The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman. I recommend you watch it fullscreen in HD on Vimeo. Amazing CG + design.

It’s already 4 weeks into the semester and so much has happened so far. Some bad things, but for the most part, some really great and exciting things. During the winter break, one of my goals was to get an internship for the summer/fall, but just a couple weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised by an offer to start immediately. It’s an internship with the CSUS Union. They are the in-house design staff for anything related to the student union and more. It’ll be my first design position so it’s really exciting yet a little scary at the same time. All the designs they produce are very creative and professional looking, and I know it’ll push me to design at the same level.

The only class I’m worried about this semester is GPHD 30. It’s equivalent to last semester’s GPHD 25. Same professor and everything, so high expectations and brutal process. We’re currently working on symbol and it’s very frustrating. It’s such a balancing act between simplicity and ambiguity. I’m learning to not only write down my thinking, but also draw them as well; to express my ideas in form. Our first project is to design a symbols of an ant or wasp, one communicating frantic and the other sluggish. It’s not as easy as simply tracing a silhouette of the insect, but intentionally interrupting the black space with white space to convey form, message, function and simplicity all in one. The form is in recognition, message in expressing the emotion, function in still being readable at 1/2″, and simplicity in instant recognition. Lately I’ve been wasting a lot more time than I can afford. I still have a couple drawings and photographs to submit for the portfolio review in May and I was asked to put some of my work in a gallery in April. Some of my mini goals are to draw and learning Adobe software everyday. This is a recent drawing I finished as a part of my goals as well as to put in the gallery.

experimental side lighting drawing based on photo
4H-8B graphite on 11″ x 14″ paper

Cool graphical music video by Matisyahu and addicting song at the moment, probably because it uses the I-V-vi-IV chord progression.

If you don’t know what the 4 chords I’m talking about are, check out this second video.

The keyboardist is sporting an awesome shirt.

I’m going through this really good drawing book right now, Keys to Drawing by Bert Dodson. So far focuses a lot on the technical aspect and technique of drawing. For example, you should be looking at whatever you’re drawing more than the drawing itself. I bought it a year ago because it was a recommended classic. I’m only about half way through it, but with the portfolio review coming up, I hope to finish it well before then. Here’s one for the chapter on lighting. (the white lines under the chin and hair is actually the ripples on the paper reflecting light from the scanner)

ben harper portrait

4H-8B graphite on paper