Pages 07 and 08 from my 002. Ursa Major Space Station art journal.
Life drawing sketch from a previous class + other doodles. "Vampyra" was a name that was tested out in my old "band" back in middle school with old friends. We tested out many band names, but never decided on an official one. I played with a logo for this name when it was an option.

Been keeping my self busy and been pretty productive this week, I'm proud. Can't wait to share!
For now, here's my song of the moment.

So, remember how I've mentioned That Dog were set to play two shows in New York, which were their first NY shows since 1997? Well, I attended their show on Friday at the Music Hall Of Williamsburg, and they blew me away!
Walking into the venue, I had no idea what to expect with the crowd. I knew I'd be younger than most attending the show since I didn't know who the band was during their prime. But it's never too late to get into bands, even if they're disbanded. I surely got lucky being able to see them during their reunion.

I've been to the Music Hall once before, but never really explored the venue. My friend Jess and I arrived early, so we wandered around. We took a cheesy mirror picture in the bathroom.

There were two comedians opening for the band, which I thought was odd. Never attended a show before that had comedians as the openers. But it was a nice change from normal rock shows.
That Dog finally came on, and I've never seen such an excited crowd before. Honestly, the last bunch of shows I've been to, the crowd was more on the lame side - quiet & no enthusiasm shown at all. It makes me wonder what's been going on with audiences and why no one is excited anymore. You pay for a show - you in return should show some kind of enthusiasm. But it was nice to see that the crowd at this show actually enjoyed themselves.
The band played everything great, and were cracking jokes in between songs. They were funny and entertaining. Their set was all kinds of perfect, and I'm appreciative that I got to see them live. I hope they decide to record new material. I guess time will tell!

The day before the show, I downloaded a new camera app for Androids called Pudding Camera. I love the effects this camera has. I used it to take the cheesy mirror picture and this next picture. Wish I followed through using this app for the rest of the show because my photos came out blurry and not so wonderful with my regular camera (as shown in the last photo). Oh well.

Here's a great That Dog song to end the post.

It's been a few weeks since I've posted a page from my art journal. I almost forgot to today! I've been so out of that Thursday habit. Time to get back into it.

Here's page 05 and 06 from my 002. Ursa Major Space Station art journal.
Consists two sketches from figure drawing classes and other doodles.

Besides the fact that classes ended on Monday, this week has been pretty wonderful. Caught up with friends, went on adventures, and karaoke-d last night. The wonderful part is that this week will only get better! Got great plans coming up this weekend. I need to remember to take photos!

I've been on a big Talking Heads kick this week as well. I came across this amazing live version of Burning Down The House - may possibly be better than the studio version!

Tomorrow's the last day of the semester! How exciting. I thought this day would never come.
Since I've been too overwhelmed by final projects to take photos from my week, here are some photos I've taken throughout the semester.

01. My favorite park in NYC is Madison Square Park. It's conveniently located by my school, and it's the perfect small kind of park. I went during a break between classes with a friend. This is a part of the line to the Shake Shack, which is supposedly a wonderful burger stand, but I wouldn't know. Every time I've gone to the park, there's either been a massive line in which I don't wish to participate, or it's closed. So I still haven't eaten food from the Shake Shack yet. One day.
02. For my last project for my general illustration class, we had to do a poster for the memorial of the Titanic, which I think I may have mentioned in another post. My professor found a little museum with artifacts from the Titanic, so we went on a field trip.
03. The museum was downtown in South Street Seaport. We were to arrive two hours before the museum opened, so we were told to walk around the seaport and sketch a bit. I sketched around the boats with friends. It was an awful rainy day - my sketches were all wet.
04. Going to an art school, you'd expect it to be pretty awesome, the interiors and such. But nope. Our walls are an ugly off white, the hallways are boring, the classrooms are boring. Nothing screams "I'm an art school." The students to try liven the place up by drawing on the walls, a.k.a. vandalizing hah. In a few classrooms, there are "sausage walls". People draw sausages linked together, and just keep adding to it everyday. Whenever the semester ends, they're painted over. Then when the next semester begins, the students start the sausage wall all over again. It's apparently been going on for a while, and it's pretty awesome. I took this on Friday - the last day I would see it. So here's evidence that this specific wall existed.

Here's a song by Madness that I've been digging lately.

Do you have a scrap paper drawer? One thing I remember being told in middle school is to not waste paper. Ever since, I've had a scrap paper drawer. Every ending school term, I review all school handouts and put sheets in my drawer that have one blank side. It's been really useful, for quick lists, book making, and more recently drawing quick sketches for class.

The last project I worked on, I took a few sheets of paper from my drawer for quick sketches. Sitting in class brainstorming some ideas, I flipped my page over and saw I was using a sheet from my twelfth grade English class. We had just finished reading Hamlet, and were told to write a letter to Hamlet. I call this "Maria Should Just Stick To Making Pretty Pictures".

Dear Hamlet,

I know you have been through a lot with many issues right now. Dealing with your father's death and the remarrying of your mother to your uncle may be tough. As your uncle has told you, everyone goes through the stages of life, and it was your father's time to go. It might be difficult to understand things like this now, but it is something everyone has to deal with sometime in life. Your mother remarrying your uncle may be something that you have to learn to live with because your mother is happy now and that's all that matters. It may be awkward, but you'll get used to this eventually. It is normal for your, now, stepfather to try to act like your real father and may sometimes go overboard trying to really act like that, but he just wants you to accept him. It is totally normal for new fathers to feel this way. His time will pass before you know it and you will take over that throne. It is also best at this time to stay at home, rather than attend school, and be there for your mother. It is all about family.

From,
Maria

With all this talk about family, I thought it was appropriate to post about this handmade book.
My friend's father has been dating this woman, Laura, for some time now. My friend took a while to warm up to Laura in the beginning, but as they slowly started bonding, they became close. Sometime last semester, my friend starting planning possible birthday gifts for Laura's upcoming birthday. She decided to make a scrapbook. I had so many handmade books for her to choose from, and she picked this floral one. She printed all these photos and quotes, and I provided magazines, coloring tools, etc. to decorate this book. It took us the whole night, a trip to TCBY for some froyo, and necessary TV watching to keep us sane. We managed to get it done and it came out pretty wonderful. To finish it up, I painted Laura's initials on the front with fabric paint.

Laura LOVED her present and I was happy to be a part of the scrapbooking process. I'll make any excuse to do crafty things and my friends and family know this.

And to think a lot of this stemmed from me starting that scrap paper drawer!

This is pretty much my official last week of classes, with the exception of next Monday. I'm so excited for what's to come during the summer. Made my official 'to do' list for summer break.

Tomorrow is my last day of my InDesign class. Out of all computer-based classes I've had to take, this one takes the cake. Not for the program, but for the way it was taught to us. I've used Photoshop since middle school, so I was very familiar with how to use the program. My Photoshop class I had to take last year on the other hand was not so great. The professor was laid back and fun, which made the class enjoyable, but most of my classmates who have never used the program before didn't learn much, and still don't know how to use certain functions. Last semester we took an Illustrator class. I learned just enough to be able to get by, but certain functions, once again, I wouldn't remember how to use. For this InDesign class, my professor really was helpful throughout the whole semester, and I actually would remember how to use it in the future. I'm thankful for finally having a professor who was willing to repeat things.

Here are some of my favorite works from the class.

We had to create a tabloid spread based on any kind of family. I chose to create one about the Wild Thornberrys. (childhood throwback!)

For this assignment, we were to take the letters of our name and create some kind of visually appealing arrangement. I have a really long Greek last name, so I had many letters to work with!

Here, we were to choose a quote from anyone, apply a little text box explaining the quote, and create an image or anything at all in the background. I chose a Cure lyric (of course), found another quote from Robert Smith talking about the meaning of the song, and created a little image of Mr. Smith himself. I think I'm most proud of this one out of all three.

OH, I changed my blog layout once again! I wanted something more simple. I got the template from Pugly Pixel, a super cool blog. I customized it, although there are a few things I'd like to change around still. That header image of me is from September. (that needs to change asap)

Whenever semesters come to an end, do you ever have flashbacks of certain events that stand out from that ending semester, or previous ones as well? I think this school year ending means too much for me, mostly because friends and old classmates are graduating. As I've probably mentioned a few times before, this is the year I should be graduating as well, but am being, what it feels like, held back because of my indecisiveness causing me to switch majors.
I guess I'm slowly accepting the fact that I have seemed to sign on for the "six year plan", but it still kind of sucks. Everyone always says "stay in school for as long as you can", but I'm dying to move on. I want to feel accomplished I guess. In this day and age, I know it's becoming more and more difficult to find jobs and start careers, and maybe I would be part of the batch that would struggle to start a career after graduating, but I wish I at least had that option. But being that grad school is a part of my plan after I finish up here, I guess "student" will be my occupation title for a bit longer than I'd like. Boo.

So now, being that this semester is finishing up, I'm experiencing those flashbacks. I opened up my laptop, browsed through files, and came across old photos from my first year in college. I dormed my first two years, and had a blast. Sometimes I wish I took advantage of the free time I had and went out more, since I can't do that now. But what's done is done, and the time I was there, I did have fun. Here are a few photos I came across.

This was "moving in" day. I put together my room, and sucked it all in.

Hanging out in another friend's dorm. We played Uno that night.

For the first month or two since moving in, I didn't post up anything on my wall. I had nothing to hang up. I went to an art store, bought construction paper, and decided to post up diamond shapes across my wall.

My roommate at the time loved the Jonas Brothers. When she heard they were playing at one of the morning shows, she wanted to go. I remember not doing anything that day, and I didn't want her going alone, so I joined (even though they're the last band I'd ever want to see live). It was most definitely an experience - froze to death, got trampled by all fan-girls, and went home numb and in pain.

Second semester, bought the latest Depeche Mode album the day it came out. I remember seeing them live later on that year at MSG. That was the soundtrack to my second semester.

Good times well spent, I would think so.

Instead of posting a page for Thursday's Take A Page Out Of My Book, I decided to turn today's post into Take A Look At My Links. I haven't touched my art journals for a few weeks now. I've been loaded with school work, and I've been preoccupied with some other sites I've been working on.
I didn't want to leave this week's Thursday empty, as I have been doing the past few weeks, so I thought I'd fill it with what I've been updating.

01. Focus-Bliss.net - a fan-site for the all-female metal band Kittie. I've been a fan of this band since 2002, and I started this site in 2004. I've been through every kind of obstacle any fan-site owner can experience. Started off on Geocities, had a .cjb.net name for a little while, moved to a host, learned ftp, moved to another host, welcomed a partner, got our own domain, got hacked twice, started over, and moved to Fan-Sites.org where the site currently resides. Along the way, I've built a pretty good following and slowly became the only Kittie fan-site around. The band has contributed quite a bit, and once in a while they'll post our link on their Twitter. This year the site will be turning 8 years old. I can't see myself giving up on this site any time soon. We've been through a lot.
We're planning on changing the layout in the summer. I'm excited for everything we have in the works for this site.

02. Fuck Yeah Kittie Rocks Tumblr. I started this around a year ago to help gain more followers for the fan-site, and to tell the world that Kittie still exists. The band has been through so many line-up changes and music changes that they've a lot of followers over the years. So many people still believe that Kittie disbanded after their first album - they just released their fifth album quite recently. I thought Tumblr would be a good place to "spread the word". We've gotten quite a number of Tumblr followers, and I still come across quotes such as "Kittie is still around?"

03. Soundbelles. I started this site in 2006. It's a directory of sorts for female musicians. A lot of bands I listen to are female fronted, and so I decided to start a site with band profiles and a news page. I like adding those forgotten bands from the 70s, 80s, and 90s - ones with a cult following. But I keep it open to all eras. I've had many titles for this site, but I finally created one that I like. In the past two weeks, I changed the layout, fixed up all pages to fit the current coding, and sought for affiliates. It's looking good.

04. Zinelust Tumblr. I actually started this blog yesterday. Aside from the fact that magazine scans are wonderful, I started this mainly because I felt guilty ripping up magazines for art projects when I have no way of saving the images I'm tearing out. I decided to scan my magazines (selected pages, not the whole magazine) and post them on Tumblr. That way everyone has the joy of seeing old photos, interviews, articles, etc., and I won't end up feeling bad about cutting pages apart. I originally had these pages up on a LiveJournal account (that I have no idea what to do with anymore), but decided that I'll get more hits on Tumblr if I transfer them over. I have gotten quite a number of hits so far!

05. My Personal Tumblr. I know, it's ridiculous that I have so many Tumblr pages. It's just so hard to choose one theme and stick with it. I also tend to set myself up with more than I can handle. But this Tumblr page is mine, all for whatever I feel like posting or reblogging. No rules for this one. It's wonderful.

By the way, the top photo is of me jumping in photo class last year! My friend posted it on her Tumblr page, and I stole it, hah. Back when I had my fire-engine-red hair. Good times.
Anyway, I hope you check out my sites. I'd love to hear your feedback!

I'm procrastinating. I don't want to work on anything! Today is such a nice tv-relaxing-rainy day.

I really shouldn't complain because the sketches I plan on working on today for upcoming assignments are kinda fun. One zombie assignment - any person-turned zombie of our choice. I'm thinking Little Red Riding Hood? Should be fun. Also have to do a person/animal assignment - turn person into an animal but use certain qualities that describes the person. I'm always up for using Fabio for silly assignments like this. I have a ridiculous concept for this one. I am but am not looking forward to the outcome at the same time - it's THAT ridiculous, hah!

Since I'm procrastinating, I went looking through my files on my computer (I'm always looking through files so I can just delete, delete, delete). Here's a zebra painting I did in first semester illustration. It's my cotton candy zebra. Yum.

I have been listening to this song way too much this week. And I think it's safe to say that sentence is an understatement.