Flagstone Cascade
Summer!
This summer, I decided to stay in Albuquerque and live on-campus. It's not too expensive, but the cafeteria is being stupid with its hours. My refrigerator recently gave out, so I've been without a particularly reliable source of food for a week. Luckily, I also got a mild case of food poisoning at the beginning of the week. Ugh!
Anyways! I'm taking a class this Summer called Psychogeography. I thought it would be something like a landscape drawing and painting course, but it turns out to be a bit odd. We travel to various locations around Albuquerque and New Mexico, trying to see new things and take inspirations from it. Landscapes, cultures, atmospheres... it's really an idea-generating class. In terms of actual art to be done, well, that's kind of nebulous.
Nebulous... I've grown fond of that term. In the first place, it instantly brings to mind the idea of a cosmic nursery. In the second place, like nebulae, it has a definite "middle", a certain quality of "being", but the beginning and end are rather wispy and undefined.
Similar to Professor Cook's class, the assignments are kind difficult to actually know what to do with. I wonder if it's more because I want a definite set of parameters, rather than "be inspired by and do". Art versus illustration again?
Not for lack of things to do, though. For the first three weeks of summer, I had no classes and nothing but free time. Although my sleeping schedule got fscked to all hell, I felt I was really enjoying it. I got into a good rhythm of working out, getting art done, and messing with some video games. I would work on art at night, over extended hours, listening to Keith Olbermann.
Lately, I've been playing Sonic and the Secret Rings, trying to earn all gold medals. Normally, I don't care to finish the "perfect run" extra missions in games, but those fiends at Sonic Team know my weakness! They made concept art an unlockable item, and one gold medal equals one concept document. Damn...
Oh yeah, and Sonic and the Black Knight sucks. Being an avid Sonic fan, I am aware that people might say his games have sucked for awhile, but each one had some redeeming qualities. Black Knight is uninspired, the mechanics of the game are flawed and confusing, there are no real tutorials or explanations of new characters or skills, and the enemies aren't particularly interesting. The worlds are pretty awesome, and the soundtrack is OK, but I think Secret Rings and its middle-eastern theme were much better executed.
I've also been playing Braid and StarCraft. Braid... is a beautiful brainfuck, and I would encourage anyone who has an interest in games to try it. I suck at StarCraft, probably irredeemably. I'll catch the wave when StarCraft II comes out. At least then everyone will be a n00b right alongside me. Sort of the way Brawl picked up a lot of players who were too far behind to catch up in Melee.
So... yeah. General update post. Getting on with life...
Oh yeah, they're bringing an end to the Ultimate series in Marvel. I think that's an idiotic move, since the Ultimate universe brought in reimagined, modernized versions of beloved Marvel superheroes without being tied up by all the annoying retcons and convoluted storylines of the main series. Furthermore, the writers made more of an attempt to have things make sense. Venom was a cure for cancer gone awry, Galactus was a collective mind bent on strip mining the hell out any suitable planet. Magic and ex-machina was rationalized, and character deaths (and their inevitable resurrections) were rare.
Just goes to show what happens when the editors and CEOS supercede writers. Speaking of which...
This summer, I decided to stay in Albuquerque and live on-campus. It's not too expensive, but the cafeteria is being stupid with its hours. My refrigerator recently gave out, so I've been without a particularly reliable source of food for a week. Luckily, I also got a mild case of food poisoning at the beginning of the week. Ugh!
Anyways! I'm taking a class this Summer called Psychogeography. I thought it would be something like a landscape drawing and painting course, but it turns out to be a bit odd. We travel to various locations around Albuquerque and New Mexico, trying to see new things and take inspirations from it. Landscapes, cultures, atmospheres... it's really an idea-generating class. In terms of actual art to be done, well, that's kind of nebulous.
Nebulous... I've grown fond of that term. In the first place, it instantly brings to mind the idea of a cosmic nursery. In the second place, like nebulae, it has a definite "middle", a certain quality of "being", but the beginning and end are rather wispy and undefined.
Similar to Professor Cook's class, the assignments are kind difficult to actually know what to do with. I wonder if it's more because I want a definite set of parameters, rather than "be inspired by and do". Art versus illustration again?
Not for lack of things to do, though. For the first three weeks of summer, I had no classes and nothing but free time. Although my sleeping schedule got fscked to all hell, I felt I was really enjoying it. I got into a good rhythm of working out, getting art done, and messing with some video games. I would work on art at night, over extended hours, listening to Keith Olbermann.
Lately, I've been playing Sonic and the Secret Rings, trying to earn all gold medals. Normally, I don't care to finish the "perfect run" extra missions in games, but those fiends at Sonic Team know my weakness! They made concept art an unlockable item, and one gold medal equals one concept document. Damn...
Oh yeah, and Sonic and the Black Knight sucks. Being an avid Sonic fan, I am aware that people might say his games have sucked for awhile, but each one had some redeeming qualities. Black Knight is uninspired, the mechanics of the game are flawed and confusing, there are no real tutorials or explanations of new characters or skills, and the enemies aren't particularly interesting. The worlds are pretty awesome, and the soundtrack is OK, but I think Secret Rings and its middle-eastern theme were much better executed.
I've also been playing Braid and StarCraft. Braid... is a beautiful brainfuck, and I would encourage anyone who has an interest in games to try it. I suck at StarCraft, probably irredeemably. I'll catch the wave when StarCraft II comes out. At least then everyone will be a n00b right alongside me. Sort of the way Brawl picked up a lot of players who were too far behind to catch up in Melee.
So... yeah. General update post. Getting on with life...
Oh yeah, they're bringing an end to the Ultimate series in Marvel. I think that's an idiotic move, since the Ultimate universe brought in reimagined, modernized versions of beloved Marvel superheroes without being tied up by all the annoying retcons and convoluted storylines of the main series. Furthermore, the writers made more of an attempt to have things make sense. Venom was a cure for cancer gone awry, Galactus was a collective mind bent on strip mining the hell out any suitable planet. Magic and ex-machina was rationalized, and character deaths (and their inevitable resurrections) were rare.
Just goes to show what happens when the editors and CEOS supercede writers. Speaking of which...