cleaner’s supply.

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

Man by the river

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

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.

Life on the streets

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