Love, Lydia - Notes from a geeky, plus sized artist.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Days 87-101

Hi everyone!

My blog has now been going for over 100 days!  Exclamation points for everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Not enough posts to go around, but I'll explain a bit about some of the delays there.

I've been applying to jobs still....something like 8-10 since my last post in fact.  I've also had 2 interviews since then.  One was for a position that once I found out a bit more about I wasn't so interested in anymore.  The other sounds really good, and I've made it to the second round with them, so sometime in the next few weeks I'll get a date for an in person interview.  Besides all that I got a call from Anthropologie yesterday asking me to come work as a temp for their opening, so for about 2 weeks I'll get to work for them, which should be a pretty good little gig.  I can guess they don't want to hire me for anything other than temp work since I can't wear their clothing, which is a bit frustrating, but I have better things to worry about than that.

My parents are preparing to sell their house and hope to move to a one story place in the near future, so I'll be heading to Roanoke at some point soon to help them paint and pack things if possible.  I certainly don't mind painting, especially while the weather isn't too hot yet.  I have an old bedroom of things to go through there and decide what I want and don't.  Meanwhile a storage room at our house is pretty full of boxes from our old apartment, I sense some spring cleaning in my future.  I've already started since I wanted things to look great for my drawing lesson last week.  I just need to take the pictures to share with you all now that my studio and living room are looking up to snuff finally.

The drawing lesson went really well; the kid's a typical teenager and deciding if lessons are something they want is the hardest part.  For now the mom is making sure they at least try it for a while.  I worked with them to see what objects they could draw from life and then started on some basic shading techniques and went over pencil qualities.  I think this week we'll talk about lines, texture, and continue with shading.  I keep thinking I wish I had the design textbook I'd used for my design I & II classes at Virginia Western because it had such great examples of various elements of design and art that's more approachable for learners.  It's one of the few textbooks I ever sold, and of course I'm now regretting it.  I started looking for it on Amazon today without any luck.

This spring has been keeping me so busy I don't think I'm going to have the time to plant a little vegetable garden as I was hoping.  My allergies have been pretty bad the past few days now that the trees are starting to leaf out.  Everything is light green, white, and pink, and birds are constantly singing outside out windows.  I think some have even made a nest in our gutters!  I can't help admitting how lovely it is despite all the symptoms the pollen gives me.  I'm hoping to start a spring watercolor piece based on some fond memories I have of driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway in past seasons.

On the other hand I've spent more time on various games with family, board games with just Bryan and I and his parents the past two weekends, Hackmaster games with Stephen, Bryan and BG, and Magic the Gathering with Bryan, BG, and their dad.  Then inspired by Twitch Plays Pokemon (a massive chatroom controlled collective that has played through of various Pokemon titles) Bryan suggested playing through one of the games set to random for most variations of items and creatures in the game.  So Bryan and I had most of his brothers along with one of their girlfriends join us in playing Pokemon Platinum, on emulators with random settings.  It's proved to be quite interesting, and we've been playing in a way that keeps us more or less working on the same part of the game at the same time, by waiting for the majority (5 of the 6 of us) to beat a gym before going on to the next one.  We've had some fun chat on Facebook thanks to it, which is really nice since we aren't all playing it in the same city or even state.  I can't say enough sometimes about how much I love being a part of Bryan's family, I'm really thankful for all of them.

More tomorrow.
Love, Lydia



Thursday, March 27, 2014

Days 80-86

Hi folks!

Here's the animation of the book you've all been waiting for, and yet it's a GIF, and that's why it looks funky.  I kind of like the funk though.  Tell me what you think!

It loses some detail in the transition, but you can still make out some of the most important parts.  And it was pretty fun to make, which along with it having a lot or personal meaning made it really rewarding to me.  And now there's yet another new project from The Art Assignment that you're all able to participate in, it was just posted today - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slCnZzsETVM

I don't know what I'll be doing for that one yet, but I'm definitely going to doing it.  In fact I think I might even incorporate it into some of my upcoming art lessons that I'll be teaching!  I actually just got off the phone with someone about it; I'll be teaching their teenager, focusing on drawing mostly.  So I'm really excited about that, and am already getting ideas for a first lesson pulled together.  If you have any particularly fun activities you feel were good for your learning project, please feel free to share them with me!

See you tomorrow!
Love, Lydia