Knights, pineapples and skate parks?

I recently finished a semester of a beginning drawing class. In short, it was tough. No, it was insane (workload-wise), and it made me seriously consider never taking another art class in college again, but I learned a lot.

I want to emphasize that for a moment because being self-taught for so long made it easy for me to think taking a beginning level class might be redundant, boring and less than useful. That wasn't the case at all for the information presented in class. It was mostly just the nature of the teacher's assignments to be tedious and sometimes redundant within themselves that annoyed me and my own cursed perfectionism that stressed me out. I'm going to give Beginning Painting a try with a different (and hopefully more reasonable) teacher in the spring before I decide if I'll continue working toward an art minor.

I'll start with my midterm assignment since nothing before it was all that interesting in comparison. We had to set up "a complicated still life" in our dorm rooms to draw, 18" x 24", in charcoal. Other requirements included something about repetition of shapes and a line inset drawing that I'm not thrilled about/is not really my style so go ahead and ignore that part.

I don't normally keep a lot of stuff at school that isn't needed, but luckily I had a chance to go home right before the set ups were due and brought a box full of interesting-to-draw-type objects back. The things that made it into the final composition are a wooden box, a couple pewter knights, a pewter cup I bought in Ireland, a chess set, some horse bits and a Hawaiian sarong.

It ended up a lot more detailed than I'd originally intended, so you could say that, for this assignment at least, much of the insanity was self-inflicted.

After that I was burned out for a while and not at all interested in more long, tedious drawing assignments. Especially not another still life. I hate drawing still lifes in general but still lifes of fruit in particular....I think this drawing from early in the semester when I had to draw a bunch of pears expresses my feelings on that subject well enough.

But back to the pineapples. We had until they rotted to finish drawing them using a technical pen. If we stippled the whole thing (dot after dot after dot without ever using a line), we could cut the paper in half. I was all for making it the smallest I could and finishing as quickly as possible after that midterm assignment so that's the option I took. There are two pineapples in it: the leaves belong to a closer one, while the pineapple behind was sitting on a block that raised it higher.

I don't care for it too much personally, partially because my mind wasn't really in it, partly because ink doesn't have the same "life" for me as things that are meant to smear do. But my teacher loved it. She said I could sell it. I asked if she wanted to buy it. That didn't work.

Several assignments later came the final project: a series of two or three drawings (adding up to a certain size) that could be either still life or landscape. I preferred the latter, I just needed to decide what to draw.

I'd also been taking a skateboarding class this semester for a P.E. credit. Through that, the local skate park has become one of my favorite places in the world. I decided it was the most likely place to have interesting shapes to draw for my project.

In typical Pacific Northwest style, it rained all week. Small inconvenience to me when the alternative is a still life. Armed with a camera, an umbrella and a pad of cheap paper, I set about finding three places I wanted to draw from then went to work sketching as much as I could before a sudden downpour forced me to pack up and move under cover.

The whole experience was a very relaxing way to start off my finals week. The park was quiet and for most of the time I was there it only rained lightly off and on. At one point a man came walking down the path in the picture above, talking on a cell phone. It was one of those moments I really wished I could know what he was thinking as he watched me, sitting alone that rainy morning on wet pavement in a skate park, while what I was doing was completely hidden from his view by the umbrella.

Back on campus, I transferred my sketches to good paper and finished one a day in charcoal, referencing photos I'd taken at the park as needed.

This was the first project since the midterm that I was really excited about, and more specifically it was the only assignment I was excited about drawing, since my enthusiasm about the midterm was more about how well it turned out once I'd finally finished it. One downside is that I still can't stop seeing wet pavement everywhere I go.

Summer's end

Well I haven't posted in a while. Too much going on I suppose. I'm currently finishing up the second week of my second year of college classes. My summer was...long and kind of hard to sum up but I'm going to try.

Some highlights: a Christian music festival, two trail rides, three weddings, and a last minute, four-day gold mining trip (which I might write about later).

I also worked on three paintings but so far only finished one of them:

This one was my wedding gift to my sister, who got married in July. I based it off of one of her engagement photos. With it being both the largest painting I've ever done (18x24") and also my first attempt at painting people, it was by far the most ambitious project I've ever taken on and finished. I think more than anything it else it taught me about the importance of taking my time.

I originally tried to finish it in the two days I had before my sister came home from school when I would have to start hiding the fact that I was working on something. Predictably, two (though very long and intense) days was nowhere near enough time. I managed to finish most of the water and the dock in the background.

Next I tried for one week. There was a bridal shower being put on by our aunts in Oregon so there'd be a lot of family there who don't often get to see my artwork. After one week I had everything except the people done. It looked cool, but it wasn't ready to be given away.

So I tried for two weeks. There was a final bridal shower at my church that made a nice deadline. I got very close to finishing it that week, but then I got really sick and wasn't feeling up to doing much of anything for a while. I still had details on the faces and hair to finish up, was getting tired of working on it and probably needed the mental break in order to a good job anyway. Being a perfectionist can get exhausting.

I finally got it all put together and framed three weeks from the day I started. It looks really nice in its frame but unfortunately I haven't gotten a chance to visit their new home and see it up on the wall yet.

Reviewing Bree Tanner

If you haven't already, I encourage you to read part one of this review of The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, which tells a bit about where I'm coming from in writing this post.

These are my thoughts on the book:

I. The ending
I didn't understand the ending of this book when I read it. I assume this is because I haven't read the series. For me it's hard to like a book when the ending is so...incomplete on its own. From the title I could only assume that Bree was killed in the end. From just reading this book on its own, it's left a little ambiguous and I didn't know for sure until I looked it up online.

II. The vampires
I hate vampires. Like I said before, this is the first book I've ever read with vampires playing a major role. Reading from one's point of view is disturbing to me, especially all the human hunting. A certain fascination with evil is the only reason I can come up with for people enjoying it. I'm not entirely against dark books--horror, supernatural, dark fantasy--I often like them, but in small doses. So however interesting being inside Bree's head can be, it's not a place I want to dwell for very long and I'm glad this book was short.

III. The romance
The romance wasn't too bad if you ignore the fact that the characters are all bloodthirsty vampires. I don't think this book was meant to be heavily romantic so what's included is fairly light. Like it's only there to satisfy the expectations of Meyer's fan base. What bothers me a bit is that the relationship between Bree and Diego is very quick in developing. Maybe that's the norm for romance fiction, but this book takes it to the extreme. If we're talking about realism though, since when do people fall in love with each other at the exact same time? Right after they meet each other? Not to mention if a guy tried to kiss me the day I first met him I'd probably slap him (at the very least).

What I noticed about Diego is that, unlike some male characters in romantic novels I've read, he's likable. He's willing to think for himself and blood isn't the first thing on his mind. But the more I thought about why he's likable, the more I realized it's because he doesn't have a very distinct personality. He's nice and he has a brain. From Bree's point of view he has no flaws except perhaps his trust of Riley. That could describe any girl's dream guy in the most general terms possible, but if that's all there is to him...how boring for a character. It makes Bree's love for him more unrealistic because it shows that she barely knows him.

IV. The writing
It wasn't as bad as I expected. In this book I didn't notice the kinds of glaring mistakes people have told me exist in Twilight. I assume this means Meyer is improving as she writes more books and this is a good thing.

For the most part the story flows well enough and the pace is good. There were a couple spots where I was a little confused because the narrative seemed to jump just a little or wasn't super clear about what was happening but not too bad. It took me a little while to figure out what a "coven" was, and you'll notice I replaced it with the word "pack" in my synopsis figuring I wouldn't be the only one in the dark about occult terminology like that. And of course there are a few cringe-worthy lines and lots of eye-rolling moments I'm sure you can find by reading the Amazon reviews.

One thing I can compliment Meyer on is her consistency in locking into one point of view for the whole book. (That's one more thing to keep in mind while reading this review: I only have Bree's point of view on the Twilight Saga and Bree doesn't understand much of it either.)

V. Short and simple: did I like it?
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is not brilliant. It's already slipping out of my memory. I think it comes down to the somewhat generic characters. They're good enough to carry a short story line like this, but not unique enough to leave a lasting impression. If the book wasn't about vampires I might have liked it, but the whole thing revolves around a form of unrestrained vampirism that I cannot enjoy. Also, it doesn't stand on its own very well and to fully understand it requires some research into the rest of Meyer's world.

VI. Waste of time or is there something to be learned from it?
First impression: nothing more than an entertaining story. An easy read. Nothing that forces the reader to think very hard. But this book has been on my mind a lot as I write this review and I've realized that it does have a message. And I don't like that message.

What Meyer's done is create a cast of evil vampires and then try to separate them into protagonists and antagonists. I have to commend Meyer for making me sympathize with Bree's situation, despite her being a viscous, bloodthirsty vampire, but I'm not rooting for her as she kills human after human to satisfy her thirst. Conversely, Meyer holds back on making the antagonists distinctly more evil than the protagonists. Instead, every action stems from self-preservation. Thus Bree kills humans, Victoria creates vampires, Riley lies, the Cullens kill Bree. And that's the message this book sends: all these things are perfectly okay as long as they keep me alive. If every character lives by the same rule, whose side am I supposed to be on?

People say the Cullens are "good" vampires but I think the ending of this book kills that argument. Bree kills humans because it's the only way she knows to stay alive. Upon meeting the Cullens she genuinely tries to restrain herself, if only because the Cullens say they'll kill her if she doesn't. And then the Cullens kill her anyway to save themselves from the Volturi. They effectively squash any possibility of redemption for Bree that the rest of the book might have set up.

I think the lack of contrast between Meyer's relatively "good" characters and relatively "evil" characters weakens the story. As a reader, I want to invest sympathy in one side. I want a reason to care about what happens to the protagonist. Instead what emerges from it all is an egocentric, self-serving worldview I strongly disagree with.