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Man by the river

(Nikon N65 35mm, 50mm f/1.8, Ilford HP5)

WordPress didn’t make a mistake. I am currently writing this entry at exactly 5:11 am PST. Surprisingly, I’m not up because of school work. I ran into a blog before I was about to doze off and it really got me thinking. About many things in general, much of which I won’t get into, but what really interested me was the honesty and amount of self this person put into their entries. One of the things I couldn’t help but feel was sympathy and empathy for the person. I am so abundantly blessed. So many privileges are given to me, none of which I really deserve.

I have a shelter and a bed to stay warm in. I have clothes to choose from. I don’t have to worry about getting food, I just eat it. I have a means and ability to make money. I am so rich in so many ways. And finally, I get to study what I love: design. Before I started attending Sacramento State, I had actually crossed it off as the last school I’d ever attend for graphic design.

Being away four years in LA gave me that desire to be independent and explore beyond the 97 square mile radius of a city called Sacramento. Ironically as I began applying, each state school shut its doors to second bachelors and I saw my options one by one dwindling. This left about three schools, one of which was Sacramento State. I took this as a message from God telling me I was purposed to go to Sac State. It’s been over a year since then, and I could not be any more grateful than where I am right now. (I recently found out that Sacramento State will stop accepting second bachelors for Fall 2010.)

With all this in mind I need to have an unwavering focus and absolute resolve in school. I am currently working on my portfolio to submit in the Spring to determine my acceptance into the graphic design program. I’ve been working harder now than I have been in my entire four years at UCLA and I feel I’m only at about 70% of what I could be doing. I’m shooting for 110.5%. I hate it when coaches say that because mathematically it’s impossible, but you get the expression.

I am so grateful for the opportunity and putting in everything I have is the least I can do to show for it.

So it’s been about 11 weeks since I’ve had a real post here, which correlates directly with the start of school. It’s a love/hate kind of feeling right now. I love the subject matter I’m learning right now, but hate how much time, energy, and money it takes.

Currently I’m taking a beginning drawing class, art 20a. I enjoy this class because I’m learning so much. Everything from making gesture drawings, to cast shadows, and creating form through just simple shading. It forces me to practice my drawing skills which I feel is my weak point. I’m also taking intro to graphic design, GPHD 05. A very chill class with a funny professor. It balances out the other extreme opposite course, visual basics or GPHD 25. This class probably takes up about 70% of my school work time. It’s based on 5 series: Balance/Tension, Gestalt, Interval, Composition/Communication, and Plane/Line/Dot. Each series requires intense time devoted to the process. The design I’m talking about isn’t the posters you see on the streets, but abstract dots and squares on a 4×4 square format. The process also isn’t what you might think it is either. Process means lots and lots of thumbnails and trying to figure out as many solutions as possible. From the few good thumbs, I then refine those even more. After you decided on one final one, start all over from a different approach.

My last class is intro to black/white photography. Lecture isn’t always engaging because they cover very basic stuff like aperture and dark room protocol, but the dark room lab is always fun. Going out to take photos is also a nice way to relax as well as train my eye. I love to explore and this just gives me an excuse to do that all over Sacramento. Usually I’ll go out in 2-4 hour blocks and looking for any opportunity to capture something interesting. It’s so draining and time consuming, but if I was able to capture at least one great shot then it’s worth it. That’s usually what I strive for. For those of you that have done dark room stuff before, you know that it takes forever just to get one good print. The most fascinating part about it to me is the organic process of developing your own film to enlarging your own prints from a negative. The black and white series I’ve been posting up the last few weeks are some of my photographs from this class.

Graphite on acid free paper, 5 1/2 x 8.
This is my latest assignment from my intro to drawing, art 20a class. We were told to pick a master artist and replicate a drawing of theirs. I chose M.C. Escher, whose style is actually more graphic than fine art. That’s probably why I gravitated towards him for this project.