Drawing of the Day: Jane Eyre

I was given the movie Jane Eyre on my birthday by my grandma Marilyn. I never got around to watch it until, today, when I wanted to watch something new and romantic. I'm not going to go into how I liked the film, I'll save that for another post. I will say that while I was watching it I was inspired by her drawings and decided I wanted to draw a nice face myself. I would have done a self portrait, but that would have meant looking away from the screen at a mirror, so, I decided to draw her instead. Of course, it doesn't look exactly like her, but I think it will do. I guess it just feels rather like her. I like the way it turned out, it still had my style, but it felt a little more realistic as well. This drawing I suppose is all thanks to Marilyn Neuhart. If not for your gift, I would never have watched the amazing film, and thus I would have never been able to draw this portrait. This is my Jane Eyre. The girl who started out with so little, and ended up with so much.

Drawing of the Day: Napoleon

I've haven't been drawing much lately so I decided to put something older up today. I did this during school in my black and white drawing class. It is a copy of Napoleon by David. It's one of my favorite pieces of art. I saw it once and it was absolutely amazing. 

This drawing took me around four weeks; we had two, hour and a half classes a week. It is still a long period of time on one piece, especially for me. It was extremely hard. I couldn't erase the black pencil, so I had to make sure I did everything right the first time. I'm not used to drawing so big. Most of my work is in a little sketch book or on a regular piece of paper, this was on a paper two and a half times as big. I am really happy with the way it turned out. It was my favorite drawing I did in that class, and I did some nice ones. When I look at my Napoleon I feel accomplished and happy. I love it when I do something that is really really good. It is like the sun shone upon you for a few minutes. Just long enough to complete something special. 

A Lovely Day For a Photo-Shoot

A couple of weeks ago My and I went to spend the night at our friend Mary's house. She had a class at her school the next morning and we decided that during that time we would take a bunch of pictures on her campus. It would be like a little photo-shoot. She picked something for me to wear and I did the same for her. The campus of Campbell Hall is nice, it's not forest or very grassy, but it is still nice. It is very spread out and has lots of trees. If I didn't know it, I might think it was a bunch of apartment buildings. We walked with Mary to her class then set off on an adventure of our own. Since we had only been there once before we had to find good places to shoot. Places that were pretty and didn't have any kids taking summer classes. At first it was hard, but we soon found a nice spot. We wanted to have a school sort of feel, so we brought along my Pendragon book and two pairs of glasses. Unfortunately, we forgot one pair in the car so we had to use Mary's, which worked, but were not as good as the other ones. We had a ton of fun and got some good pictures! All the pictures of me were taken by My and all the pictures of her were taken by me. I can't wait to do something like it again!

Drawing of the Day: Birthday Card

I did this for my uncle Andrew's birthday which is tomorrow, July 13th. I had done something like it a while ago which turned out really nice and I really liked the idea. The drawing takes my doodle-like swirls and brings them a little closer to reality. They are still very symbolic and conceptual, but they also seem to be more solid. Anyways, it's simple, but unique. Looking at it now, I could say that maybe it represents speaking your mind. For somewhere in your words there will be pearls of wisdom. 

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Drawing/Story of the Day: The Golden Key

When I was little, my mom read me a story called the Golden Key. It was a really neat tale and as I grew up it stayed with me. I always loved it. It told the story of this two children. One finds a golden key at the end of the rainbow and journeys to a different realm in which he meats a girl named Mossy. I can't remember to much about the story, just how much I loved it. Maybe I will read it again some day.

One day I heard about a contest that Waterstones Books was holding where you could write a short story and it might be published in a book alongside JK Rowling, Neil Gaiman and many others. I wanted to write a short story for the contest and as I thought, an image/scene came to mind. It was of a little girl asleep on a bed in a small room. The room shook and a boy entered. He woke the girl and they ran off together down the hall. A story started to form in my head. I started to write and soon I had the makings of a nice page-long story. I re-wrote it over and over until it was as short and sweet as I could make it. I printed out the "card" that I was supposed to write my story on and went to work. When I was done I drew on the page to make it unique, beautiful and antique. By the time I was ready to submit my entry, the contest was no longer running. I really liked the way the card turned out. It looked beautiful and I liked my little story. It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but it accomplished what I wanted it to.

My writing on the card might be hard to read, so if you can not read it, I will put the story below.

The Golden Key

The house shook. There were footsteps then a voice.
“Tara. Wake up.”
She opened her eyes. A boy looked down at her, his stunning blue eyes so comforting, so familiar.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He smiled. “It’s working.”
They ran down the stairs two at a time. She was still in her nightgown, but there was no time to change. On reaching the bottom of the steps they hurried down the hall towards a door at the far end. The boy pushed open the door and ran to the bed. He knelt, and pulled a tin box from under it. Inside the dusty box lay a key, a golden key. The house shook again, and soon they were off down the hall once more.
Soon they reached another door. The boy let go of Tara’s hand. He took the key and fit it into the lock. He twisted and there was a faint click. The door swung open. The room was empty save for a window on the furthest wall. Its white curtains blew in a nonexistent wind.
The boy turned to his friend “Go, you don’t have much time.”
He pulled her into a hug and they stood together, neither wishing the moment to end. They broke apart and she stepped into the room. Her bare feet patted across the floor until she reached the wall.
She turned. “Thank you Collin.”
He smiled, his eyes holding hers. “Go.”
She smiled once again and turned to the window. The white curtains parted under her fingers. Blinding light filled the room. He heard faint laughter and strained his eyes to catch one last glimpse of the girl. The light faded, the room was empty. He stood in the door way, alone. All had gone save the golden key and the whispered echo “I love you.”

Drawing of the Day: Father's Day Card

For fathers day this year I wanted to make a nice card for my dad to go along with his other gift. I decided, as usual, to do a girl’s face. I wanted her hair to be really flow’y and swirly. I drew the shape of the head and then went on to do the hair. I used several shades of brown, cooper and even a little bit of red, orange and gold. I worked on the eyes, which started out blue but ended up hazel. I did the background, first with lines of orange and red, then with yellow swirls. The swirls come naturally to me, I could do them with my eyes closed. It turned out nice, not amazing, but still a good drawing in itself. I guess she could look a little like me, but not really. Maybe if I had short hair, big eyes and a little nose. I don’t know her name, or who she is, that is up to the beholder.

Drawing of the Day: Painted Face

I did this over Spring, but I only remember about it a week or so ago. I pulled it out of a pile of books and realized that it was actually pretty good. I had been eager to try painting again so I found some painting paper and took some of my moms acrylics out of her box. Then I went to work. I sketched a face on paper, traced it then copied it onto the painting paper. I did the yellow background first, then moved on to the skin. It was fun, it was very time consuming! In the end though, I think it turned out really nice! I especially like the leaves and flowers I put in her hair! It was inspired by the amazing painter Audrey Kawasaki. I saw her piece called Karamari and thought to myself "I want to do something like that!" Of course, it doesn't really look like her work, but I guess it has a little of that feeling. Anyways, I hope to do more painting in the future, because I really enjoy it!

Audrey Kawasaki

Beginning Theatricum 2008

Yesterday (july 7th) was the first day of the High School Intensive Program at Theatricum Botanicum. When I woke up, excitement rushed through my veins. Me and My would be carpooling with another girl, Mallin, who I had never met and I was anxious to meet her. It turned out she extremely nice. We were the first ones to camp. We entered the main theater, turned in our paperwork and waited for everyone else to arrive. I didn't recognize anyone except a guy named Mark who I worked with a couple years ago. Then I saw Corinne. She had been in 5 out the 6 plays I did in the youth program. It's really great to have her there! Once Ventana arrived, Theatricum had truly started once again. The day went very very good. We played tons of games, did improv. I did a skit a really fun skit where I was in a kitchen with my husband and there was an omelet on the floor. We started doing the skit then someone would call out an emotion for either me or him and mid-sentence we would have to assume that emotion and make it fit with the scene. It was really fun! Everyone is extremely nice and I feel like and I have something to talk about with all of them.

This year we'll each be doing a scene with a partner and a monolog on our own. I received the part of Viola for my monolog (from the play Twelfth Night) the speech is called "the Ring Speech" and it is a really good one. In my scene I play Miranda from the Tempest with this guy named Max. I am really happy with my character, but annoyed about having Max as my partner because he is a little weird to be perfectly honest. I'm sure it will work out for the best though!

Anyways, I had a really great first day, and I'm sure the rest will be just as good!

Today (july 9th) was my second day. It was also a lot of fun, but it was extremely hot. This was made even worse because we were in a dusty lot doing Elizabethan dancing. It was unbearable at some times, but I lived through it! We had two new people join our group today. Now we have a group of 23 people. It was another fun day, we played more games, drew pictures of our voice and learned a ton about Elizabethan life! We also got to play Scorpion, a game which I used to dislike, but I now enjoy. In the game you divid up into two groups one in a circle on the outside and the rest in the middle. All the people it the middle close their eyes and a "scorpion" is chosen. All the insiders move around the circle, if the scorpion touches anyone they must make a buzzing sound and that person joins the "wall" (outside circle). It was really really exciting! I look forward to Friday when we'll play more games and I'll get to see all of my new friends again!

Drawing of the Day: Girl's Face

On one early summer's day, I decided to do a drawing that was a little different from what I had been doing at the time. I had grown into a habit of drawing very small noses on my people and I wanted to do something new. I wanted to do a face, a girls face, with blue eyes. I pulled out my yearbook and looked at some of the Twelfth graders that I thought were really pretty. I drew and managed to do a nose that was almost normally sized. It turned out really nice for a simple face which is what I wanted to do. I don't really have a name for her. I mean she isn't really anyone in particular, just a face from my head and a colorful yearbook.

Drawing of the Day: Twilight

After reading the book Twilight, the story buzzed around the inside of my head for days. I was so captivated with it, I had to do something, so why not draw a picture? I decided I wanted to draw Edward, the second main character in the story. Before I go on, I should probably tell you a few things about Edward. First of all he's flawless, he walks so gracefully it looks like he's gliding. The question was, how do you draw a perfect person? Do I draw from my head or look at scrap. I looked through the yearbook, but no one was quite right. I decided to compromise, I pulled up some pictures of good-looking actors as some reference, and then I drew from my head. It was hard. I wanted to do the character justice, yet not spend my whole week slaving away at it. I finally finished the sketch, then I went to color. In the story, Edward is so pale he's pretty much white, with perfect bronze hair. This should be fun. I pulled my bronze, gold, red and orange pencils out and I went to work. It took me an hour or two to complete it, but once I did, I was extremely happy with the result. He wasn't perfect, but he was good enough for me. One day soon I'll do the rest of the characters, then I'll have a series of drawings that I love, inspired my a series which I adore just as much.