My life has been a little crazy the last month and a half: I graduated from college, moved to Milwaukee, took my first art class, found a job, talked people into being my friends… Oh I raced my mountain bike in there, too. And I guess I’ve been trying to ride more, read more, cook more. I’ve been busy.
I’ve actually missed the internet and blogging. So I’ve decided to come back.
I KNOW Y’ALL MISSED ME.
Tomorrow marks the last day of my (first) undergraduate career. That’s crazy. This semester has been pretty easy, and to top it off I don’t have any finals. I know, I’m lucky. But I also have at lease 3 more years of this… so…
Anyway, I’ve decided on a goal for 2012!
I found this list of the top 100 Must-Read Classics. My goal is to finish the top 50 by the end of the year. It’s a big goal, but I’ve read a number of them already… Though with school, maybe I should aim for this time next year.
Alright. By May of 2013 I want to finish all these books:
A lot of the ones I have crossed out were read so long ago that I hardly remember them at all. I’d like to reread them, though they won’t be a priority.
Anyway, I think it’d be fun.
PS I move to Milwaukee in 2 weeks and 2 days. AH. I start summer school the last week of May. DRAWING 1 and YOGA YAY!
I hate how stupid my bedroom looks. I want it to look like a real person lives there. I do think it accurately reflects what it’s like inside my brain, but I’d rather it showcase my taste, not my crazy.
It’s bright and disorganized, spazzy and random. Like me. I don’t like it.
I’ve made efforts over the last few months to change it: browsing thrift stores and checking out DIY blogs and their ideas. Recently, I stumbled across someone who took burlap coffee bags and used them to cover cork bulletin boards. I happened to have both burlap sacks and a couple of bulletin boards lying around, so it was pretty convenient. Plus I got to use a staple gun and that was really gratifying.
I would show a picture of them on my wall, but then you’d also see the random tapestry, the cardboard coyote named Stuart. It’s better just to avoid that bit.
Lately I’ve been trying to work my way through those books that English majors are required to read in college. The last two months I devoted to Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and just this morning I finished The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.
I did really like Jane Eyre, but, as is the style of 19th century British literature, it moved really slowly. Not to mention each of the nearly 530 pages packed as many words as it could manage… It took me over two months to read one book. To be specific, it took me two months to read 200 pages. I then had a surge of motivation this week and averaged 100 pages per night, finishing this past Wednesday.
Then I picked up The Old Man and the Sea. I had checked it out of the public library a few weeks ago, and since it’s due back early next week, I decided to crank it out. The writing style starkly contrasts that of Bronte, but that’s Hemingway.
But here’s the point of this post: I find it really interesting that a lot of artists spend their free time creating their own visual interpretations of books they love. I’ve seen it quite a bit on designers personal blogs. They take their favorite TV Shows, movies, albums and books and create their own versions of cover art.
Dutch artist Marcel Schindler, with the help of Hagen Reiling, created a short, stop-motion film of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set to Sail by Awolnation.
I think this short film does a great job of brining this book to life. I don’t think it quite captures the struggle between the Old Man and the fish, but that’s really my only criticism. What I’m trying to say is this video is really cool, the artist is really good at drawing, and it’s really interesting.. so you should all watch it.
Apparently I’m really stupid.
I’m fine with the whole thing, but each time I’m reminded of my mental shortcomings I get a little bummed out.
Anyway, I thought Earth Day was 4/20, sharing its holiday with the pot smokers of the world. Then, on Saturday, 4/21, my boss volunteered for Earth Day. I was all, “Oh, got it wrong. Whatevs.” Then on Sunday, all the internet was amuck with Earth Day-ness.
So while I’m still unsure which day is actually Earth Day, I threw this together in approximately four minutes and twenty-odd seconds:
And at this point I refuse to look it up.
Would you look at those earthy colors? And all that helvetica? Dang. So stylish.
I am filled with self-loathing.
1. Be super unproductive. I recommend sitting on campus eating chips and cottage cheese while watching Battlestar Galactica on Netflix. Consider taking an unflattering picture of yourself in the process!
2. Post on social media that you need motivation.
3. Receive a response from a friend requesting design work in exchange for “$$$”
4. Don’t do what they requested, and instead take a picture of them and create something that has the potential to be sassy.
Original photo:
Illustration with sassy potential:
5. Text a friend asking for sassy ideas. When he requests the addition of a lion’s mane, accidentally create a viking.
6. Post it on ALL THE SOCIAL MEDIA! You can even write a blog post about it!
The end! Congratulations! You have successfully wasted a few hours of your life!
I hope you are now filled with self-loathing and regret, with a dash of accomplishment and self-worth!
Cheers! 
Jenny
I have spent a LOT of hours these past couple of months into finding interesting and noteworthy designers across the Internet. While I should be spending a hefty portion of this time looking for tutorials to attempt and post, I generally get distracted by pretty illustrations, Thought Catalog, more pretty illustrations, photography blogs, twitter and tumblr… I don’t know. I can sit and peruse the internet for hours it seems. And that’s what I’ve been doing, of late.
There is one blog, however, that I consistently revisit, read, and follow: Abduzeedo.
Fabio Sasso, the brains behind the blog, is a Brazilian visual designer for Google out of Mountain View, California. What I’m saying is, this guy knows what he’s doing. And he’s really good at it.
I came across one of his articles entitled, “Design Process: Starting a Design Project”. In first paragraph, Sasso writes, “Software is just a step in the design process, important, but without a good foundation and design principles, you won’t be able to translate a good idea into a cohesive design… even if you are a master of Illustrator, Photoshop or any other software. ”
I like this a lot. I use these tutorials to hone my skills in the programs, something I simply need to learn how to do. School will help, but I want to be good at this, and it’s going to take a lot of hours to get there.
They say you need to commit 10,000 hours to something before you become an expert, right?
But there’s a big portion of design that my tutorials won’t teach, and I guess that is design. I’m new to this world and it’s going to take a long time before I’ll be good at it. I play around with type and illustrations quite a bit on my own, but I’m apprehensive to post them on this blog. I know they’re bad and I’m embarrassed to have people look at them. But the hours I put into it now will get me somewhere in the future. Once I am surer of my ‘work’ (I can’t even describe it without the quote) I’ll post more. Until then, this blog will consist of rants and rambles, inspiration and interesting works done by people who know what they’re doing.
I’ll get there. It’s just going to take time.
Until then, I’m going to play this on repeat.
Thanks Ira Glass, host and creator of This American Life out of WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, and filmmaker David Shiyang Liu, for this video.
