'Cat' and 'CSSSA' Both Begin with a 'C'

I leave for California today! At 3.55 PM, to be exact. I'm excited out of my mind! A little apprehensions, yes...but you know, I'm more thrilled to get over there and...learn something! And draw a lot! And just...be inspired and get a chance to work my 'creative' muscles in such an environment.
Maybe it's silly a little bit, but I bought the Art of Wall-E book to take as inspirational fodder with me on the trip....I just walked out of that film like, wow. Super inspired. Super thrilled. I got myself back to the movie theater a few times more to watch it again and it was just as amazing the second and third time around. And I can't put a finger on what exactly it was--can't say it was the designs or the characters or the music or any of those elements by themselves. But I just loved it altogether and...well, I want to look on that while I'm at CSSSA hacking away at whatever I'll be hacking away at. Looking back on that, everything that that film was--the sincerity of the story, of the characters--well, that's what I want to do, so hopefully I can learn from it...or at least be inspired some more.

Fairyball

Well, as CSSSA quickly approaches, I've been drawing! Granted, not as much as possible; I've been lounging around my house more than being productive. But I've been learning a few things from perusing the blogosphere. First, I've noticed that some artists use silhouettes to work out their figure...it's like drawing from the outside-in as opposed to how I usually work, from the inside-out. General to specific, I guess is a better way to put it. The drawings I put up here are a few examples of that method.
That figure drawing down there is actually from the week before last, but it's a pretty good likeness of the fellow we were drawing, so I decided to put it up :)
I hope you all are having a wonderful 4th of July out there :) Be safe!

Wall-E!

Well. Let me tell you something. I saw Wall-E on Friday night, at 7.30PM and...it was stunning. Seriously, no complaints. I can't even come up with a coherent 'review', it was just too good for me to say anything about it except GO SEE IT! The only thing I wasn't so crazy about was the live action clips of Mr. President...but even those worked out super well with the rest of the amazing film!! Gosh. I loved it....I cried twice and I was just stunned by the time the film ended...I haven't had such an amazing movie-going experience in awhile.
I can't wait to go see it again later this week :)

In other news...12 more days before I leave for CSSSA! And now, having seen this new inspiring film, I just can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!

I Don't Need Coffee

I've decided I'm going to start limiting the drawings I post up here to those which tell a story, and to those which are done from life (except for that bike up there, which was from a photo--http://www.student.oulu.fi/~kkangas/hayabusa/IMG_0911.jpg). While I'm sorely tempted to put up all of the best drawings I do, that's not the point I think. I'm trying to break out of this mindset I've gotten into that is obsessed with the quality of my drawings, instead of with the subject and conveying it honestly...which could be a problem at CSSSA.

Other than that, my summer's been pretty slack. I don't have anything to stress about except for school work until I leave for California (17 more days), since no employer in his or her right mind would hire me knowing I'm going to be gone for five weeks. I volunteered at VBS earlier in the summer, which was fun...but I'm not much of a kid person, so I was more tired than thrilled, if I'm being honest. And summer's great too because I get to see friends I couldn't see during the school year, so my time is filling up with that, also.

In other news, I'm starting to initiate a sort of pre-CSSSA art boot-camp to prepare, heh. Only 17 more days to go, and I could use it!

(Next post will feature life drawings, but it probably won't come around for another week or so. My postings are going to be really sparse from here on out, probably more so than they've already been).

Facebook!

I love Facebook; it's such a fun way to get in touch with friends :) As opposed to MySpace, which wasn't too great. But I do have a Facebook--here it is!

Also, Facebook has this cool graffiti program. I'm still getting the hang of it, but here's one sketch!

Guess who was first on the LIST

I decided to try figure drawing using some oil pastels :)

I was trying to figure out what it would be like if Gina were a fire-dancer type of thing. It would present an interesting contrast to her personality and 'disorder' :)

Gina, with Ixa on our left and Keith on our right. More fire-dancing.

A strangely outgoing Gina with Keith, a year or two later.

I WAS ACCEPTED INTO CSSSA!!! My mom e-mailed them on Wenesday, asking if I'd finally been rejected (I had been on their waitlist), and here's what they replied:
"Wow! This is so coincidental, we just figured out that we needed to pull one student from the Animation waitlist and guess who was first on the list? Cristina! I was just about to call you."
It is possible to say that I'm very psyched. SUPER PSYCHED. We paid the deposit and we're leaving on the 11th, if everything goes according to plan!
We even got this adorable packet in the mail with the student handbook (read it twice), and a bunch of cute forms which are just making me EVEN MORE EXCITED.

I am, however, going to miss my friends and family (friends, you know who you are *winks at YG, SAS and GBS people*

Oh, and there are only 4 days left of my Junior year :/ There's this deja vu feeling going on, since I distinctly remember writing about how my sophomore year was ending LAST year. Gosh. And now I'm going to be a senior :) At least I already chose my classes for the first semester of my senior year!
And then...and next semester...CalArts portfolio preparation time *gasp* Ahh!

A cute couple from on the bus to FIU on Tuesday.

Revived!

Wow, it's been awhile. What can I say, I've been pretty busy! AP exams are finally over, THANK GOD...they were killers, I tell you. Some of them were very painful to sit through...through some silly, nerdy part of me actually enjoyed taking the exams.
I still haven't heard back from CSSSA. This is saddening to me :'(
Actually, regardless of CSSSA, I don't generally have very much time to draw anymore. Sometimes I scribble or sketch, but it's actually been awhile since I've sat down and actually completed a DRAWING. So here are some sketches from last month. The characters from the above and below images might not seem immediately familiar, but that's because they're re-workings of some older ones--Gina and Ixa (Gina used to be named Sibyl, but I changed her name last year and then totally forgot about it...wow).
I wish I could show you guys what I've been up to in figure drawing, but all of the photos I took of my drawings were mysteriously deleted! So I'll wait until a newer, better batch comes along.

Oh! I forgot...I'm 17 now! As of one week ago, May 10th, I am a 17-year-old lady :)