Convoluted Colours

I'm trying to work on my coloured white objects piece (the white ceramic stuff in the red box) with zero luck. I'm just scared of it, I guess. Colour is this big world that I'm just dipping my fingertip in, and it's big and confusing and I have no idea what to do with it.
My figure piece didn't really feel like it was getting anywhere tonight, but I like it.
I worry that I don't know how good I am and that I don't know enough about furniture and that maybe furniture just isn't right for me and maybe I should go into something else, but what?
Huh.

Making Magnificence

This is for Emaline. And everyone else.





My Mom made me laugh.
I made this too.
My teacher, who loves to say "It looks good, but..." dropped the but today for this. It's the same piece you saw yesterday, but with way better value. It looks like shit right now, but if things go well, it will look amazing by tomorrow morning. Yeah, I have a lot of energy. I can kind of conquer the world.
Also, Door Sixteen blogged TWICE today. A sign from the universe, I think.

Inspired inability

I don't know how good I am. At anything.
I don't think I'm very good at charcoal. When I touch it, I'm paralysed, I can't figure out what to do, proportions get even more out of whack.
I might be okay at drawing. I'm not really sure.
I'm thinking of illustration. Is that weird? Maybe I just harbor too much of a desire to be Brett Helquist. This goes along with my desire to be Door Sixteen.
Things would just be better if I wasn't myself. I've always been puzzled when people say "be yourself" because I, personally, have never been offered the option to be someone else. If given the option, I might very well take it, as long as it was someone awesome.
And the other thing that I needed to tell you...Evanna Lynch ships Luna/Dumbledore. Giggle..giggle giggle...that's so...weird...
Okay, one of my friends wants to see what I've been working on, so...here goes. this is, hopefully, going to be good enough for my portfolio.
This is my still life. It's a shell...and a bucket.This is my figure piece. I did it tonight. It needs to get darker.

Today's Teriffic Tuesdayness

It will be, anyway. I just had a dream about the first day of school. It' wasn't particularly pretty, but I did have an hour off for an independent study about Japan's culture. I've never been particularly interested in Japan's culture, but...whatever. I was jumping up and down when I found out that I had an independent study about it.
Maybe this is my subconscious telling me that I like Japan's culture?
Today I'm going to finish painting the sticks (both sets) and then take a shower. After that I'm going to set up my still life, then go to the doctor, then get home and draw my still life( for a while. I don't want to finish it yet) , then decoupage my box (most likely with furniture pictures) and figure out what on earth I'm going to put inside of it. A pencil, painted white, maybe? A leaf of some sort, painted white? Guys, I need small objects that can be painted white! In the comments!

Quote of the Month

"Your flaws are beautiful. They’re what make you stand out. Don’t try to be normal, perfect, striving to be something or someone that you will never accomplish. Be annoying, be quirky, be different. In truth, it takes a hell of a lot more strength to resist, than to go along with the flow. Stray from the path. What anyone else thinks doesn’t matter. Let them be boring, let them be the same, as unnoticeable as the people around them. Wear flowers in your hair, mismatching socks, and thousands of multi-colored bracelets. Press all those damn buttons in the elevator, and piss off everyone around you. Have fun now, because there’s always plenty of time to be boring in the future."
Andrea Chiang

Fiction Friday!

Did I mention that my foot is going to fall off?
Anyway, I feel like Alliteration August is a perfectly fitting month in which to have an abundance of * Fiction Fridays. Let the fictioning** commence!
---

There is a bloodstain on my leg. On the back of my right calf. I don't know whose blood it is. I don't know how it got there.

I don't know who I am. I don't know how I got here.

One could say that the same is true for most everything. That tree? I don't know who it is. I don't know how it got here. Same for the lamppost. Same for the flowers.

That's the kind of stuff, the pointless things, that get thought about on my morning walk. It's force of habit, that's all. I put on my shoes to go outside, and then these thoughts, they just appear in my head. The birds put them there, I'm sure of it. They escape from their cages at night and fly to me and drop little thoughts into my ears. The grass is growing up, entangling my feet while I'm just trying to stand here. Earth, I know that I've been mean to you, but please don't eat me up. Reject me! Reject me like the poison you know I am! Don't be like me, don't gravitate to the things that will kill you.

Or do. It's not my decision, it's yours. It's your life, it can be your death too. Do it the way you want to. Don't let me decide for you. Don't let nature decide what happens to you, Earth. It's time to grow up and be independent, just like I am.

But really, I don't want to be. You tear me away from other people and I'm cowering, shivering. I can't be alone, I can't be independent, I can't be anything. Why aren't you there for me when I need you? Why don't you care?

Sometimes the pavement turns into a set of stairs, straight out of nowhere. I stop there and stare all the way up, but I can never tell where they go. All I see is stairs. I walk around them, on the grass. You can't see them from the other side, you know. Can't see anything at all from the other side.

When I get to the other side, I hope I can see stuff. I don't know what I want to see, but there has to be something here worth looking back on. Resistance, maybe. Independence. Seeing a little bit of that once in a while wouldn't be half bad.

I sit down on the grass, between the sidewalk and the street. I lean back, so that my head is nearly in the road, wondering what will happen. The dew is wet, too wet, on my neck and hands and probably on my back too, only it hasn't soaked through my clothes quite yet. A car swerves to avoid me and I get up. My hair looks funny, I can feel it.

Maybe I just am funny, and maybe I'm not and maybe I can't fit into any of the cages.

The birds are fine with that.

---
*Katherines? Anyone?
**Don't say what I know you're going to say. Yes, I am a fun person to play Scrabble with.

Acquiring Awkward Absurdisim

I'm not quite sure what absurdist fiction is. Remember Fascism? It's like that.
"Absurdist fiction is a genre of literature, most often employed in novels, plays or poems, that focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they ultimately cannot find, or where actions and events do not seem to be guided by, any higher purpose. Common elements in absurdist fiction include humour, satire, incongruity, the abasement of reason, and controversy regarding the philosophical condition of being "nothing."[1]. Works of absurdist fiction often explore agnostic or nihilistic concepts.
"While a great deal of absurdist fiction may be humourous or irrational in nature, the hallmark of the genre is neither comedy nor nonsense, but rather, the study of human behavior under circumstances (whether realistic or fantastical) that appear to be meaningless. Absurdist fiction posits little judgment about characters or their actions; that task is left to the reader. Also, the "moral" of the story is generally not explicit, and the themes or characters' realizations—if any —are often ambiguous in nature. Additionally, unlike many other forms of fiction, absurdist works will not necessarily have a traditional plot structure (i.e., rising action, climax, falling action, etc.).
"The absurdist genre grew out of the modernist literature of the late 19th and early 20th century in direct opposition to the Victorian literature which was prominent just prior to this period. It was largely influenced by the existentialist and nihilist movements in philosophy and the Dada and surrealist movements in art. Due to its non-conformist nature, many readers struggle with literary absurdism when they are first exposed to it. Indeed, it would be accurate to describe absurdism and absurdist fiction as an "acquired taste". Conversely, this genre is a favorite among scholars because it lends itself so well to interpretation, discussion, and debate."
Did I tell you how much I love it when I can fit an entire wikipedia article into a blog post? Does this mean that absurdist fiction is whatever you want it to be, as long as it makes very little sense? That seems like someone has just demolished the box I was trying to fit myself into. Absurdism seems to be like all other fiction, just another way for us to try and make sense of being human. I actually came to a ginormous revelation about this while ago, while I was trying to fall asleep with much futility (I cannot sleep while counseling. At all.), but I feel as though that is like a random discussion of sexuality: it might be better left unsaid.
In other news, my foot feels like it is going to fall off. Maybe not my whole foot. Maybe just part. Also, I learned to drive a stick shift today. Learned, in the sense that it's still pretty rough to start the car.
Aaaannnnnnnd, I finally saw A SINGLE MAN. This is crazy exciting. The movie was...well...it wasn't bad...it wasn't what I expected...but holy cow, the main character's house is gorgeous.
Isn't that what everyone gets out of the movies they watch?

August allows awful anger

I went to the library to go on facebook, as my thoughtful father has put up a firewall at home. Apparently my facebook account has been hacked and is currently disabled, although I fear that the "hacker" was really just me, trying to get in. Awesome. Freeking awesome.
I have nothing else to say right now. Want some pictures that were stolen from various places around the internet? Sure you do.Stuff like that makes me want to be an animator. It's like your whole job is just to draw things that make people happy.

Simply Satisfactory Substitute Saturday

I woke up really surprised to find myself alone, then got weird looks from old women standing in a driveway. It was awkward. Then I went home and took a shower and a nap and went to Quiz Bowl, then I went to Michael's and bought some balsa wood and Sharpies and then I went home and now I'm sitting at the computer drinking green tea. This is my life.
Did you know that it's cheaper to buy two ultra-fine Sharpies individually than as a two-pack? Why do you think that is?
Today seems to be going in the direction of a Saturday that actually happens to not be a Saturday. Also, I plan to go to the Flint Institute of Art and the King's on Wayne State's campus this Saturday. Or maybe Friday.
Yay for stalkers.
Hmm...You know what I thought of when I saw this post on Urban Sketchers? You should. And then I clicked around and found out that they had a symposium. My life is AP Euro. There should be a website like that, just like FML or TFLN or MLIHP or, heaven forbid, MLIT.
Does anyone want to to to the Flint Institute of Art with me? Pleasies? I want to see the Tiffany exhibit really bad. I saw the Chihuly* exhibit there, and it was freeking amazing.
Maybe I should be a glassblower if I grow up. Is there much of a market for blown glass furniture? When I designed the furniture in God's house in like...fifth grade, I believe that there was a glass chair. It could happen.
*I spelled that right on the first try. Be amazed.

Hotter than the Hinges of Hades

My great-grandmother said that about the weather today, and I thought it was perfect for Alliteration August.
Camp was fantastic. Whenever I get back home, I have this horrible feeling about the real world and the city where I live and I just wish that I could get out.
I don't want to go back to school.
I want to make furniture and make other people live with pretty things. Everyone should have the right to live with pretty things. I want to live with pretty things.
Or maybe I want to ditch the whole furniture thing and make books like this and other ones like this and just stack them up pretty and make people feel united with every other fifth grader who had to struggle through the exact same book and every other first grader who couldn't really read and every other twelfth grader who just wants to read books that make them happy, not books for school.
The concept of serializing is becoming more serious. Would you be interested in it? Would each chapter have to contain sufficent story on it's own? Would they have to be the kind of thing that can be read in a different order than it's written in?
I want to write books that fully imerse you in their world, that are the alternative to reality that everyone needs sometimes.
Does anyone know why there's only Southern Gothic? Why not Northern Gothic? Why not American Gothic?But not, you know, like that. I think it's problematic to put gothic fiction in a box, that's all. And make me feel horribly excluded because I've never lived in the South or had any real liking for the South and Southern things. For instance, Paula Dean.

Do not approve.