Assignment #1 Self Portrait

Going back to school as an art major is so much fun. Instead of dreading the hours I'd have to spend in the physics lab and pulling my hair out because the forces still don't make sense, I get to run around town with a super cool camera and capture everything the eye can see. Now instead of too many equations I just chase after the sun to snap shots in the golden hour and decipher symbols on the camera dials. Here's our first assignment in my photography class - the self portrait. A self portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. We looked at some awesome examples by different artists like Frida Kahlo, Francesca Woodman, Duane Michals, Lucas Samaras and then we had to come up with a couple of our own. I still have to decide what I want the titles to be for my images, but for now just sit back, relax and scroll through them. 

Let me know what you think :) 

Daylight

Today starts and end with daylight. This morning Jeff and I woke up early to catch the first rays of daylight so I could take some cool pictures for my photography class. It was awesome. There really is something special about that golden hour. Then the usual Thursday things happened - drive to school, keep an eye open for cops in the brush, speed a little, cruise a little, pass the slow Ford, stare at the pretty blue sky, make up equations and number tricks from the road signs, drop Jeff off at work, listen to First Aid Kit, drive myself the rest of the way to school, squint my eyes to see the other cars on Live Oaks Street, park, walk with too many things in my arms, sit in class, art a lot, walk back to car, pick up Jeff, get excited because it's almost Friday, go home, eat dinner, party at the laundromat, etc etc etc. oh and sketch a little and work on the blog a little. Now the day is coming to a close and I'm jammin' to Matt and Kim's Daylight. Not bad for a Thursday.

Here's a fun sneak peek into what may or may not be posted for my project. This was a fun picture I took this morning. Gotta love self-timer:

Crap or Crap?

Ever since, I came home from my mission I've had to readjust to the English language. Speaking Hungarian for a year and a half will take a toll on your grammar, spelling and listening abilities. Oh how it pains me to spell words incorrectly nowadays *sigh* Despite the inconveniences of having to readjust to being home in the motherland and hearing my mother-tongue, there are a lot of funnies that come out of an overly trained Hungarian ear.

Today's focus is on the word "crap". We hear it often in conversation among teenagers, sometimes around adults and we hear it on the bus, at home, on the street and just about anywhere and among any group. This past week I've heard it quite often from not only my peers, but also from my teachers. Personally, I say it a lot,  but it still amuses me to hear the older generations use it as nonchalantly as we do. Today in class one of my art teachers said, "I don't want ya'll to bring all that crap in here." In this situation she was referring to students who were working on homework for other classes during her class. Later while explaining a future project she said, "Just go through all your crap at home and bring whatever you find and we can get ideas from it." Someone, to be funny, asked her if he literally could bring crap. Oh high school... I mean college kids. Anyway, to my surprise she actually considered it. :) I heart art teachers. Then she went on to tell us about a performance artist who actually used crap in his piece by covering himself in it. True fact. So, these were just three examples of people using the word "crap" in one setting.

Afterwards I went to another class and while we were drawing a still life and the teacher says, "I want you to draw everything you see. I don't want you to crap." Wait, WHAT?!? I was so confused. What on earth is she saying? My English-turned-Hungarian-brain told me, "Yeah, she just said that in perfect english." Then my left brain told me, "No Delz, you heard it correctly. Of course she'd say crap. She say's 'shut up' all the time and it sounds so funny because of her accent. Remember when you had an accent? Just listen harder. Maybe she actually said 'I don't want your crap' or maybe it was a reaction to something and the 'crap' just interrupted her thought." Well if Hungarian brain says yes and left brain confirms it, then I really have no idea what she's talking about. So while I was contemplating and trying to figure out what she was saying, I heard it again, "Don't crap this side because you like the box, make sure you draw everything. Everything, everything, everything." I turned to the girl next to me and she gave me one of those looks with the raised eyebrows and said, "We what?" Thank heavens I wasn't the only one that was hearing that. Then my Hungarian brain turned off the British English mode it defaults to when among foreign english speakers and we both realized that the teacher was saying "crop".  

Can you see how this would be confusing? I think we've all learned our lesson - don't crap or crop at school, especially in art class.

First still life drawing for 2012. 

Taco Tuesday

Celebrating life with loved ones is such a fulfilling thing. We have holidays that come and go and birthdays that only occur annually, but every week we celebrate Tuesdays. Why Tuesday? Well Tuesday just needed something special. We all know that The Bangles made a song about Monday, ya know where they sing "It's just another manic Monday". Then there's Wednesday, the hard one for foreigners and little children to pronounce. Everyone knows that Wednesday is Hump day since it's the hump in the middle of the week. Thursday is the day that means you're closer to Friday. And Friday means it's time to party and they have that acronym TGIF. Saturday is your special sleep-in day and Sunday is the Sabbath. That leaves us back where we started - Why Tuesday? We know that Tuesday is the second day of the working week and that alone makes it better than Monday, but only by a small margin. But really, the actual answer is that Tuesdays are for tacos! The alliteration in Taco Tuesday is perfect and everyone needs a little Mexican food in their lives.

We like to frequent this place: 

Also, if you're ever teaching the alphabet to somebody please be sure to remember what "T" really stands for :) I heart this shirt. 

Happy Taco Tuesday! 

Happy Labor Day - Year One

Because it is Labor Day and the typical celebratory food for such American holidays is the American hamburger, Jeff and I decided that it was best to dine at Whataburgers. The burgers there are gigantic and perfectly appease the taste buds that crave American cuisine. Pre-hamburger feast we plotted out our master plan for the day:

1) Adventure through Dallas for all types of supplies - paint supplies, camera supplies, stuff-your-face-supplies etc.
2) Find legit graffiti
3) Photograph the legit graffiti
4) Take a stroll by the lighthouse
5) Home for Family Home Evening

Below is the graffiti art that we found today:

Minus One was a Dallas graffiti artist that recently died from unknown causes. The wall we found is a tribute to him from his fellow taggers.  You can read more about it here: http://www.wfaa.com/entertainment/Dallas-Graffiti-Artist-Mourned-Through-Public-Art-132028183.html

Nothing says "Happy Labor Day" like a burger, graffiti and a sunset by the lighthouse :)

Ghettocaching

Ghettocaching [get-oh-kash-ing]
noun 
the outdoor sport or game of searching for ghettos by driving slowly through dark and poorly lit areas of town or using Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates posted on the Internet if you're unfamiliar with the area

In my photography class we've been talking about our first project - the self-portrait. We have to submit five finished images and ever since we got the assignment my noggin has been going crazy. I've been brainstorming and doodling in my Hello Kitty idea notebook and one of the things that I realized I desperately needed in my life was some good graffiti. I have seen beautiful works of art and ultra cool stuff in the ghettos and downtown areas of LA, Austin, and Hungary and while all of this is fabulous,  it does not help me with my project. If I wasn't a muggle I would simply apparate to the XXI District in Budapest and take my self portrait there, but since I don't have those kinds of skills we had to do something else. My sweet husband and I decided we needed to participate in a little ghettocaching. Since moving to Rockwall I haven't seen anything super ghetto or any graffiti, but we were determined to use Jeff's tracting senses he'd acquired from the mission to find something; anything. And that something was found on Industrial Blvd:

These taggers are nice and sweet. They decided to wish everyone a Happy Halloween a month early and even added a jack-o-lantern face on the first letter. We were on the verge of loosing hope for our small and perfectly clean town, and then we found this stuff. There were a couple of other ones and those will be pictured below. I was pleased that we found something in our little town, but I think we can find something better and without railroad tracks. We like ghettocaching so much we're gonna head up to Dallas and check out some stuff by real taggers manana. If you'd like to play along, grab a camera, bring some water and ghettocache in your local area :) Don't forget to post your pictures so we can see them!

*Please imagine the accents on any and all of my foreign words. Most of them will be spanish or hungarian.

**Please also note that on yesterday's post I meant to say "Angel Moroni" and not "Captain Moroni". I just don't know how to edit on this blog thingy and don't want to risk deleting anything... ~*BoMproblems and RMproblems*~

I think I'm Turning Japanese

Happy three day weekend everyone! We celebrated the festivities with an Asian food night. Jeff and I like to try new foods and different foods, so dining in the Orient was the theme this weekend. We ate delicious Lo Mein noodles and egg rolls. For dessert I introduced Jeff to the fabulous Pocky Sticks. I ate these all the time when I was a kid and loved savoring the chocolate flavor by eating them exactly one stick at a time. It was fun to celebrate together and he enjoyed them. We also had Coke Zero because that's totally Asian too. Right?  ^_^

We also celebrated with a trip to the Dallas Temple. We have a monthly temple date and this was a great start to a new month ^_^ (Today I have to use the asian smiley face in honor of Asian food night).  This sweet old lady took the picture for us and then I tried to get a good shot of the temple. Those spires are so gigantic. Can you see Captain Moroni on the top?