all warfare is deception
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Currently watching: Planet Earth. It's gorgeous, brilliant, entrancing, plus a million other superlatives. Nature shows are my anti-drug.
Currently reading: Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (a history of human civilization written during the Enlightenment by Marquis de Condorcet), and The Art of War by Sun-Tzu. Pretentious much?
[to the left: detail shot; to the right: full image]
I redid her face so it no longer looks as freaky, however, I'm off-put by how perfect she looks. It's hard to draw normal looking people. Imperfections. Disproportions. Although I enjoy looking at beautiful digital illustration, a lot of the "pretty woman/man/or androgynous figure in intricate clothing in lovely environment" paintings always strike me as empty. I want to create something that's more meaningful and more moving than that. I have plenty of 'deeper' or more interesting ideas in my head, but I've never actually composed or executed them.
I have an excuse with this painting: it's a present for a friend (shoutout to Rhea!) and practice for a lot of different techniques (figure drawing, rendering water, composing a piece that seamlessly integrates the foreground with the background, choosing a more uniform color palette), but after this, I'm going to devote myself more to substance than style.
My occasional existential crises about my major/life plan continue to strike. I know I should study what my love--the problem is, I love so many different things! I have so many divergent academic interests! My dream major would be mostly product design (heavy on needfinding and design, easy on engineering and math), anthropology/human biology (People are fascinating!), some neuroscience (Brain & Behavior was a great class, and I liked Psych 1 a lot too), and of course, a good dose of studio art.
For next quarter, I'm debating between the following classes to round out my schedule (with E14, CS106A, Design I, and a 10 hr/week campus job is already looking to be pretty hectic)
- Intro to Theatrical Design: I wanted to help out with set design for The Wild Party, but I had no time or experience. Will this class change things? (requirements filled: none)
- Intro to Art History: I LOVE art museums. I read about art history on wikipedia for fun. but I've always wanted to take a formal art history class. (requirements filled: none)
- Drawing I: I've never taken a formal art class past 8th grade. I need to work on my live figure drawing skills. (fills another product design requirement)
- Human Behavioral Ecology: Biology! Psychology! History! Anthropology! (requirements filled: none. exploration into anthropological science: yes.)
-Environmental Change and Emerging Infectious Diseases: How the way humans treat the environment is resulting in the spread of diseases. Case studies of malaria, HIV, the plague, etc. For the part of me that relished reading every single page of The Hot Zone. (requirements filled: none. exploration into epidemiology/anthropological science: yes.)
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Design for the Other 90% rocks my socks.
That is what I want to do with my life. The big question is: how do I get involved with it?
Posted bySHELLY! at 1:30 PM
Labels: design, existential crises, work in progress