying, which are usually the lighter colors.

        Lastly, Life Drawing class has been a love hate relationship. Drawing the models in the blueprint like form is helpful but the use of the charcoal medium is difficult to handle. When drawing, you have to be extremely light, so light that the traces of lights can only be visible if the lines were layered over each other. How the class runs so far is that we do six minute sketches to get into the groove of drawing. Usually it is the model would be in a standing or bent over pose. Afterwards, they would be in a length long siting pose, for the class to figure out how the model's body is formed when it is sitting. For a six hour class, we draw for the first three hours (counting the 5-10 minute breaks), an hour lunch break to working the last two hours. This is one of my favorite life drawing picture I created today, and it probably the only visible drawing of a model I have.    

Drawn Model, 18x24, charcoal

     Okay, so I titled this blog "the need to pick up a book" because this week I have been reading a lot more. One of my birthday gifts that was mail to me, from my cousins, were two graphic novels: "Astonishing X-Men by by Joss Whedon and illustrated by John Cassaday, "Rainbow in the Dark" by Adam Withers. I do recommend these novels because they have beautiful artwork and fictional story lines to get drawn into. This inspired me to pick up book instead of another graphic novel, for instance, a story based off of the Supernatural's WB Television series called the "Coyote's Kiss". I would say that it is like fan-fiction but it has better imagery and interesting stories that relate to the Winchester's hunting paranormal career.

      Then, I was doing some research and came across an interesting article. Eric Kripeke, the director, producer and writer of Supernatural tv series, stated that the television series was inspired by Neil Gaiman. Gaiman is one of my favorite author, personally favorites are "Good Omens" and "Coraline". What was said was that his stories of "The Sandman" and "American Gods" are the key source to developing the television series. I haven't read those books so why not take the time to read them. I was lucky to find both books in my school. I cannot wait to read them, and perhapes I review them on my blog.

Here is the link for the article

http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Neil_Gaiman