Tale of a Shooting Star…

Hi Folks,
I’m looking for the Penny who sent me a message early this morning via my contact page regarding some of my classwork. I tried to respond to the email address that you gave along with your message, but it bounced. I’d like to get a little bit more information from you, like the section name of your class, so that I can follow up on what happened. If you happen to see this, please email me ASAP at jenna (at) jennamagee (dot) com. Thanks!

Believe it or not, I have managed to get some stitching done while I’ve been on my blogging hiatus. First up are four princess initials that I stitched in March. The first three were for the three girls that a coworker and her husband just adopted. The fourth was for the daughter of another coworker. All four were stitched from the charts from a Dimensions kit called Princess Alphabet.

After completing these, I apparently started stitching up a small storm. Something I didn’t realize until I scanned everything in preparation for this post. So, here come the rest:

Ink Circles - Celtic Ice

JBW Designs - I Love to Shop at the Silver Needle

JBW Designs - A Very Merry Summer

Just Nan - Jingle! Biscornu (Top)

Just Nan - Jingle! Biscornu (Bottom)

Just Nan - Jingle! Tin Topper

Just Nan - Crystal Heart

Lizzie*Kate - Woof Blocks Flip-It

Just Nan - Flower Girls

Lorri Birmingham - Irish Needle Roll

And then there’s this one that I started and finished yesterday:

Lorri Birmingham - Crystal Pink Pincushion

And this one that I just finished a little bit ago today:

At this rate, there are more to come!

Any time you are actually happy to go in to the office on Monday because it will actually mean less work than the weekend that you just spent working… well, it’s just a bad sign.

It started with me signing in from home to work around 7 PM Friday night (yes, after putting in a full day at work). I did a bunch of things, then twiddled my thumbs until midnight, when I had to do some more things. Then I got a break until noon on Saturday, so at least I was able to get a full night’s sleep, even if it was late. Then the real fun began. Someone made a mistake, which made what should have been 15 minutes of work for me into the rest of the weekend worth of work. I was going to have to work on other things anyway, but this meant that I had to juggle a full load of work on two different systems, instead of just the one. I got less than four hours of sleep early Sunday morning.

Anyway, I survived. And I managed to finish my final project for my last class (for now, at least) and get it turned in before heading off to bed around midnight last night. Now to strap on my boots and prepare for a very busy week. We’re going through another practice exercise at work consisting of 24×7 work for everyone on the project to go through a mock run of what will be required to bring the system online at the end of July. That means a little bit of a break for me today and then really intense and odd hours Tuesday and Wednesday.

But hey, I’m almost done with my class. Since I turned in my final project last night (two days early), I just have 3 critiques to write on Wednesday. And then I can breathe again. I’ll be so happy to just go outside for a while on Thursday. I don’t even care what the weather is going to be like, as long as I’m not in front of a computer of some sort!

Thanks to all of you for continuing to read and for all of your supportive comments. I really appreciate each and everyone one of you!

Wow, has it really been 3 months to the day since I last posted here? I’ll be curious to see if I even have any readers left after that kind of absence…

So, what have I been up to, one might ask? Well, let’s see. My work has been slowly but surely creeping into my personal time and is now up to around my ears maybe? Yeah, that sounds about right. My stress level has increased at an even greater pace and has now completely enveloped my entire being. I have gone through several bouts of stress-related health incidents. I had a sudden, severe onset of restless leg syndrome that left me unable to sleep until after 6 AM on the worst nights. That persisted for several weeks and was resistant to any of the medications that multiple doctors tried. It slowly subsided on its own and is thankfully completely gone now. Right as the RLS was starting to subside, we went through a 24/7 practice run of our software go-live plan for work and I experienced 3 major migraines (requiring my maximum strength prescription to kill) in a period of a week and a half.

I very nearly lost my mind during that time. Seriously. I’m still not sure how I managed not to snap like a twig. But I came really close. I guess my little mind isn’t quite as fragile as I thought.

I am extremely grateful for my network of caring and understanding coworkers and friends who have helped me to cling to what shred of sanity I actually have left. I was pretty upfront about my health issues while they were occurring and I was given a lot of latitude around what hours of the day I worked and from where. Meaning that since I didn’t get to sleep until 6 AM, I ended up working odd hours and from home. I am lucky that my job position afforded me to do such without causing any issues. I am even more grateful for a wonderful husband who has truly been sticking by me through thick and thin. He really picked up my slack around the house and continues to do so when my work hours get particularly out of control.

So, where does that leave me right now? Well, to be honest, I’m still clinging by my fingernails to a tiny little log in a tumultuous river of stress. But the rapids haven’t pulled me under yet. And I don’t intend to let them.

I made a very difficult decision this week. After the class I’m currently taking ends in the middle of next week, I am officially withdrawing from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division for several months. This massive project at work that is eating into my personal time so heavily will be implemented by the end of July (fingers cross that the timeline doesn’t slip). Terry and I are planning to spend our 10th wedding anniversary at Walt Disney World in late September. After that, I should be good to go back to school.

I think that I made the right decision. Something had to give and I prefer that it not be my health, physical or mental. I discussed it with my husband, I discussed it with my friends, I discussed it with my family and I even called my therapist and got his opinion. I am extremely unhappy that my work load has gotten so far out of control as to force me to have to make this decision, but it’s a done deal. Or it will be, as soon as my advisor puts through the paperwork. I made sure to let several key people at work know this week that I had to drop out of school, so my point has been made. And everyone so far agrees that it stinks. But, of course, no one can do anything about it.

I just have to survive the next couple of months and then the raging flood waters that currently dictate my course in life should stop threatening to overflow their banks and subside to their normal levels.

Then I should be able to start living again, instead of merely existing.

Is anyone still reading?

Using only black, white, and shades of gray, create a field of texture that has the illusion of being tactile. Experiment with size, focus, and contrast to create a strong illusion of tactile texture.

Using only black, white, and shades of gray, create a design with the spatial illusions of both depth and volume. Be creative with the composition of your design.

Using only black and white, create a six step gradation between two shapes of your choice. It should appear as though a single transformation is occurring uniformly throughout the gradation and that each step has the same amount of visual change.

Using only black and white forms, create a design utilizing asymmetrical balance. Be creative with the composition of your design.

Create a form group using 2-4 black and/or white circles of the same size. Then, duplicate the form group 2-4 more times, utilizing translation, rotation, and/or reflection to create a black and white design. Experiment with different form groups and layouts to generate a visually appealing composition.

Using only black and white forms, create a design utilizing formal balance. Be creative with the composition of your design.

Well, I’m finally in a class where I’m using the computer for design. This class uses Adobe Illustrator, which I have never tried before, so it will be interesting to see what I can learn.

Here’s the first assignment. The instructions were to create a basic structure by overlapping two simple shapes within a frame. Then, using only black and white, create eight different color distributions for this structure. The positioning of the two shapes should remain fixed in all eight variations.

The instructions for the second assignment were as follows: Using only black and white, create a design with equal positive and negative space so that the figure-ground relationship of the design fluctuates. Be creative with the composition of your design.

Check it out! jennamagee.com is totally new and redesigned.

It’s not exactly what I had envisioned, but it’s not bad. And, after hours and hours of work, it works equally well in Firefox, Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. At least, I hope there aren’t any bugs that I haven’t found and worked out.

Please take a look and tell me what you think.

I have a customer who is looking for the Prairie Schooler Snowman freebie that I think was released in December of 2008. Can anyone help me get my hands on a legal copy of this, please?

Edited to add: I’m still looking for this, if anyone can help.

Edited to add: I now have one, thanks to Lee! Thanks to everyone who helped.

To all of my friends who celebrate this special day, I hope that you have a wonderful time filled with good food and great company. Oh, and nice presents. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Here it is, my final project. The requirements were to draw a still life containing at least 3 three-dimensional objects and to spend at least 6 hours on it. I never have a problem spending the requisite amount of time because I’m a slow artist (in every way, including cross stitch). There are a couple of things I would change about this drawing, but overall, I’m pretty pleased with it. What I’m the most excited about is the fact that I managed to pull out an A in this class! Woohoo!

Week 5 just finished yesterday, so here are the results.

First up are some warm-up figure sketches that I did. These were supposed to be gestural and I thought that I was able to get pretty loose with these, especially the first one, but my professor did not agree that they were gesture drawings. I really, really need to work on this gesture stuff, since it’s supposed to be an excellent warm-up technique before any sustained drawing.

Here’s a more finished figure drawing. The head’s too big, the fist is too small and it was supposed to be a gesture drawing. I failed miserably at the gesture drawing part, so we’ll see what my grade turns out to be.

And another figure drawing. I got the proportions down pat on this one and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. The goal of this project was to tone the background and then pull the light portions out using an eraser or chamois and then add in the shadows. My one major fault is that I didn’t add enough details. I should have done something with the face and added some muscle definition. And once again, the professor pointed out that my shadows are too harsh. I told you it was a recurring theme for me.

This last week is a partial week and, as always, it’s hyper-accelerated. A sketch of my final project is due today and the finished product is due tomorrow. I think I’m going to need to take some time off from work in order to be able to put enough time into the final project.

I’m a little behind in posting week 4, since week 5 just finished yesterday…

First up is a gesture portrait of Terry. Gesture drawing is supposed to be a very fast, fluid style with large movements that use the entire arm. To me, detail isn’t part of the game with this type of drawing because it’s hard to refine those big movements. I really, Really, REALLY struggled with this. Letting go of control is necessary to this type of drawing and is not something that comes even remotely easily for me. I made two other attempts that didn’t even come close to gesture drawing before I watched a video that really changed my understanding and thus I came up with this one. It’s not terribly accurate and doesn’t look like Terry at all, but hey, at least it’s gestural!

The next project involved drawing from a photograph. This is easier than drawing from real life, as the translation from 3D to 2D has already been done for you. I drew Terry again, of course. I think this turned out pretty well, though I got dinged by the professor for not blending my shadows enough. It’s an ongoing problem that I seem to have that I need to work on.

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Week 3 ends today. This one was interesting and marked yet another set of firsts for me.

First up, we have a blind (or nearly so) contour exercise. What does this mean? It means I had to setup my easel at a 90 degree angle to my subject, instead of straight in front of me. I then had to take a fine point marker and, looking only at the profile of a live model (Terry) and not at the paper, draw the person’s profile. The analogy made by our professor was to look at the face and pretend your eyes are an ant, slowly crawling along the surface (contours) of the face while your hand moves in sync at the same speed across the paper. I did this one about a dozen times and then submitted one of my last attempts. There are two places (in the chin and behind the ear) where I had to pick up the marker and restart because I got too far off, but otherwise, it’s supposed to be one continuous line. We were allowed to check our position every once in a while, but the real point was to do it without looking. As a result, the drawing doesn’t look anything like Terry, nor is the head fully developed and shaped at the back nor are the features correctly placed, but it made for an interesting exercise.

This next one was my first ever portrait drawing. I did it of Terry, of course, as he’s the only person around to play guinea pig. He doesn’t think that it looks like him at all, but I think it does somewhat, especially when I look at it from a distance. I think this one turned out pretty well, though there is a lot more that I could have done with it from a tone standpoint so that there’s not so much of the white paper showing through. This would also have allowed me to pick out some of the highlights that were occurring on his face that I didn’t capture. Another learning experience. I’m hoping to get my mom and/or dad to sit for me over Christmas so that I can practice some more with different subjects.

Now, on to week 4!

Week 2 has come and gone, so I’ll post the drawings for this week.

First up is a still life that I composed of my breakfast materials for that day - bananas, glass of juice and cereal bowl and spoon. The bowl is wonky and I forgot the shadow from the handle of the spoon, but the bananas turned out awesome, in my oh-so-humble opinion.

Here is the same drawing, except with the dark background filled in. A lot of people thought it was too dramatic and drew attention away from the drawing, but I thought it made the dark rim of the glass make more sense and besides the background of that room is a deep red.

The next drawing is of our television in the living room, with its various components on top of it and a short cabinet below.

I originally left the cabinet white because I couldn’t get the hang of how to add the wood grain without overwhelming what is essentially a light colored piece of furniture.

The instructor came back and said to try the wood grain anyway and to put some sort of glare or light reflecting in the TV. I couldn’t get the light to look correct, so I put a reflection of our couch in the TV screen. Some people complained because the reflection didn’t look curved, but the TV screen is flat, so…

I think the components look great. Everything else I could take or leave.

The week isn’t officially over until Wednesday, but I turned in both of my drawings, so I can share early.

This class is a lot tougher than Perspective was. I enjoyed working with a ruler and creating things that were concrete and easier to reproduce because they were based on solid, geometric forms. Freehand drawing, especially of a human subject, is going to be a challenge. You might be cringing at my efforts later on, but I’m determined to share them, no matter how bad they are. Lucky you!

First up is a warm-up exercise of sorts, done with 4 different hardnesses of graphite pencil on charcoal paper (which has an interesting texture to it). This assignment incorporated a number of firsts for me: first time using an easel, first time using multiple values of graphite pencil, first time drawing on charcoal paper and first time using an eraser to pick out highlights in the drawing. I chose to do a couple of leaves from one of my African violet plants. The bottom leaf is supposed to be curling under and out of view, but I don’t think that I successfully captured that. Hopefully, someone in the class will give me some useful feedback.

Second is a more in-depth nature subject, done in vine and compressed charcoals on newsprint. Again, more firsts, as in first time using charcoal and first time drawing on newsprint. Charcoal is a whole different animal and was quite a unique experience. You don’t hold it like a pencil, but rather you (or at least I) grip it with your thumb and 3 fingers. There is a totally different feel to drawing with charcoal, especially on the smooth newsprint. The charcoal glides quite easily and is disturbingly difficult to erase completely. You don’t use a regular plastic eraser, either, but rather a kneaded eraser to lift the charcoal off of the page.

I started with the lower section of my bromeliad plant. There are 3 total stalks to the thing and the primary stalk that I worked from for this drawing is rather tall, with a dead flowering stalk emerging at the top. I just didn’t feel like putting that many hours into the project, hence just drawing a section of the plant.

After living with the drawing for a day and also reading somewhere on the class website where this was referred to as a “project” (whereas the previous was an “exercise”), I decided that the massively unfinished feeling to the drawing wasn’t going to stand up to scrutiny, so I added in the pot to finish it off a little better.

It looks like the whole thing is leaning to the left, for some reason. I think it’s partially because the right line of the pot is obscured by the one leaf. That and, for whatever reason, the fact that the leaves alone look like they are leaning. Really, they are not and if you look at it from the top, you’ll see that the leaves are pretty well balanced and straight. I think it’s just the length of the leaves that threw it off. The right leaves should have been longer.

Oh well, live and learn. This was already my second attempt at the drawing and after meeting with a relative amount of success, I was just not going to mess around with another stab at it. Maybe someday I’ll get ambitious and draw the whole plant?

[Edited to add:] Well, I just couldn’t leave well enough alone. I’m home sick today and the drawing bug apparently has bitten me terribly hard. Either that, or it’s the perfectionist bug. Anyway, after some comments from the professor on my bromeliad drawing, I made one last attempt to finish off the drawing. This is it this time, I swear!

Woohoo! I must have really nailed my first drawing class because I got 100% for my final grade! I’m so psyched, but it’s short-lived because Drawing is looking really hard. I don’t think I’ll be getting 100% this time, though I’m still hoping for an A. If the professor grades on effort, then I should be okay; otherwise, I might be getting a B.

Yes, it’s the moment that you’ve all been waiting for. My final project for my first drawing class!

It’s not all that I had hoped for. The house came out really well, with some flaws that are obvious to me but hopefully not obvious to all. The trees are iffy and don’t really fit the realism of the rest of the drawing, but were all I could do at this point. I think that I will work with the tutors in the drawing learning center that I have access to in order to work on the tree issue. Finally, I didn’t place the gate posts properly in relation to each other, so I wasn’t able to easily do the fence that I was hoping for. Oh well. Maybe I’ll try tackling a redo of this piece while I’m off over the holidays. I’d really like to add it to my portfolio, but I’d like it to be what I was really going for.

Anyway, without further adieu, here is my final project for FND113 Perspective.