Drawing Dilemmas

"Passage" by Amy Cutler. Oh, if only I were half as talented...
I just finished up the final touches of my latest drawing project. It... didn't turn out quite as I hoped it would which leads me to believe that I still suck at drawing and I will need many more hours of practice before I can get the worlds in my head transfered accurately on paper.

In any case, this particular project was to be anything inspired by one of 50 or so artists. I chose Amy Cutler, whose style of fine art is illustrative and somewhat bizarre. I like it a lot. My drawing is neither illustrative (it borders on cartoonish...) nor bizarre. Well that's a lie. The concept behind my drawing I actually like a lot, and it is quite strange. Just not as out there on paper as I had imagined it to be in my head :/



And when did it get to be 4:40 in the morning?? Aughh...

An Update

This week I had delicious Thai food in Glendale. I also had dinner with Kim at the 2-9. Kurt visited, which was a lot of fun. We went to Wurstkuche before picking up 6 40s and playing Catchphrase/Guesstures/Scattegories. Kevin and friends stopped by, which was entertaining. Zombie Flux followed. Then I baked a cake. The highlight of Friday was Kim's birthday dinner. I drove myself and friends to Newport where we had an extremely tasty home cooked feast (no joke), and played such things like pool, Mafia, and some game called Pyramid. I'm looking forward to an upload of polaroid pictures from the party - some of them were pretty fantastic. Saturday was spent mostly at the Mission Viejo Lake where the highlight was chasing aquatic birds while kayaking. Blokus occurred as well. Contented lazing filled in the gaps. That night I had an adventure picking up Jimmy from Union Station, and then I got hardly any sleep (such is the trend lately) before waking up at 6:45am to drive 2.5 hours to go snowboarding. Again. After snowboarding, I stopped by KSCR Fest (which was awesome, yay Emilie [and friends]) before eating a late dinner and crashing. I was exhausted.

I'm still exhausted.

I'm also waiting.

The picture is from the drive back from Big Bear. I don't feel like putting up more at the moment. Maybe later.

Day By Day

It's been a rough few weeks.

On a happier note, Spring Break was pretty spectacular. My favorite moments include a spontaneous trip to California Adventure, breakfast with my Dad, a beach day with Ann, dinner with my Mom, hang time in beautiful Irvine, and a whopping seven hours of no-break snowboarding. I'm not exactly enthused to be back at school, but this tends to always happen after Spring Break so I guess I should be used to the feeling by now. Oh well. Seven more weeks, then it's onwards with life I go!

I Love Tucson

My second trip to Arizona was, although different from the first, just as fun and probably more relaxing.

Highlights include a lot of hiking, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, 4th Avenue, hanging out with Emilie's family, Book Stop/thrift shopping, movie watching (The Informant and Bottle Rocket), Auld Dubliner, and a plethora of delicious homecooked fare. We also ate out a few times, namely at Guadalajara Grill which was both fun (they make their salsa tableside) and delicious (homemade tortillas and unusual menu items = win), and Bumsteads where I, the pretentious sandwich eater, had a delicious sandwich.

There's so much to love about Tucson. Like how welcoming Emilie's family always is and how it's never hot when I visit (on this particular trip it was borderline chilly and all of Tucson's usually drought ridden rivers were full/flooded). I also love the flatness of the landscape and the fact that the region is surrounded by mountains - everywhere you look the view is scenic and beautiful.

With that said, it's good to be home. Jimmy picked me up from the airport and we swung by Wurstkuche for a late, tasty dinner. The next day I took my time leaving for Irvine, stopping by the pool before even reaching my house. The plan was to go out for St Patty's Day, but when I finally got home my mom was really sick so I ended up doing errands and helping her out instead. I did head over to Lollicup for a bit, eventually.

Today was going to be a beach day, but it's so peaceful in my house right now. Los Angeles is always noisy. Irvine isn't. Irvine is quiet, calm, and serene. I love Irvine. I think I'm going to spend my afternoon working on my orchestration project instead. :)

Here are a few Tucson pictures. Most of the pictures I have are from the hikes/Emilie's backyard so there isn't much variety!

Emilie's backyard.
Hike #1 - Sabino Canyon
Hike #2 - Ventana Canyon
Hike #3 - Wasson Peak

LA Art Walking

So a few days ago I stopped by the LA Art Walk, starting at the rooftop of the Independent. It was a lot of fun! The art itself is pretty hit or miss, but the atmosphere is great. For dinner I ate at Blossom, a Vietnamese restaurant I had heard about via Yelp and randomly came across while going from gallery to gallery. I had Bun, Tom, Cha Gio, Bo Nuong (aka Vermicelli with Shrimp, Egg Roll, and Steak) - one of my favorite dishes that I usually get at Thanh Binh II. Superrrr tasty. Super super tasty. I was a fatty and finished the entire bowl. And then I was more of a fatty and got a huge cup of frozen yogurt at Yogurt Land. It's fun being a fatty sometimes. :)

Tomorrow I'm flying to Tucson for the first half of (my last) spring break (ever). I'm excited! It should be a lot of fun. For now, here are some more pictures from the Art Walk...

Live art by Robert Vargas

On Flowers and Dogs

I hate them. They're a weakness. I automatically smile when presented with flowers, and I get giddy with joy when I see a dog. The fluffier the dog, the more joyous I become. The more unexpected the flowers, the happier I feel. And then people use it against me. And I can't help but smile. :(

Almost Crunch Time

Three Objects of Interest (Pen and Ink)
So apparently there are less than two months left this semester. That blows, especially because I haven't been able to practice voice for the past two weeks. I usually enjoy losing my voice (huskiness is fun!) but right now I'm anxious to get it back. Plus my throat still really hurts. Maybe I'll go to the health center tomorrow to make sure nothing serious is up...

Yesterday (Saturday) Emilie and I drove up to Snow Summit. We took four hours total of snowboarding lessons which I personally thought were REALLY helpful. I'm also glad that I had snowboarded a few times sans lesson, though. It made it so I wasn't nervous during the lesson(s), just excited to learn.

Our first instructors were an interesting juxtaposition of super chill and informative/mildly condescending. Our second instructor was a nice combination of chill and informative, without the mildly condescending.

And now I'm semi snowboard obsessed. Granted, I have been wanting to snowboard for years (a decade? How embarrassing...) now, and seeing myself progressing quickly (it comes pretty naturally for me) gets me extra excited to get really good. Good enough to do (double?) black diamond runs, at least. Maybe by the end of next season? Now THAT would be cool.

I'm trying to figure out what the most economical way of learning how to snowboard would be. I'm debating a season pass (if I get one after the 15th it'll be good all of next season as well), but they're pretty expensive. I'm definitely going to get gear... but I'm going to hold off until I try skiing (on the off chance that I love skiing more than snowboarding).

Ski poles kind of scare me, though.

I posted a really awesome snowboarding video on my Tumblr. The first girl in the video (Victoria Jealouse) is REALLY good. Super inspirational. Yay!

I just finished my drawing project for tomorrow (headphones, snowboarding gloves, and my purse - in case you couldn't tell) and an orchestration quiz. I need to seriously start reading The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk for lit... but it's an intimidating (albeit interesting looking), fat, hardcover book and I'm really, really tired. As soon as I'm done with this post I'll go do that but there's a high risk I will just fall asleep. Which would be bad. Because I need to read it.

Gah I'm really excited about snowboarding. Once I master the basics, I plan to learn a little bit of freestyle and what not so I can ultimately be a better freerider. I'm a little worried about freeriding because I hate heights... but maybe I'll get over it by then. I found a board I really like. It's supposed to be a really good board to learn/progress on. I think I've picked out some good/decent bindings to go with... and for boots I'll have to go try some on. I already have outerwear, goggles, and gloves so that's no big. I might get a new beanie. The one I have is a little bit small/thin (it isn't really made for snow).

But like I said - I will try skiing first.

I also came across an awesome looking 11 day ski/snowboard tour (!) in New Zealand (!!) during their winter season (August/September) complete with helicopter lifts (!!!)... but that won't be for this year. That's for next year, after I've gotten the basics down and have risen to an intermediate level of sorts (hopefully), and after I have money to shell out on the trip.

Ahhhhh but snowboarding! In New Zealand!!

Anddd now I'm done.

EDIT: Changed my mind about the bindings. Going to get these instead :P