i breathe for you

2B pencil on paper

Hey guys :)

I dunno about you guys, but summer feels like a lifetime ago *sigh*
Junior year isn't exactly what I expected it to be but in a good way. I get to take cinema & visual arts as a class which I'm suuuuuper happy about!

Anyway,  I spent my weekend listening to Half Moon Run's album, Dark Eyes and drawing/painting.

~So here are some more drawings/paintings from 2014~

pencil on paper

acrylic paint on  paper

The top drawing is from august and i spent a long time on it and I'm actually really happy about how it turned out so it's definitely the one I'm proudest of. 

The second one is actually a really small drawing that was for a bigger piece with four other different facial features. I think it's one of the most realistic eyes I've ever drawn.

For the last one, it was originally a light pencil drawing because I was planning on painting it so I didn't shade too much in pencil. I have absolutely no idea why I wanted to paint it because I'm not really good at it so I basically wrote it off forever ago. While I was painting this though I started to actually understand how to shade with paint a bit more so I guess it was to learn technique/practice. So while I'm not 100% happy with it, I'm still pretty proud because it's definitely a step up.

Also, I recently found out about Half Moon Run and I absolutely love them!

Their music sounds so laid back at first but there's actually so much more to it. Lyrically and instrumentally, the songs are so beautiful and interesting.

Plus I like the kind of dark undertone they give off, like a vibe that something's off.

The title is a lyric from Fire Escape which i think might be my favourite right now but to be honest I really can't decide haha

Bonus: their music videos are so trippy/cool/esthetically appealing/kinda creepy & they're Canadian eff yeah

How's school going for you? What have you guys been up to? Also, any art/painting advice (of any kind, especially watercolour, acrylic & gouache)?

there's a whole world out there (washington dc)

Hellooooo darlings!

I feel like we're all traveling these days, and since you were all kind enough to share pictures of your trips, I thought I'd share mine too! This is kind of a photo heavy post but I picked my favourite of the gazillion I took so bear with me please. :)

smithsonian

national building museum

Two weeks ago, I went to Washington DC on a class trip and it was amazing and kind of crazy!

The organizer was really... well disorganized so we walked in circles and got lost a lot (even though she was looking at a map. On her phone. Which just by the way was in her hands). Also, the food was mostly salad and burgers but other than that, the trip was full of really cool museums, walking, a lot of monuments, and going from room to room in the hotel. It was delightful to see so much grass and greenery and have it actually smell and feel like spring as opposed to summer 24/7, even if that meant putting my sweater on then taking it off then wearing three sweaters then none again.

national building museum

The really really fun part though was that, when we got to the hotel every night, the teachers would lock themselves up in their rooms and let us run around to each other's rooms, to the gym and anywhere else in the hotel. Some people had a pillow/candy fight the first night and -- don't ask me why -- but someone brought out a cheese grater (???) 

In my room, my friends and I built a fort, had a dance party (loud music, bed jumping and all) and laughed at reality tv shows. We also went to the gym once to play with the machines, got pranked called by the guys a million times, played an intense game of uno which led to a short pillow fight (me attacking my friend and then people throwing pillows at me) and played ding-dong-ditch. 

I know, I know, you're wishing you could be as mature as us! 

(You probably can't, sorry...) 

national building museum

arlington national cemetery

arlington national cemetery

If you go, I really recommend going to:

the Holocaust museum (they have a four floor exhibit so make sure you plan enough time to see most of it), 

the National Museum of American History, 

the Library of Congress (the architecture inside and out is beautiful), 

the Air & Space museum, the White House, the Capitol, 

the National Building Museum (the architecture is beautiful and they had fun activities but the tour was a little boring), 

the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and going on the Ford Theatre Detective McDivitt Investigation tour (an actor plays the detective in charge of Lincoln's assassination and takes you to all the different places where the events happened), 

 and seeing all the monuments during the day and at night.

Have you ever been on a class trip or to DC? What was your favourite trip?

library of congress

mount vernon (george washington's estate)

the white house

the white house

smithsonian american art museum;
the piece is made of lightbulbs, aluminum and other everyday objects

smithsonian american art museum

library of congress

feel like a woman, wear a dress!

~ IT'S SPRING BREAK ~
Last saturday, my friends and I went to the museum, specifically to see The Journey of a Dress, but we also saw a bunch of other exhibits. 
We saw "Urban Lights" and "Metropolis II", an exhibit about football/soccer, an abstract art exhibit and an Agnès Varda exhibit.

Journey of a Dress

 

The Journey of a Dress was so colourful and well lit, you could tell they wanted you to take pictures.

 It started with a hot pink hallway that served as the wrap dress' timeline and, at the end of it, "Feel like a woman, wear a dress!" was written in pink neon lights.

diane von furstenburg

 The hallway also led to another room in which art based on/inspired by the wrap dress and Diane von Furstenburg, the creator of the wrap dress. *angelic music*

We may or may not have dorkily analyzed the art to see what materials and techniques the artists used.

diane von furstenburg

diane von furstenburg made of ashes

Agnès Varda

house made of agnès varda's rolls of film

Chris Burden

urban lights

Yes, these are the street lamps you always see in movies and yes they are super fun to take pictures of/next to and climb on. Being the mature young ladies we are, we did all three. 

Especially the climbing. 

metropolis II

So this was a sort of city with I'd say, a thousand hot wheels that actually whizz around every hour. There were so many little boys staring with their mouths wide open or running around trying to follow the cars. 

It was little boy paradise.

Other

a part of the berlin wall

That night, my family and I went to see Alan Partridge, a hilarious british comedy that I definitely recommend. It was so quirky, full of politically incorrect jokes, comedic (and sometimes awkward) situations and so many puns. The movie is even funnier than the trailer! To quote my mom, "I haven't heard a whole theatre laugh non-stop in a long time!" 

Long story short I had a great day! 

Pictures were taken by Christina and Prescilia
The header picture is from the Agnès Varda exhibit

p.s. I will be posting more this week (hopefully) because no school

What are you doing this week? Have you been to any museums or seen any movies lately?

it already came true

Today's my 16th birthday!!! 

Sixteen.

The age we all dream about as kids. The age movies make a living off of. The age I have now reached. 

No pressure.

In order to celebrate, I've had quite the weekend! 

Friday, my friends and I went to the food truck festival, a bunch of food trucks park on a street -- with really cool art -- every first friday of the month. Most of them were taco trucks. My friends had tacos and burritos from Chancho's Tacos and I had a bulgogi taco (some kind of korean-mexican fusion), and we shared two waffles: a maple syrup and powdered sugar one and a nutella one. Let's just say the food didn't last very long... One of the trucks was giving out free lemonade and we might have walked by a few times because it was hella good! It was a little chilly so we got really good hot chocolate at Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea.

Around 10 or 11pm we finally left and went to the pier as I'd never seen it at night. The ferris wheel was all lit up, it was so beautiful. My friends and I started dancing to Cha Cha Slide because come on, how can you not? After the pier, we headed home to pop confetti and eat vanilla, chocolate and red velvet Sprinkles cupcakes. There was a bit too much icing but the cupcakes were soooo good! The only downside is we bought a lot, not knowing how filling they were. (Its ok though, they're almost gone hehe.)

After the cupcakes, we got nice and comfy and watched the end of The Breakfast Club and started Sixteen Candles because it was the perfect occasion! We had to finish it in the morning though because we were falling asleep (even though we ended up staying up super late talking until dawn). 

May I just say though, if my future Jake Ryan is reading this, could you please show up on wednesday so I can point and mouth "it's the boy" to my dad as he gives me an approving hand gesture? 

That'd be great, thanks!

More posts about my weekend/clothes coming soon! 

The pictures were taken by Christina & Prescilia.

The title is a quote from Sixteen Candles.

n-eye-ke

This week's AP Studio Art assignment was to redesign a known logo and it has to have at least two colours. My friend gave me a great idea: turn the nike checkmark into an eyebrow. I started to draw an eye in black and white:

Then I photocopied it and added colour and the checkmark to it to see what it would look like:

Then I added colour and the checkmark to the original black and white one:

false appearances

my friend's tattoo

my drawing of it