Interview.

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted last. Things have been a bit hectic. I successfully delivered my portfolio to Capilano on the 27th of April, and sure enough, May 3rd, I got my call for an interview at about 4pm. I was so thrilled to hear back on the Tuesday, because by 4pm I was strung out to bits, fearing that I just wouldn't get a call. 


I just got back, about fifteen or twenty minutes ago from Vancouver with my grandparents. I'll start my explanation with saying that we drove down yesterday, (Tuesday), and stayed at the Holiday Inn right around the corner from Capilano. It's a really nice hotel, however no matter how nice a hotel it is, it can't prevent my grandfather's snoring... I got a pretty bad sleep, which then felt even worse because Monday night, I fell asleep around 2:30, and woke up around 8. So this morning, I felt exhausted, and stiff. I wasn't feeling all that nervous though. I got to the university at 9:45, (my start time was 10) and Tamara (one of the nice ladies who helps coordinate the program) talked about seven of us through how today was going to work. It turned out that I had my life drawing first, then my interview, and lastly my writing test.


My life drawing turned out to be the thing I was most happy with. It was a simple arrangement, a single ornate blue vase, with flowers, a small blue jar complete with lid, and four various fruits. I had just under an hour to draw this, with willow charcoal (thank god!). I was worried that I would be given brick charcoal, which just happens to be the bane of my existence when it comes to still life. I felt like this part went really well, and I also really liked the instructor who was watching us. He reminded me of a nicer version of my current art teacher. Just before time was up, I handed mine in. Within five minutes, I realized that I hadn't completed the top of the jar. I was a bit upset about that, but overall I feel like it was a really strong drawing. 


After that, at 11, I had my interview. I walked into the room, and was greeted by two guys, Shawn and Matt. They are 3rd year and 2nd year teachers respectively. I feel that it went well, but that they were a little bit awkward, and that they didn't try to elaborate on any of the questions they were supposed to ask. They weren't interested in me, and what I had to say. I think this was more because they may not have been supposed to interview... But I'm not sure. Still, nothing went wrong, and they were satisfied with my answers. Afterwards, it turned out that another girl got Frank and Sheila, which frustrated me because they were two of the instructors at the information sessions. If I had had my interview with them, I think it would've been much more successful. 


The last part was the written tests. The first one was the creative thinking test, which I honestly think didn't go very well. I was nervous, and my mind just blanked. The first question was to come up with a 'creative, original, graphic' solution to three words without using words or numbers. The words were imprisoned, imaginary, and imperfect. For imprisoned I drew a pattern akin to a barcode, however not bars like a prison cell. For the second, imaginary, I drew a bunch of simple, cloudy swirls. And for the last one, I drew a curved surface with  a small knick in it. I really wasn't sure of how I could portray these things any better. I'm sure in the coming days, I'll figure out a million better solutions, but for now, that's all that I could think of. The second question was really confusing. You were supposed to come up with a creative solution and examples to situations where 1+1=3 (or more). I really had no idea. I was completely stuck. I desperately drew triplets, rain, and a tree. (Mom+dad=3 babies, cloud+water= rain/thunderstorm, seed+ground= tree) As I said, desperate attempts. The last question was also frustrating. there were six half-circles, and you were told to complete them by drawing something with each that made either a central theme or a set, and to label them. I did one of the lamest things possible: I did the sunrise, sun, sunset, and moon. I really don't know why. I had some other ideas that were less lame, but would've taken up too much time as we only had 20 minutes. After that test, I felt like crying. I was really worried. Then I realized that that test was a fairly small chunk of marks. After that, there was a grammar/essay section that was timed at 40 minutes. I was relieved at that, because I whizzed through the grammar no problem, and then wrote around six hundred words in half an hour. I felt happy with that part. Then, I was done! 


I felt like the whole thing just whipped past my face, I don't feel like it really happened. I was so tired, I tried to nap in the car many times... Now that I'm home, reflecting on it, I'm not sure how it'll go. Although some parts went really well, other things I don't think I can accurately judge. All I can do is wait for Monday, and hope that my phone rings. It's a scary thought. I warn the people that will be around me that I will be an utter mess, all day. Also, I'd like to apologize if some of this doesn't make any sense... I'm really not all here right now. I can't wait to sleep and go to bed tonight. Tomorrow will bring me one day closer to knowing.

Scared.

Two days.
That's all that I have left between me and the deadline for my portfolio. I'm scared. Whenever I come close to an important, art related deadline I tend to start back-peddling because I'm scared of being judged. This is something so important, I'm scared to have failed.


Overall, I am unhappy with my portfolio. There are some strong pieces, and lots of pieces that I personally am unhappy with. Looking back, I wish that I didn't force myself to do things I didn't want to, because now some of my pieces are lacking, and others look better because they;re things that I actually enjoy doing.


I'm really not sure how I'll take rejection, if that happens. Of course, I'll reapply next year, and stay here for a year and work (which would actually be a better idea), but staying in Kelowna would suck my love for art dry. There's no art culture here. I felt so inspired in Vancouver, yet here I have to push myself to do what I love. 


I'm terrified of what the next few weeks will bring.

13 days.

Today marks the 13th day in my countdown before I must hand my portfolio in. I've getting really nervous. My self doubt has overshadowed my confidence, and I feel almost helpless because I'm so far behind. I'm worried that my portfolio won't have enough pieces in it, and that I'll be rejected. I've put my all into what I've done, and now I can really do nothing to change my artist decisions and directions. I can only hope that Capilano will decide that I am what they want, and that I can do what they ask of me. 

If I am lucky enough to receive an interview, I think that I will be accepted. Because although a portfolio speaks volumes about the person, sometimes they have to meet you, ask you questions, and see how well you perform under pressure. I think that that may be the deciding factor behind my possible acceptance- that I want this more than anything, and that I will do what it takes to be there in September.

sick.

I haven't posted in so long. I've been so busy that I've gotten out of the habit of writing on here. Also, after my last blog post I wasn't quite sure what to say. Sometimes when you write something that has an impact on others, you get scared of writing something else because it won't be as prominent.


I've done so much lately, but sadly I'm still behind in my schedule for my portfolio. I really only have about three and a half weeks left, which is terrifying. I'm not close to being done everything. There is so much going on in my life I've been feeling incredibly overwhelmed. So, of course, I get sick. Sometimes I work myself to this point of being susceptible to illness. Sadly, even though I feel like crap I still need to work.


I've promised myself that after spring break is done, that I will photograph all of my current work and post it for everyones input. I'm nervous because I don't know what everyone will think of my stuff, especially since it's all tailored to my portfolio, and virtually none of it is the style I'd really like to work in. Powering through all of this work is proving challenging. I feel bad for Peter sometimes because he has to deal with my frustrations constantly. I'm always doubting myself, no matter the quality I produce.


Anyways. I just wanted to start posting again. I know I'll post more frequently when my portfolio is done, but until then, I'll post when I can.

little bits.

Tonight I was watching some of my boyfriend's families home videos. They were short little clips from 2001, and they were all of Christmas of that year. In them, there were snippets of a grandfather who had passed away before I'd come into the picture. It was an odd thing to see, in a pulling-on-the-heartstrings sort of way. I saw little bits of a man who influenced the life of someone I love in inalterable ways. Ever since I had heard of 'Grandad' (What the family called him), I really regretted never getting the chance to meet him. He loved to paint, and built the coolest toys out of wood for his grandchildren. There are still quite a few of these planes and boats in Peter's (my boyfriend's) room. Things like these, little bits of someone's life who is now no longer here, make me incredibly sad. As I watched these tiny clips of video (as the early 2000's couldn't do long clips) I was able to see tiny things that Grandad did. I saw him strolling on a dock with the rest of his family, one of his old film cameras hanging from his neck. The clip is only about 7 seconds long, but just seeing how he took things in, walked around, interacted with his family... Its a bittersweet thing to watch. Almost two years ago I started dating Peter, and the first time that he talked about his Grandad I realized how much this man meant to him, and still means to him. Ever since that day I've been taking in little bits of information about this man to try to piecemeal my way to understanding what he was like. Sadly I'll never truly know everything because I will never get to meet him. But seeing the videos of him just doing the simplest of things helped me understand just a little more.  


I wish that my parents had documented my childhood more. There were lots of pictures of me from birth to about three. After that, pictures of me became few and far between. There's no video of me, but there were some tape recordings that my dad and I unearthed years ago- sadly those most likely were thrown out. They were nothing special, I had only gotten ahold of a microphone and I was just babbling away about nonsense and pancakes. But that tape was extremely important to me, because it was from a time where life seemed so easy. It was most likely less than a year before my dad declared bankruptcy, and I would've been no older than four years old. But at that moment, I was so happy and I had no worries. I miss those times. Obviously you can't go back to that once you know the things you do, but there are days where I wish I could look back at my childhood, and everything would be documented. There are so many holes in the time periods between pictures. My mother, when I was born, bought a baby book for me and never wrote in it. I don't blame her, it's hard to raise a child. But now, when I ask her things like what my first word was or when I first learned to walk, she can't answer me. She tells me, "Your first word was something like 'Dada' or 'Mama'. Something really typical like that." That's something that I will never know now for sure. All of my infancy nothing besides pictures were recorded, and now all of that information is lost. Peter is so lucky that his mom thought that that information was important, because now we will always remember things like that Peter went through a phase where he wouldn't believe anything anyone told him. He knows his first words, when he learned to walk, and what he did for the first 12 months of his life. I wish I could've known things like that about myself. When I have kids one day, I'll do that for them. I'll take boxes and boxes of pictures and keep small things and put everything all together so that when they grow up, they'll be able to reconnect with their childhood. 


These tiny little pieces of information are so valuable, and sometimes they are the only things that we have left of the people that are gone. Things like a twenty second video of Grandad basting a turkey or Peter talking about guinea pigs... Those are things that allow people to remember the small things forever. Memories fade so quickly, but these little bits can last a lifetime.

$

Sorry for the lack of update for the past few days. Even though I know that no one really reads this, I can't let myself stop posting. Otherwise I'll get back into my non-existant routine of... Not doing anything.


Money. It's a pretty powerful thing. And right now, I have none. It's a frustrating situation to be in. I really want to get a job, but all of the work I do on my portfolio along with my school work makes it near impossible to really get a job and make money. And, because I'm working on my portfolio, I can't take on any commissions. I can't think of anything else I could do besides try to sell my crap that really isn't worth much or interesting to anyone.


I've also been really unmotivated. After finishing my big piece, I'm just so tired and I really don't want to touch anything art-related. I just want to relax, sleep, an hang out with my friends. I kind of miss being a normal teenager. Because of how much work I have, it's hard to maintain everything. There's this picture that exists on the internet that most modern-day students know about. It's a triangle with one thing in each corner: Sleep, Good Grades, and Social Life are the choices. Above the triangle it says, 'You can only pick two.' For me, sadly, I've picked Good Grades and Sleep. However, there's this invisible, nagging choice that many don't have to deal with: a Portfolio. It's extremely time consuming, exhausting, and drains you of almost every creative and non-creative juices from your body. The physical Portfolio itself just sits there passively in the corner, silently saying, "I should be filled with amazing creations... Why haven't you created anything?" I feel guilty because of my laziness. I know that my wisdom teeth set me back a little, but now I just want to relax and sleep and not worry about my portfolio. It's a bad cycle I've gotten myself into, and now I regret doing so. This week I need to get my Art Nouveau piece done. No more hesitation. It's not exactly a hard thing to do, and I am really excited to work with gouache and watercolour and acrylic ink, but I'm just a slow starter. 


I also need to take pictures of all of my pieces I have currently done and post them to my deviantart. Once done, I'll connect my deviantart to here for all to see. 


Anyways, I'm going to think about what I should do this week, and then I'll post a list to remind myself. :)

Gouache.

I just got a starter set of Gouache yesterday. I've never used it before, but it looks like a fantastic medium to work with. I'll hopefully post some of my experiments with the medium soon. :)


Yesterday Alex Fong came into our art class to giv us a demonstration. I was really excited for it because he's a fantastic watercolour artist and some of the stuff he does is really cool. Watercolour is a medium that I'm not particularly good at but I love the way it looks and the texture you can create with it. I've never had the patience or forgiving nature to deal with watercolour, I always want to be able to perfect the outcome and create exactly what I envision. Alex's techniques were really interesting, I loved his palette that he used, he left all of his colour dried on it to allow it to meld with eer other colour. He explained something that I have always known, but never put into use. Colours in real life are never vibrant. They always have some sort of greyish tinge to them. If you were to try to purposely mix a certain colour, even if you were to try to add some sort of grey to it it would simply look unnatural. 
Why? Because most greys are made up of other colours blending together. I was really inspired by Alex's palettes and decided to get one of my own. I'm going to play around with watercolour and gouache this week to try to get some sort of handle on the techniques in watercolour. 


Currently I'm at the college relaxing because in about half an hour I get to go sand and paint the bag of my big piece and put some supports onto the back of it. Hopefully, when Greedy takes it to the art gallery tomorrow he'll be able to convince Renee to hang my piece in the main room and not in some secluded area. I'm worried about the specific area that they want to hang it, it will bleach the wood and wreck the piece altogether. It'll be something to think about for sure.