The boy who cried wolf...

...or the fire alarm which called wolf. The fire alarm in our building (out of the fifteen or so buildings in our complex) has been set of four times this semester. Each time, no fire trucks come to our rescue. This keeps on happening and people won't want to go outside of their apartment like their supposed to. Does the FD not care about the poor college students? Aren't they supposed to respond to every situation? Or you know, even if Campus Way would give us a sheet with emergency situation instructions on it (like, where is our safe place when the tornado sirens go off? HELLO?!?! I live on the third floor of a three story building - I know that is not my safe place). The sirens are not an unreal example either - those have gone off twice this semester.

As a side note, as of 8:15 the promised apartment inspection or the reverse trick-or-treating has not happened yet.

Murders in the Amityville Horror house on CSI: NY tonight. Oh Halloween in the CSI: world!!

I've got RHYTHM part deux

This is my second design for my Rhythm project. I'm going to add music notes and stuff after I collage it together - the staff(s) will probably carry on throughout the collage to tie it all together. This was my third different design using the clarinet bells. I did one and decided I didn't like the way it looked, thought of a different design while I was laying in bed, so I drew a second one yesterday and then changed that to add the staffs because it was just going to be music notes.

And the dolphin sketchbook grade was: 10/10!!

Out of the darkness...

And here is my latest sketchbook assignment for my Drawing class!! We had to color in the entire sketchbook page so that it had a black background and then we had to erase the shapes out of that background. I'm not too happy with the dolphin on the left of the sketchbook and how that turned out. We're doing the same thing in class right now too except we're using charcoal and an 18" by 24" piece of paper - I think I like the charcoal better - it's easier to erase and cover up mistakes with! The graphite pencils took forever to erase and I ended up having problems with that - on some of the shadows you can see where the outline is darker than everything else - yeah, the graphite turned real greasy there and wouldn't erase without messing everything up so I just left it like it was. It's interesting though - I like the whole concept with the assignment, it's different.

I've got RHYTHM

Alright. I bet you're wondering what the heck this is or what it's for. This is Part 1 of multiple parts (I have no idea how many parts there are total) of my Design project that's due sometime next week (once again - no idea when - it just depends on how much we have done by when). The total project is supposed to be a study of Rhythm. We started out drawing thumbnails to describe a list of adjectives (we drew one intuitive thumbnail and one intellectual per word). We then picked one pair of intuitive and intellectual that we liked and combined the two into one drawing. The above scan is my combined drawing to describe a jackhammer. We then have to do this with another pair of thumbnails (I'll post that one once I've actually done it) and then go camp out at Kinko's or the library and spend a LOT of money. My teacher wants 20-25 copies per drawing (so with two drawings about 50 copies) at different magnifications/crops, etc. Once we have the copies we will collage them onto an 11" by 15" piece of paper (that nice expensive kind too). Each drawing gets it's own collage, so there will be two total collages on one kind of paper. Then once we've done that we go back to Kinko's or some other place and get them to copy the collage we feel works the best onto an 11" by 15" cardstock. We will turn in three finished collages.

The collage itself will be interesting and I'll be sure and take pictures and post those on here when I've finished the project. I know my next design I want it to have smooth lines and not so many black shapes like this one does. I think the teacher wants us to be able to demonstrate a sense of either a staccato rhythm or a legato rhythm, so that's why I want my next drawing to have smooth lines in it.

It looks like for now this blog will mainly be to share my Art projects with everyone. Or anything interesting that pops up - like my 5:30 AM ramblings!

Can you make sense of this?

We got a notice on the door today: next Wednesday our new property manager will be coming around and doing inspections and addressing outstanding maintenance issues. If there are any holes in the wall, damaged/missing carpet, damaged appliances, damaged furniture the damages will be assessed and the CURRENT residents will be fined. They never did inspections after my past roommates moved out, or if they did they never sent out a notification telling me that they did and that I didn't have to pay or if I did have to pay anything. So why would they be doing inspections on Halloween and say if Salimah stained her carpet (Jasmine has already mentioned that while we were griping about the notice) and management decided that was a fine they would make Jasmine pay for something Salimah did? Doesn't it make better sense to do the inspection before the current tenants move in? How could you differentiate between new damage and older damage?


I wonder if the new property manager is the same person that told Amy in the office that her and I must have been lying when I said my front door's deadbolt had been changed and that I couldn't lock my door when I left "because when she went through last week the master key worked just fine." Wouldn't that be great?! If so, I've got some issues to go over with her...

How 'bout dem apples?!

So the first picture is what I was drawing and then the last two are the final copies of the sketch from different angles. That was my sketchbook assignment due today in Drawing. I'm very proud of it - it took me a while to get the 3-dimensionality of the tiles working right. That was probably my biggest worry with the whole assignment, actually. But as I said - it was due today and I got a 10/10 on it!! YAY! The only other thing I had gotten a 10/10 on has been my blind contour self-portraits (use one line to draw a self-portrait without looking at the paper while you're drawing).

Ah - also - I've been trying to keep my Picasa Albums up-to-date. http://picasaweb.google.com/bama.amanda Check 'em out.

5:30 AM ramblings...

It's currently 5:30 in the morning and I can't go back to sleep. Don't you hate it when that happens? I woke up at 3:30 (after getting to bed at 12:30) to my stomach protesting something I ate yesterday and I couldn't go back to sleep after that. I guess this means that I'll get a good nights sleep tonight and be well rested for my Western Civ test tomorrow.

So I'm anticipating a messy semester in Drawing for the rest of the year. Found out last Wednesday we are going to be working with charcoal for the rest of the year. I'll be glad when these two foundational art classes are done with. I'm enjoying them - I really am - it's just even I get tired of just wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans every day except Friday because I never know what I'll be working with in Drawing and Design and how washable that'll be. We've been working with gouache paint in Design and it's fun. So far we've just been using black and white gouache but I think we're moving on to COLOR sometime soon (a nice change of pace for this class). I'm glad that I'm taking these classes and not just because I need them for my photography minor but because I'm having fun and I'm not necessarily getting a bad grade based on my lack of drawing skills. Or the lack of skills I had at the beginning of the semester, I do believe I have gotten better in that. And I think the fam agrees with me on that opinion, based on their reactions to my homework that I did over Fall Break. Before this semester I would occasionally feel like I wanted to draw something - I mean it would never be anything big, because I didn't think I could handle that, but it would usually be the same things and I would draw with whatever I had in my backpack (used to be a mechanical pencil now I only have felt pens in there). The drawings would always be the same way - strict form, no loose lines, no shading, color, and I never thought they looked that great. Now, I feel like sketching more and taking photos more (always a good thing). I also have different tools and techniques that I can use while sketching, and seriously strict form is not always the best look for a sketch. :)

Did you know that this time last year I was so fed up with Alabama, my lack of a major, and the distance from home that I was seriously considering transferring? I had sent in my application, got accepted to the University of North Texas, looked at the campus when I was at home one weekend, but didn't get accepted to the major I applied for so I decided to stay at Alabama. Isn't it funny how everything works out in the end?! I'm glad that I stayed, because this year is great. I think it helps that I'm doing stuff that I love and that I'm interested in, and I've got some great (sober) roommates. As much as I loved my Fab Four freshman year - we're not a Fab Four anymore. One transferred home, another isn't talking to me anymore (for reasons unknown) and the other is living in the sorority house with the one who isn't talking to me anymore and we just never talk. Living together can be good for some friends and bad for others. I think it was bad for us - just my humble opinion.

Surprisingly this post is not just a bunch of mumbo jumbo that one would expect from a 20 year old college student awake WAY before she wants to be. Seriously - my alarm isn't set to go off until 8:30 so that I can get ready for my 10 o'clock class. I am awake 5 hours before I wanted to be. My thoughts are rather coherent (to me at least), but I have had to use the spell check about fifty times on words that I know how to spell.

Let's try this again...

Alright. So I'm going to actually try this blog thing again - I lost my log-in information to my other blog so I'm starting up a new one. Who knew that the ajreed username was available for once and I didn't have to come up with some weird nickname to use.

I'm having a great year at Bama so far - it is so much better than last year was, it's crazy. I've declared my major and minor: History with a minor in Photography. Pretty awesome major/minor and they're both two things that I love!! Judging by all of my calculations of hours and semesters and all that jazz I will be graduating in December 2009. Only a semester later than I thought I would freshman year. For having a different major freshman year and being Undeclared last year I'm not really all that far behind it seems like. I'm still in the same apartment that I was in last year just with different roommates. I love my roommates this year - they are AMAZING. We have some good times with lots of laughter. I'm not sure if I want to stay in this apartment complex next year - if our new management can't get their act together then I may start looking for a new apartment. There's just some little things adding up right now and then I had a major problem with them at the beginning of the school year.

So my big news school wise: there is a possibility that I'll be able to study abroad in Summer 2008 in ITALY!! If it all works out (I've still got to talk to my advisors and college about this) then I will be in Italy (mostly Florence, but also Venice and Rome) for a month and taking two Art History classes. It turns out, while using last years information, that it would only cost $1,000 (roughly) more to take six hours in Florence than to take six hours on the Tuscaloosa campus. Given those numbers...I'll take Florence anyday!

And now, school calls.