Best Albums of 2009 and other stuff

Once again, it has been a while since I have written in here! And I do have news! I am an alumni of Broward College! I have my Associates of Arts Degree in Art/Graphic Design, and I didn't even know it! Apparently I graduated on 12/18/09 so its kind of cool to think I got it done before the decade was up. Now I have to apply to FAU, or somewhere I don't know. More on that later, here are my ten favorite albums that were released in 2009:

10. Dinosaur, Jr. - Farm
9. Mos Def - The Ecstatic
8. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
7. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
6. Raekwon - Only Built for Cuban Linx, Pt. II
5. Dan Deacon - Bromst
4. Doom - Born Like This
3. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
2. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
1. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Yea, I know Neko Case being number 1 is kind of weird but that album really stood out to me. I listened to it the most by far, and I am most familiar with it. Therefore, it is number one.

I am still going to school at Broward College this semester even though I have graduated which I found out by logging into my BC account online to notice my status had changed to "Non-Degree Personal Enrichment". So I went to look at my transcripts to see what was up and it said I had graduated on the 18th. Anyway, I would have to go to school anyway this semester if I would want to keep my Bright Futures due to all the recent changes thanks to the fantastic of the American people and the government alike. So this semester I am taking Drawing 1 (mainly just to go over the basics), Beginning Printmaking (!), Intro to Philosophy, and Life Drawing (AGAIN!) I can't wait til we finally get started this coming week. We already have a model coming for life drawing, and are supposed to have 3 preliminary line sketches for printmaking for a potential print using plexi-glass!

And as for one last thing, I am going to California next Thursday to visit Allison and her family. We plan on going to San Francisco and doing the Alcatraz night tour, which I anticipate to be freaking awesome.

Lots to look forward to.

So until then!

-Jason

2D Design

Ray assigned a project in 2d Design where we had to pick two common compositions out of fifteen and two come up with an original piece using these two different compositions.

The 15 he gave us to choose from were:
Grid
Circle
Triangle
Diamond
Central Location
Two Centers
Bridge
Cantilever
Even Spread
Radial Burst
Diagonal Emphasis
Horizontal Emphasis
Vertical Emphasis
Curvilinear
L Shape

See if you can pick out which ones I used.





-Jason

Charcoal Gestures

More gestures like the ones before except this time I used a charcoal pencil rather than a bamboo brush.

Few months

It's been a while since I have updated this little blog of mine, and since I have a 4 day weekend off of work and school (what luck!) I thought maybe I'd do so. School started on August 24th. This semester I am taking Life Drawing, 2-d Design, Graphic Design 2, and African American History. My favorite of all of these is definitely Life Drawing. It's my first class of the day on Monday and Wednesdays. It wakes me up and it is the most relaxing thing I have ever done. I wish I could just take life drawing all day. But sadly I can not. But I CAN take it again next semester! Here are a couple gesture drawing I did with a bamboo brush and india ink. Gesture drawings are meant to be quick "signatures" of the pose.




I like the two in the middle.

Also those Beatles remasters caused a short frenzy at work. For about a week almost all of our calls and customer questions pertained to the Stereo box set that we and most everyone else quickly sold out of. I bought a few of the individual albums (Abbey Road, Sgt. Peppers, and Revolver) in stereo (only way to buy them individually--and I think Abbey Road is only available in stereo maybe?). But they sound fantastic. All the instruments sound crisp and are really fleshed out. The swirling sounds of Day in the Life are entirely more atmospheric than they have ever sounded. So I'd recommend picking a few up. On a related note here is a picture of George Harrison I drew in my spare time.



I've never been really good at portraits but I think it looks like him enough I suppose.

Bonnaroo

Last weekend I went to Tennessee with various friends to go to the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. It was a lot of fun! Lots of good music, crazy people (not as many naked one as I expected), and good times. Unfortunately I could not find my camera charger and my camera's battery was just about dead, so no pictures from me. Instead I stealing pictures and videos from people.

The bands I ended up seeing were Animal Collective, Nine Inch Nails, Phish, Ben Harper & Relentless, The Mars Volta, Neko Case and Public Enemy. Out of all those, I'd say my favorites were Neko Case, The Mars Volta and Public Enemy. However I came back from Bonnaroo wanting to listen to Phish.

Here is a video I found on Youtube of Neko Case playing the opening track on her new album at Bonnaroo



She was fantastic. Part of the reason why I liked her performance so much is that her voice held up so well live. The band she played with was pretty bare bones--just bass, 2 guitars, couple of back-up singers, and a drummer. So it was interesting hearing them play some of the bigger sounding songs with more instruments being the smaller band that whey were.

I kind of saw Public Enemy on a whim. We were all watching Phish, and about an hour into their set Kat and I decided to get some food and see who else was playing. We came across Public Enemy just starting their set. They played with a live band which definitely made the music a lot more engaging and fun to listen to. This was pretty much my first Public Enemy experience too. I've heard some of their singles and what not. Lucky for me they played their entire album "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back" plus some other hits. Needless to say I now have a copy of "It Takes a Nation..."

Here they are performing Don't Believe the Hype



The Mars Volta was pretty much everything I expected. One of the most intense acts I've seen. They really get into it. The musicianship of these guys is incredible. They played mostly all my favorite TMV songs. Highlights included Goliath, Drunkship of Lanterns, and ending their set with the monstrous Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus--three of my favorites. However they were a little unprofessional. They opened with Goliath but stopped 10 seconds into it because Omar's guitar wasn't tuned. Laaaaaaaaaame. But after that hiccup the show was fantastic. Here is a video of them playing their song Goliath.



So all in all it was a fantastic weekend. I would definitely do something like this again provided the set is good, and the money is available. Not something I could do every year though.

-Jason

I turned 21

I turned 21 this past Wednesday. But that's not really important.

I also went to California this past Wednesday to see Allison's solo exhibit of her paintings at her school. We also did other things like go to the Oakland Zoo, walk around Berkeley, and help her mom give their cat medicine. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of Allison's gallery, but you can see her paintings on her Flickr page on the right hand side. She is incredibly talented.

I did take a few pictures at the Oakland Zoo...






When we saw this monitor lizard one of the handlers was feeding him big fat caterpillars from a jar with tweezers. He saw us watching so he led him right up to the glass so we could see him eat. I didn't get a picture of him eating as I was too late with my camera. But that is shortly after he ate it.


And that's us taking a break by the monkeys.

There are also a few pictures from the reception that Allison's mom took


There's me next to a painting of me


And there we are at the reception with another of her paintings in the background.

-jason

Night of the Living Dead

In the past few days I have been going through some of my comics for stuff to draw. It has been a while since I've actually done this so its been kind of a slow process and whatnot. Yesterday and today I was working on drawing this severed zombie head from my Night of the Living Dead comic. I'm rather pleased with how it came out:



-jason

Captain America

Since schools out and I don't work at Barnes and Noble again until tomorrow, I thought I would draw a little today. I was paging through my New Avengers collected graphic novel until I found something I felt like drawing.



Here is what I ended up with. I scanned my drawing and did a live-trace in Illustrator to get the solid black and white without it looking too sketchy.

-Jason

New Job

Hey Everyone!

I now work at Barnes & Noble.

I'm had my orientation on the first, and met everyone--they're all real great! I'm looking forward to working there.

That's all

-Jason

Cross-hatching

Day 2 of our still life's in computer art had me giving cross hatching a try. Now I have only really done this a few times with an actual pen, so I haven't had as much practice as I'd like. But I used the brush tool with a charcoal brush because I liked the grainy line effect and free-hand drew it on the screen as I looked at the skull on the desk. I am rather pleased with how this looks even with my lack-of cross-hatch experience.



as usual, I'd like feedback. Any cross hatch tips I could use?
-jason