September's Homework Assignment

Good morning, everyone! I hope you're all excited for Autumn and all the coming adventures that entails (the colors, Halloween, holidays, etc.). So right on schedule, here's this month's Homework Assignment hosted courtesy the most gracious Curious Professor Z. For this month, the prompt was a bit more open-ended which was really fun and I had a great time coming up with my own interpretation. The assignment was:

To interpret the following poem through fashion, makeup, art, photography, etc.:

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came,—

The Ashes, Oaks, and Maples,

And leaves of every name.

The sunshine spread a carpet,

And every thing was grand;

Miss Weather led the dancing;

Professor Wind, the band....

The sight was like a rainbow

New-fallen from the sky....

~George Cooper, "October’s Party"

 
I went ahead and read the whole poem which has such a sweet, sweet ending and the parts that stuck out to me were the great descriptions of the leaves: just how beautiful they were and how they come together into this mesmerizing sight of a party. I especially loved the detail of "The party closed at sundown/ And everybody stayed." That line just really spoke to me because if you've ever thrown/gone to a party and people actually want to stay after it's all over that clearly means they really really enjoyed it and kinda don't want it to end. I've had parties like that and it's just really warming and flattering to know your guests had such a good time; it means that the party was a job well done. Random aside, but I'm actually going to be planning a Halloween party this October for work!  What a funny coincidence, right?! It'll be the first Halloween I host a party! How exciting!! Squee~

Ahem anyways, back to to the poem & assignment. I wanted to find a way to combine those parts of the poem I really liked and came up with this great idea for a drawing. Art just felt like the immediate perfect fit for this assignment; it was my first choice and I'm really glad I stuck with it because it came out quite nicely. It's been a while since I've drawn so it might be a little rough but I hope it's fine nonetheless. I do all my pieces in pencil on regular paper because I'm on a budget. Plus I chose to stick with two dimensional leaves because a) 3D is hard for me and b) it gave me a lot more surface area to work with in terms of design. If I'd gone with 3D, I'd spend more of my time trying to learn how to warp patterns than getting to draw them. While it is originally in color, my scanner only does black & white so I hope that's alright. In any case, here's my work:

I call it "Lingering Leaves"
You can click on it to zoom in if you'd like.

And because I was bored and the scanner didn't do a good job the first time, I even put together a little gif of the piece (in a bad scan, good scan fashion haha):

So there you have it! That's my take on October's Party. What do you think? How would you celebrate the festivities that await in October? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! :)

Overdue Update

Howdy Folks!
I know I've been MIA for quite a while now (a little over 2 weeks) and I'm real sorry bout that. First it was that trip to TX then my summer classes plus their finals and, of course, this darn foot which unfortunately is still not fully healed (I know, I know, you're all probably very tired of hearing about it but just imagine trying to live with it!).

So yeah, in short it's been a long and stressful couple of weeks and while some of it was good (the wedding was awesome sauce and I did great on my final :), most of it wasn't as pretty (painful walking, visiting a podiatrist, finding out I have flat feet, crutches, etc.). In fact, I feel like I was actually happier when I had the class or the wedding. It must've taken my mind off my foot because now in the 2 weeks I have off as "break" before Fall Session starts things have been pretty darn crummy. I mean, I'm not  really doing much and I've still been really miserable. Guess being cooped up at home with just your family really isn't the best thing for your health.

Plus I'm pretty sure I've got a serious case of ennui going. Motivating myself to do anything has been a uphill battle; the sloth in me just wants to sit around, eat, and surf the TV channels or internet. But (of course) that just always leaves my conscience extremely unhappy and dissatisfied with how I spent my time. Plus it also makes me somewhat depressed since I start comparing my life with that on TV (and how everyone looks so darn well put-together. Why can't I be like that?!) But let's be real here, the sloth has been getting best of me lately. I keep finding some hapless excuse to not own up to my mistakes and make the most of my day. Honestly I've been giving myself too many passes for 'bad days' and not enough 'productive' ones (or at the very least happy ones).

Ugh, it's just been one of those weeks. You know what I mean, right? Those weeks where absolutely nothing seems to be going right, where everything feels like it's falling apart and your life is just a complete mess. Those weeks you just want to crawl under the covers and forget the world exists until you have the courage to wake up one day and face it. Yeahhh. Those ones. That's what I've been going through. I really hope it gets better but for the meanwhile I'm just going to buckle down and try my best to make the most of what time I've got left (before the impending start of classes. nooo). No point crying over the past. But yeah. That's my life. I hope all of you have better stories and life events going on. I'm wishing you all nothing but the best. Please let me know how you're feeling in the comments below and if you've got any remedies to deal with the blues.
Lots of Love!
P.S. I made this a while ago when I was inspired by Andy Warhol's work. I call it Guilty Hearts.