getting back into the groove

My creation in Textiles (before I trimmed the loose threads). Get the full effect of the textures and colours.

What We do in Art School (I have no idea who drew that, but this was for an assignment about camera obscuras last semester)

Both of the above photos were taken at NBCCD this afternoon.

Once again I'm waaaay behind. But not a whole lot happened over Christmas break: I slept in; listened to the Met (turns out, I love Richard Strauss--Elektra, which involved the entire MOO, just about knocked me off my feet; and I'd forgotten how beautiful Hansel ünd Gretel is--I must get a recording of it at some point); stayed up late on Christmas Eve; woke up early on Christmas Day; opened presents (I got Metropolitan Opera Brass and cannot even begin to describe how beautiful the MOO's French horn section is in the Hunters' Chorus from Der Freischütz); read; laughed with Mom and Tom; cuddled cats; enjoyed the fire; binged on music (MOO's horn section, Green Day--I also got 21st Century Breakdown--the epitome of non-Classical cool--and André Rieu); watched movies; fumbled and stumbled my way through almost the entire first act of The Nutcracker (not just the March, though that's where I started) while the BSO played it in Bangor; and slept in some more. Not necessarily in that order.

I thoroughly enjoyed my break, and it took almost the entire three weeks to recuperate from the past three months (I'm not surprised--last semester was intense).

This past week I started the second semester, which, from what I've heard, won't be as brutal as last semester. The schedule's more balanced, too (starting with the fact that on Tuesdays I don't have class until one--and the most classes I have per day is two).

Tomorrow, Lisa (who also lives at MJC) and I are going to see Avatar at the Empire Theatre (where I saw Turandot in November). This will be my first 3D movie and although I'm a little nervous, I've been told by just about everyone I know that I must see this movie.

A couple of NBCCD/Avatar-related bits: during my Colour Theory class on Wednesday afternoon, Jen included the poster in her slideshow and talked about how colour was used (blue face/yellow eye) and how it works.

Next week we'll make colour wheels--something I haven't done in years, but that's one of the most basic things out there, like port de bras in ballet or scales in music.

In Textiles (which is one of my Media Explorations this semester) we had to pick out a magazine image that had a colour scheme that we liked from one of the bins. As it turned out, the image that I picked had the same colour scheme as the Avatar poster. Subconscious pick? We then used the colours in that image as the base for weaving (see photo titled textiles, above). I got so into the weaving that I stayed after school (my class ended at four) and kept working on my weaving (a.k.a. homework, which we could come in and work on any time between then and Friday) until I had the required twenty-four (thin yarn, which is mostly what I used) to thirty-six (thick yarn) inches. Once I hit the twenty-four-inch mark I wove a few more rows (making it slightly longer than twenty-four inches) and then chose a colour that wasn't in my colour palette and wove a few rows of that.

Six-and-a-half hours. Done.