Finals Week

note: it is sooo extremely weird to be stressed about school in a different country. Yes I am fully comfortable here and feel at home... but not comfortable enough to be stressed out. It is just one of those vulnerable states of mind when you need comfort and understanding and you don't really have that in a place where everything is brand new....  But i'm doing fine. All i need to do is talk to someone form home about noting in particular and then i feel better. And make sure i keep eating... haha. I tend to forget to eat when I am concentrated on homework :/ which is bad cause it actually causes me to lose concentration and get more stressed out. Food works wonders for energy and concentration :)  who would have guessed? lol

Tuesday in Survey of British Museums we had a review day. So it was pretty boring. And I spent the rest of the day working on my Life drawing final. We were required to do research on a lot on different artists of our choice in particularly self portraits. We were also supposed to fill up the majority of our sketchbooks with studies of each other/ people or animals in the park. and then we had to show the process and development of our final piece which was supposed to be a self portrait. Self portraits can be a variety of things but mainly they need to have a likeness of yourself in them. Whether it is a portrait of you or of something important to you.

I'd show you all my sketches and research but that would just get really boring and make this extremely long. So all you are getting is the process of my final. I chose to use a picture from my childhood. Mainly because I have been missing my family a lot lately and just the comfort of the people from home and this portrait reminds me of home. 

 

I'm assuming this is mostly because my teddy bear is it. :) I absolutely adored that teddy bear as a kid... and I still do. lol. However I did not bring it to Europe with me... and I am missing it a ton! haha. You can make fun of me for it.. all of my friends do, but I can't help it, I'm attached to it and I LOVE IT!

The plan was to draw this picture using chalk pastels, and this is what i discussed with Robert before starting it. So to start off my practice I did a charcoal sketch of it so I could pick up on the lights and dark's.

 

I was pleased with my result so next I tried the pastel.

 

ICK ICK ICK! i did not like this result at allllll!!!!!!!

now I wasn't sure what to do because pastels is what i had planned on using.

so i decided to use a pencil to map out some shapes and lines before I jumped right into the pastel.

much better :) now add the pastel....

 

whooo hooo! that's what I was looking for! and I realllly enjoyed how the pastels and pencil blended together and changed the tones of my colors. so I was finally set to start my final.

after a few rigorous hours and a gorgeous sunrise....

 

I am a procrastinator for a reason.... It's so I do not miss out on these beautiful works of nature ;)

this is what I produced.

  

I was very impressed with myself. This is most definitely one of the best drawings I think I have ever done :) Now all I had to do was add the pastel like I planned.... but I couldn't bring myself to do it. :/ I was really nervous that Robert would be mad about this. But I liked it too much to potentially ruin it. If I would have had another piece of paper and a bit more time I would have drawn it again and then added pastel to that one. But that wasn't possible. After Krista reassured me that Robert would understand why I changed my mind I went to bed..... after skyping my mom and showing her my picture. hehe :)

In the morning when we got to class we were all pretty tired from our late night.... and it was evident in our drawings....

 

YIKES! talk about a rough start to the morning.... Robert actually thought it was hilarious that we were all so out of it, and he was also a bit confused. So by this point he told us all to "go get yourselves a gallon of caffeine" haha we were all grateful of this and headed to our favorite coffee place by campus called Paul... I believe I have mentioned it before? Got ourselves large cups of coffee and warm mozzarella tomato croissants. YUM YUM YUM! :)  It is amazing what caffeine and food can do for you.... haha!

Then we started drawing again.

 

much better :) "you have a lovely way of drawing, It is quite fun to watch you work." He really enjoys the way I make my lines and how deliberate I am.

Then we did a little bit of a longer pose. I had run out of my drawing pad paper so i had to use the expensive high quality paper in the room, I felt bad so I used a smaller scale in hopes to conserve paper and put more drawings onto one sheet.

Robert's main comment was that I used to small of a scale and that my style works better bigger... However he said I did a quality job in the small scale as well.

When we started the next pose I was starting to map out where i was going to place her on the page, when Robert came over and said "WHAT are you doing?!" 

"Figuring out how big to make her."

"on the same paper?!"

"yes...."

"oh no! what happens if your next drawing is horrible.. you can't have it on the same sheet as this one.. what would you do?!"

"... I'd cut it off..."

he laughed and said "I was nervous you would say that! ha ha. go get a new sheet... I want you to use a Large scale!"

as I was doing so I laughed saying "i'm just trying to conserve the paper...."

"Oh. I guess that is very economical of you..."

"Yeah, I'm just trying to save the environment. haha"

"at lease my students are responsible..." lol. 

ohhh he is funny... he is also obsessed with what he calls a "cake frappe" from Paul.

Every time we come to class with our Paul he just haaassssss to go get his "cake frappe". It was because of us that he discovered them.. One day he really wanted to try what we had gotten so he went to get his own instead. And when he came back he was appalled by how it was made... He said they took the cake, but it in the blender with ice and milk and then gave it to him. hahahaha! (that is not what we get when we go.... i think it is just based on the flavor you want though) but now he is addicted to them and gets one almost everyday. lol

anyways.... this is my next drawing.

"oh seee how much better you work on a bigger scale!" yeah yeah....I just wanted to save the paper..... "You are so honest, confident and sincere when you are drawing." "You do not let your lines lie." I've never been told my drawing were honest before... so that was interesting... but cool to hear. I didn't mention this before but a few times he has referenced my work to Michelangelo. saying I have a unique way of seeing and applying my lines that is confusing for most people, but Michelangelo used a similar technique and it worked for him like it is working for me... He sure does know how to give awesome compliments! haha.

Then we did one last drawing for the day

other than her right eye I think I did alright. if you just cover it up everything else looks accurate :) and again Robert was impressed.....

Then we had critique for our final projects. Krista was right he didn't mind that i changed my mind about the pastel. And he was very impressed with it as well.... as usual. haha. Again he made a reference to my work being reminiscent of a famous artist but i can not remember who he said. jkfghdgkjdgf I really wish i could, cause i was really surprised that he mentioned it. I wanna say it was Renoir but i'm not sure. It is weird for me to hear him reference such renowned artists when talking about my work cause I  would never ever compare myself to their magnificence. Nor would I say that my work is even close to the quality of greatness like Michelangelo or Renoir... so it's wired to have him say that. But he definitely is over complementary of our work so that's probably why he mentioned it.

Krista also mentioned that she was impressed I did the drawing in pencil. Because she personally has trouble with it and prefers charcoal. And then Robert went on a tangent about how it was impressive that i understand a pencil because it is hard for most people to use them and they usually do not use them correctly, but i somehow used it how it was intended to be used... whatever that means.... A pencil is the same as charcoal for me... the only difference is charcoal moves around the paper easier and is messy. With a pencil you can be so much more precise!!! which i like!!! :)

So after that I came back to to the flat because Survey was canceled so we would be able to have more time to prepare for the exam. The other girls went to see the grounds for Olympic park that will be here in 2012. But I just wanted to work on my paper for survey and take a nap :)
From my understanding they all thought it was cool but they weren't really allowed to see much and were not allowed to take pictures...

now I have to go back to studying... WISH ME LUCK! :)

"The 4th of July just isn't as exciting when you are living on the side that lost."

This weekend was pretty lax. Which was good. We've been really busy with school and finals coming up! Lots of homework to do!!! Friday I used to catch up on my blog and get stuff done around my flat. Saturday we met up with some boys we met the second night we went out here and it was really fun for me to see them again cause they were the most fun people I have met here so far! We met at the same bar we met the first night, and then some of us headed to the Electric Ballroom and some headed to Camden head... like usual. We always go to Camden head when we go out, so I went with the group that went to the Ballroom cause i wanted to go someplace new. It was so much fun! It was a huge club with a lot of room. There was a lot of people there but because it was sooooo big it didn't feel crowded and you had room to move around. I had been a little sad earlier that day because I was missing out on my cousin Justin's wedding. And weddings are sooooo much fun! Plus I rarely get to see that side of my family so it really stinks missing big fun events! But the club we went to was perfect because they played more classic happy dance music rather than rap and techno and other stuff that is usually associated with clubs. So it was just fun, and made me think of my family at the wedding. :) Sunday was sad because it was was the 4th of July but it's not really celebrated over here. The other girls spent some time in the park but I stayed back and got a lot of my work done. And then we made burgers for dinner. However for some reason I really didn't want one... Weird cause I LOVE burgers.  I was stressed about school, and I lose my appetite when that happens.....

Today in Life drawing we finished out oil paintings from last Monday.

We took the first three hours of class to do this. And then Robert let us leave for the last hour to work on our final projects. I'm not too sure how I feel about my painting. He could tell that I was not pleased and when he asked me why I wasn't sure what to say. It just wasn't looking the way I wanted it to.  He said there is honestly nothing wrong with it.... I'm not sure why you are not satisfied.... I guess I at least matched her skin tones better this time and got rid of the yellow undertone....

Then I headed to the Imperial War museum for Survey.

Everything we focused on in this museum did not interest me at all. Except for one painting I was not allowed to take a picture off. What can I say... I like art better than planes and guns and missiles and anything else associated with war... :) It would have been cool if we focused on the Holocaust part of the museum. Or spent more time in the part that walked through the worst parts of war for London's history and walked throw the makeshift trench and learn more about it. but he really just rushed us through that part. :( And he said the Holocaust is too personal for some people to make it part of this class... which I guess I understand.

After class I went back to school to grab materials for my final drawing project so I could work on it at my flat. And my night has been dedicated to homework.... funny this is what we came here for.... oh yeah... school and homework. not fun and sightseeing. :( It's funny that it took this long for me to feel like i'm actually in school here. I've just been enjoying myself so much that the whole school part didn't really take a toll on me till now. Good thing my classes were enjoyable for me as well!

I have Loved London since I've been here, but now it is starting to actually feel like a home. Which creates two very strong opposite emotions within me.
1) It makes me miss home and America and my family  A TON!
and
2) It makes me want to live here for the rest of my life!
It's weird to have both of these feelings. I have been going back and forth about it all day.
WHY CAN'T ALL OF MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS JUST MOVE HERE?! :) I wish!

Chicago

On wednesday in Life drawing Robert let us run the class. Haha we each got to use whatever medium we wanted and together we had to come up with poses and lengths of the pose. It was a little hard because we were all using different mediums so our time lengths differed a lot.
I started off with a head study and using the subtractive method.

Robert really enjoyed that you could see a likeness of Andrea within this one... He always loves how intense i get about the mouth and eyes. But i need to work on the areas that have less detail and making the areas with detail connect to the areas without it.

Next we decided to draw her back.

Robert was very impressed. He often is very excited with how well i do considering the angles and lights i get from my position in looking at her. For some reason i am usually sitting with the most awkward way of looking at her.... He did not have any negatives fro this one :)
When we were deciding our next drawing he mentioned that we could use tonal chalk. Which is something i have never tried before. so i decided to give it go. And Robert was very happy, because he said i needed a new challenge.

and my first drawing... was an epic fail :)

It is not bad.... but we were given about 45 min.... and that's how far i got... not too hot...
i had a few problems. 1) i was sitting way to close to her for this drawing... so i had to look all over instead of being able to see all of her in one view.
2) i also was trying to do what Robert always wants me to do... give myself guidelines and then do the detail. The problem with is was that I went about my guidelines the same way i go about my detail. I studied it so hard and took forever to draw it. Which is not necessary, guidelines should be quick and juts to give you an idea so you keep everything proportional.
When Robert saw it he laughed at me and said "what were you sleeping during that one" we had a good laugh at how bad it was. So Andrea came over to see and she said "haha you were sleeping! but considering all of your circumstances it's VERY good! It looks like me."

So when deciding the next poses I personally wanted to do at least one short time line drawing to mess with my head and get me drawing faster. It worked out great cause all of the girls wanted to do another really long one, but Robert said he had to fit at least two more drawings in our time. So we decided to do two five min drawings and then a 55 min one.

Andrea threw us some great poses for the 5 min ones. And I was happy that I was forcing myself to draw faster. :) When Robert saw he laughed at me again saying "Elizabeth these are VERY GOOD! I'm glad you woke up." haha :) and then he went on to say that he personally thinks that are even better than the outlines i had for the other one. "These are awesome! Draw like this to start your other drawings and you will be amazing!"

Then I went back to the tonal chalk for the long one.

wooo hooo! I probably shouldn't have filled in all the way around her but oh well..
Robert was extremely impressed with how i used the day to teach myself how to draw better with little guidance from him. yay! :)

Then I had to get to the Apsley House for Survey.

  This was kind of cool because it is the actual residence of the 6th Duke of Wellington. And most of the work in the house has to do with his Famous win and the battle of Waterloo and other things pertaining to the history of London and The Duke's life.
I was not allowed to take pictures inside... so I have nothing else to saw about it really....

So after class I had to hurry home and get ready to see Chicago! I had not gotten a ticket yet and had to get one at the door. so i ended up getting a discounted ticket in second row. :) Pretty cool because i was one of the six people in the audience who ended up getting a plastic rose they they threw out at the end. However it was a bit weird to be bale to see the actors so close, especially because they were all wearing lingerie they whole time...

After the show was over the girls and i Went to a club nearby by called Los Locos. It was a lot fun being able to dance with the girls! It's weird be able to go to all the pubs and clubs because i can not do that at home. But i am enjoying it! and trying not to over do it. haha.

We did not go anywhere for Survey on Thursday because He gave us our mid-terms back. And i did really good! So that made me very confident for the final which is this Thursday.... :/ YIKES! Am I really almost done with school here already?! :(

That night Lorrie Krista and I ventured to Shakespeare's globe theater to watch a Midsummer Night's Dream.

It was pretty cool to get to see this theater, but we were all tired from the last week and weekend so we didn't really get into the show. We actually left at the intermission and didn't realize that the show wasn't actually over... oops.

Exhausted

Phew I have a lot of catch up to play on here. This week had been pretty busy...

Monday:

In Life drawing we just started with a warm up basically. He was introducing us to Oil paint later in the day so he wanted to keep the beginning of the day more simple. And he wanted us to start setting the poses. 

 

I'm not too sure why i stuck to contours... It's not really my style at all, I usually jump right into the tones and forget to set my boundaries. But Robert liked that i switched it up. "so you do know how to draw lines..." Haha :) And he also really appreciated my foreshortening.

Then we used the oil paint. We were only given a warm and cool tone of each primary color. (for those of you who do not know colors it was basically royal and navy blue, bight yellow and gold, and magenta red and deep red) And of course we were given white. He wanted us to mix the colors to get like colors (the actual colors we are seeing). I wasn't too concerned about this because Lorrie and I had taken a painting class last semester so we have a lot of recent experience in mixing colors. However we used acrylic paints in that class so oil was brand new for both of us. And painting in general was brand new for Krista.

I started with a pale yellow under painting to give myself boundaries.... with acrylic paint it would have dried right and and not mixed with my top painting... but oil doesn't dry fast so she turned a bit yellow all over :) oopsies.

 

Also her colors are exaggerated... I always tend to do that... In painting last semester too. My paintings always turn out more vibrant than whatever it is that I am supposed to be painting... But Robert really enjoyed it. He is giving us more time next monday to keep working on them so he said mine is an awesome start. The oil is hard for me to paint with though. I am so used to acrylic and oil just most across the paper differently, and reacts different to being diluted.

And after drawing was Survey. We went to the National Portrait Gallery today. It is basically a museum with portraits of famous people... mostly the history of England.

  

So the corner of the black fence is where we met for class. And while we were standing there talkign about the arcitechure of the building a homelss looking man came up to our professor and said. "YOU ARE IN MY SPOT! you need to move over there." and pointed to the other side.

HAHAHAHA! homeless people are so possessive of the funniest things. So we moved to the other side, and continued our conversation which eventually had to be moved inside because the dear old homeless man was upset with being able to hear our professors voice and started to yell louder over him. It was quite entertaining. haha.

we were not allowed to take pictures so there is not much I can show you :( however if you ever get to London I could take you here and give you a mini tour and history of London :)

After class I decided to walk back to the flat. I have fallen in Love with walking here. Every thing is so pretty! you can never get bored walking. Also on the bus or tube you miss out on all of the beauty, plus you are wasting money.

I wore my tennis shoes cause me feet were still sore from Paris and i knew i wanted to walk. Walking in tennis shoes feels so much better than flip flops. :) haha. On the way I stopped in a cute souvenir shop and when i left it i had forgotten my surrounds and didn't exactly know how to get back. I wandered for a while thinking i was goign in the right direction and feeling dumb that i forgot my map... So when i finally found a map i realized that I had wandered in the wrong direction and really had no clue where i was. so i figured i'd be safe and hop on the tube because as long as you know here you have to get to in the end you can get anywhere from the tube. and there are stations everywhere so it wasn't hard finding one.

Then we all went out for the night to celebrate being back in London. haha. We love it here :)

Tuesday:

I was exhausted from the weekend still so I slept in a bit. And then I had Survey in the afternoon.

We went to the Tate Britian. This museum is basically all art from different time periods done by British people...

 

Harrier and Jaguar - Fiona Banner

 It is an upside down plane... We didn't focus on it too much just the fact that it was the newest piece in the museum.

Portrait of Captain Thomas Lee - Marcus Gheeraests II

 hehe He is not wearing any trousers. I used the word "pants" in discussion and my professor informed me that indeed he was wearing pants.... but he was not wearing trousers. I guess pants means underwear here.... lol

Thomas is a hunter and in this terrain he is more successful at hunting when he is trouser-less. He is able to run and move faster with out them and also go through the swamps without being weighed down. He was one of the great hunters and warriors of the time. He was captured and tortured once but he placed his own hand in the fire to show that he would injure himself before he would give away any information (that is why his one hand is limp)

 

Painter and his Pug 

This painting was done to prove that the English can paint. During the time the English were known for their writing abilities and they wanted to prove that they had other talents as well.

Three studies for figures at the base of a crucifixion- Francis Bacon

 

Giovanna Baccelli - Thomas Gainsborough

  

Ship Wreck

 

Ophelia - Sir John Everett Millais

 

It is Hamlet's girlfriend... You know the story.

The painter had a girl pose in a bathtub of water for this painting and she developed a "chill" so her father sewed the artist for the medical costs.

Damien Hurst - Away from the Flock

 

It is a real lamb. Damien has a more famous piece of a real shark preserved in the same way.

Damien Hurst - Controlled substances
 

Damien experimented with a lot of drugs, so this was supposed to explain his experiences while on LSD and other drugs of the sort.

Again I walked home after class, and this time I did not get lost :)

I was so exhausted when I got back that I passed out for a good 4 hours. When I woke up It was late so I just caught up on some work and then went back to bed.

Paris day 3: Metro Station.

Our last day in Paris :(

Again we decided to walk. Although my feet were objecting to this this idea, i was excited cause i wanted to take pictures of the pretty fountains and gardens :)

 

After a while Ellie and Emily started to feel pressed for time and suggested that we take the Metro... We all agreed. We would never have time for everything if we walked all day again. So together we bought the ten ticket metro pass. PERFECT there are five of us so that was our trip to central Paris and our trip back to our hotel :) 

We were still very nervous about the pick-pocketers though.... Before we headed underground (Metro is very similar to the underground in London it just has more shady people...) we made sure we are all situated. Camera's out of sight. Everything sipped tight. We started a little code system: flashing red=intense high security... stay close together, do not take your hand off your bag, and be very aware of your surroundings! steady red= high security and streaming yellow= relaxed security... stay aware of people around you! There was really no need for any other levels... we were mostly on flashing red the whole time :) haha we had fun changing colors and discussing our safety in code. lol We probably looked ridiculous too. As soon as we got on the train we all circled around one central pole with our purses in the middle like babies. No way anyone was gonna steal from us! muhahah!

First stop of the day was Pompidou

we did not go inside the museum because we had a few other things we wanted to do and didn't have as much time the day before. but it was still realllly cool to see this building in person!

it's inside out.. kind of. All of the stairs and escalators are outside of the building instead of inside of it....

 

 little me in front of pompidou!
 

 Next up: Notre-Dame!
 

wow this place was gorgeous!!!!!

 

 

This place was also a Flashing red security place :)

Notre-Dame is where the most gypsies hang out. I wish i could tell you that the gypsies were dressed like they are in the Disney movie hunchback of Notre-dame, but they are not :(

Gypsies here basically walk around asking you if you speak english, if you say yes they had you a card and as you to read it. while your doing so they steal from you. or have others steal from you. Sometimes they will carry babies and pretend to drop them... so when you go to catch the baby they steal from you while you are holding it.... how horrible! This is their way of life... when the children are old enough they are taught ways to steal... I bet if they spent and much time and effort in school they could be making a lot of money somewhere...

I gave the whole pick pockter thing a test drive once in London. Lorrie was standing right in front of my on the escalator In the Underground and her purse was dangling in my face. I was curious as to how easy it was so i opened her clasp dug around for a while an then closed it again... Lorrie didn't feel a thing! It made me think if it was that easy for me to do.... how fast and sneaky are people who live there life doing it!? scary... This experience gave Lorrie a bit of a wake up call too. haha.

We didn't have any problems with the gypsies.. we just ignored the ones that we saw or tried to talk to us.

Inside Notre-dame was unbelievable!!!!!!!

 

 I do not have words to describe this place....

  

 

After we were done there we walked to the Panthéon

 

Krista and I wanted to see this because we studied it briefly in Art history last semester.

By this point we were all hungry and we still hadn't eaten any crepes!!!! so we looked for a place to get some.

 Again we got lucky with the American talking waiter... He was very nice and made us attempt to say everything in French before we resorted to english :) haha

And needless to say our crepes were outstanding! YUM!

After eating we continued our walk to the skyscraper!!!!!!

I was soooo excited about this! I really wanted to see all of Paris from a bird's eye view!

 

However when we got there the building was closed :( so we didn't get to go up.

After all of the walking I was relieved that we had Metro passes to get back to the hotel. This time on the Metro was a lot more crowded than the first time! so we upped our security to urgent flashing red! we even waited for a few trains to pass on until we were able to find one with less people on it. haha.

We had some time to spare so we headed to an English pub nearby and watched the England football game before we had to leave.

Security getting back to London was a lot better than going to Paris. our train tickets were actually checked this time and customs was definitely more strict. This made me feel better knowing we were at least going back to a safer place.

We arrived back in London around 10 pm.

It was funny how i was so relieve to be back in London. I can understand people here, and i feel safer here. I know my way around and I am comfortable being on my own.

It was great to be back.... I definitely want to live here someday :)