The Dome

So I was watching the new show called Under the Dome which is about a town that suddenly gets trapped under this electric dome and can not escape and can not talk to others outside of the dome (which made me think they were dumb for not using writing instead of standing there trying to talk to each other when they can't hear each other). To be honest I don't think it is really a show that I feel like keeping up with because it seems like an over dramatic version of The Simpsons Movie.

However there was one reference (or at least I thought it was a reference) that I picked up on that I felt like sharing. One of the creepy-ass people that live in this town was trying to kill the main character who is not from the town but is an army veteran there on some secret mission and the villager didn't kill him but in an unsettling tone said "Be seeing you" which I think is a reference to The Prisoner which we watched in my Freshman year of STAC. I think it references it because the guy is an outsider like No.6 and is trapped in the town like the Village. I don't know though. You can watch it and make your own judgments.

Art is Smart

Update on my entries for Gerard Way's '#artissmart' twitter art contest.
Here is one:

I like this one the best. 

And this one which I have worked on in class for the past two days:

This one looks better in person and I hate that. Even my paintings are not photogenic.

float on

Just finished this now. I used the program called 'FireAplaca' it is a mix of Photoshop and Paint tool SAI.

Drawing for ジェラールド

So today in the twitter verse Gerard Way asked for people to draw is twitter icon. It will be some sort of contest ish thing. Although I doubt I'd win I feel like this could be a good little project for the week.
I think I want to use a couple mediums for background but have Gerard painted (not sure if i'll use oils or acrylic).

here is his twitter icon:

so many sparkes. かわいい as hell.

High Lines and Good Times

Nice field trip on Friday, sorry I could not get to the show, had to take SATs bright and early. As far as the photography project goes I did take some pictures that I could justify with The Real, The Magic but I think for different reasons. I also took pictures not for the project that could be used for montage reasons. A lot of the pictures I took are things that if I was sitting around waiting and that was nearby it would probably spark my imagination (I felt that magic and imagination could be interchangeable). Chelsea market had some cool stuff in there, I only bought a pin that said "Name of an Obscure Band" for $1. The High Line was very beautiful, I have walked from FIT to Chelsea before and seen The High Line from afar but being up there felt like being in a little sub world. The juxtaposition is very intriguing. One thing I took a picture of there was this child sitting alone next to an empty chair talking and make noises to himself. I wonder what was going on inside his head.

Okay I need to take the time to ask DID THE ENTIRE COUNTRY OF ITALY DECIDE TO ALL COME TO NEW YORK AT ONCE? Never in my life have I heard so much Italian in one day. It was kind of nice because most the time when people are speaking foreign languages around me I have no clue what is going on but somebody near me knows. Somebody will turn to me going "oh they are talking about bathtubs". After six years of Italian class I picked up what they were saying for the most part (Grazie Signora Iaconis).

The Guggenheim was meh.
I'm ambivalent on what I saw there. In some ways I thought the Splendid Playground was kind of cool and in some ways it seem like a phot. One of the pieces there just looked like a fruit roll up to me (you know what I am talking about). I did like the room called No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia. One piece I liked was "What Do We Want" by Vietnamese artist, Truong Tan. It looks like this:

I like how the painting gets another dimension by adding a piece of rope. In the Guggenheim's video about No Country Tan says, "Other artists present the front of the face or the 'good' side of society, which I have a hard time seeing, but they hide the 'dark' side of society". He said the person was rope bound because at the time in Vietnam "Communism destroyed religion, morality, and tradition, and secondly did not allow art to flourish". I did buy one of the cards from the Gutai Card Machine because the machine looked cool went 'beep'.

After the Guggenhiem I returned to Neue Galarie; I have not been there since my Freshman year. Sadly only two rooms were open but I still got to see great work by Klimt and Schiele. I probably spent half the time looking at the wall full of Schiele drawings. It is this weird feeling seeing art you have seen before in books or on a computer screen and then have the real thing in front of your face. It gives me that emotion that I can't talk about because I don't know how to describe it. I was thinking wow the person who drew this has almost been dead for a hundred years now but this is still here, and still appreciated. That is what I like about art, you can leave a mark with art. I never hear about how a corporate guy from 50 years ago still impacts many day to day. I can't understand how people willingly spend their life in a cubicle. When I hear kids my age say "I want to do business when I am older" I can't help but think 'do you really want to? Are you lying to yourself in hopes of making a buck?'. Now I'm sure some people out there enjoy it, but I can't completely understand why.

After that I made my way home.

so lonely.

Don't you laugh when the hearse goes by

or you'll be the next to die!


While doodling for a few days I ended up doodle people from this one dream I had; a dream I like enough to try to continue it in day dreams. The dream was something along the lines of a girl is walking her dog in the woods at night and comes across a guy carrying glowing rods into a spaceship long story short girl almost kills him and the crew but doesn't so they have her travel space with them. At some odd point the space they have to stop and borrow something from some floating spaceship that isn't really going anywhere. They go into that spaceship and enter a hot room full of teddy bears in sunglasses going along to old exercise videos. They go to the very humid cockpit and who is sitting there?

This old, skinny, black woman wearing a bikini, smoking. She is a bit batty.

And that is where I am at now as far as artwork goes.

Today I was looking at Francis Bacon's work. Dublin born painter known for his "bold, graphic, and emotionally raw imagery". I really like his work because it releases emotion and a lot of his paintings could be considered horrifying. I like morbid and sometimes sadistic art, it is like you can hear them scream (does that may be sound like a serial killer, I feel like I'm sounding like a serial killer here). I think I'm figuring out that emotion is a big part of art for me. That is why I like faces. That is why I don't really like painting a bowl of fruit (which of course I'm very willing to do in the name of practice).
Here are some Francis Bacon paintings:

Focusing on the subject of dark matter, I have always been attracted towards it. It could very well be because I was born in Halloween season. Since I was a child I have liked that kind of stuff. I have a grim reaper that has been hanging over my bed since I was in elementary school. I loved watching shows about ghosts and supernatural beings. One book series I used to love reading over and over was Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz. You may or may not know it as 'that book with the creepy ass illustrations'. I was kind of thinking about the illustrations (done by Stephen Gammel) when looking up Francis Bacon.

this kind of art in books I read as a child

Since a lot of Francis Bacon's work looks like people who are tortured it also drew my mind to one of my favorite comics Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez (most known for Invader Zim). I have it if anybody would like to borrow.

Don't worry I am sane enough.

Vine

So about a week or so ago I finally got around to downloading the app called Vine. For those who don't know what Vine is it is an app where you can record short videos (you can take different shots but not arrange them) and by short I mean somewhere around 6 seconds. The format of it is similar to Instagram in the sense that you can follow people, like, comment, hashtag, etc. Some people create really cool things with it, others sort of show a short glimpse of what they are doing in that point of time. I recommend any STACie with and iPhone should try it out (especially if you have some interest in making movies/videos).
You can find me as: Sarah Robinson
good luck with that though because my name is very common.


Here is good example of a post on vine
https://vine.co/v/bTmVPPMO67i/embed
(make sure to turn on the volume on the vine)

I want to change the future as I look into your eyes.

While getting ready to put on mein kampfy pajamas on I found this nasty looking bruise that I don't remember receiving. It is things like this that keep me up at night.


Anyways, on the future!
I plan to continue working on my Tarot card project with Michelle Li, working towards a set of our favorite tarot cards from the Major Arcana. I think we can make a nice, completed product, we just need to work on getting the supplies to move on at the moment. I am collaborating with Michelle but I think I would still consider her in my community. Other than her I don't have a distinct community but I will talk (in a constructive manner) to those who are working on their projects around me at the moment in time. If you would like to know where I am with this project you can look on the blog post titled "Assessment".

As far as a minor goes I am thinking of maybe doing lyric pictures or practicing anatomy, or any other artistic endeavor that strikes me for the free moment. I don't want to call anything a 'project' because that puts me in the mindset that everything should go right or come as close to right as it can. I don't want to put that pressure upon the minor because I feel like it would be more useful without it. It is like how when I doodle I seem so much creative and better because I am not pressuring myself that 'it has to come out right' I feel this attitude creates a situation that can potentially stunt improvement. In the future I hope to have so much technical skill that drawing is as much as a breeze as doodles are.

As far as books go I think I am going to read Schiele by Reinhard Steiner.
http://www.amazon.com/Schiele-25-Reinhard-Steiner/dp/3836531380
I am going to do more research on this book before I buy it. Since the biography is on an artist I want to make sure it is definitely a biography and not a book of pictures of Egon Schiele's work. I tend to find myself drawn to Egon Schiele's work so I feel he would be somebody that I'd like to read about.

The Rise and Fall of Sarah Robinson and the Deer from Venus

Bring out the tissues, we got issues!

 Over the past week I've been trying to scratch up some time to do this blog but something always seem to get in the way. In fact this post isn't even posted on the day I started it.

Over the past few weeks I have been getting increasingly overwhelmed with pretty much everything and anything which is clearly not a very enjoyable state to be in so if I come off as tense, stress, too quiet, or cold please know I don't mean it personally. (especially right now because I am going through trying different medications for my anxiety disorder/depressive disorder. Don't worry about it.)

I have been battling the ideas of: Doing what makes me happy vs. Doing what makes me better off.
This thought is in both the academic and artistic sense, although for art it is easier to find something that combines both.

 However I have been having issues with my 365. I have been very busy because of college preparations, SATs, and whatnot, I spend so much time and energy on these things by the time I am done I go to sleep. I have a lot of days done that have never been posted on the blog, but I am still behind. I get behind because I was very busy or if I want to put more work or effort into it because I like the drawing or song so much. I feel like if I try to catch up to often, it wouldn't be so much of a 365. I don't know if I should try continue it. I like the idea of it.  I think if I don't do it as a daily practice, I would still do song drawings often and maybe make a tumblr for it or something like that.

An assessment.

To be completely honest, I am not entirely sure when the third quarter started, everybody I've asked didn't seem to have an answer. I feel like because this is STAC and I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to do many different things I will try my best to fill everybody in on some of these things I have been up to:

The Scene Queens
For the "Bad Art" project Danielle, Caitlin and I thought it would be funny if we dressed up as scene kids and read the Foreigner lyrics we were given. Now due to fabulous timing, the people from Portugal of course came in to film the day we planned to film our bad art project. Dressed like a scene kid I'm sure I drew the attention of these foreigners (see what I did there? See?!) and decided to ask us questions most of them was what a 'scene kid' is. Now if any of you are reading this and are wondering the same thing this is what a scene kid looks like:                                                                                 
You can find them at your local mall (best chance to catch them is on 'Scene Saturday'). Once we finished explaining what a scene kid was we filmed ourselves reading the foreigner lyrics while the Portuguese were filming us. They thought we were rehearsing. We weren't. We wanted this international embarrassment to end as well as this bad art project. To be honest I feel like I didn't get much out of that project artistically, I know that it was supposed to be bad but I think I should have felt more, or maybe learn something about how I am as an artist or maybe how I am not as an artist. But I didn't. This could be because I was thinking more about the Portuguese watching do art so bad, which I wish didn't happen. I wished I could show them that I can make good art, that I am in this program to make good art but what is done is done and can not be undone. 

Tarot Time
A project I am enjoying a lot more and putting more time into (seeing as it may take up a bit of my time  forth quarter). This is the first time in a while that I have worked on an art project with somebody else, I have worked with others on things like movies but not as often art. Especially when it is with my good ol' pal Michelle Li. The idea of the project really started with an ink drawing I did of the 1922 German expressionist horror film, Nosferatu. I was watching it one day and also got new inks that week so this came together:

I like working with ink, it seems mindless and relaxing in a way. From here, I started trying to come up with another project to work on and after tarot cards came to mind I joined forces with Michelle and we took some of our favorite of the Major Arcana and began coming up with ideas for designs to eventually etch. We were influenced by art nouveau, Alphonse Muche in particular. Here is an example of Muche's work:

I think we both took a lot of ideas from Muche, Michelle even using many of the poses Muche used. Another artist whom is one of my favorites and I always tend to be influenced by is Egon Schiele, I always like looking through books with his art in it, I love all the expression in it. I like drawing more than painting because I feel that I can express myself more in drawing than paint. With this project I am learning how to use the space I have effectively. I am trying to come up with borders to use in the final product. Here are some of my works in progress:

This is the tarot card Justice. The woman is blind because Justice is blind and she is holding scale because of  balance and it is a common symbol associated with law (and libras)

The Hermit. I wasn't sure what the Hermit was supposed to look like. I looked up other examples and he looks more like father Christmas than a homeless person.

Death. There are humans at the bottom showing different reactions to death, one  with open arms, on e turning it's back on it, on showing great fear. The border is not very detailed but has a dead bouquet of flowers nailed to it.

The Moon. I have always been infatuated with the moon, it brings me at peace to stare at. I remember my dad would wake me up in the middle of the night to look at the moon through a telescope. This one is not incredibly detailed yet, but as I stated it is a work in progress.

And lastly, The Lovers. I think this one may be my favorite. The rose on top of the lovers in my homage to the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena. I remember watching it so long ago. A girl Utena Tenjou duels to cut off the rose of her opponent to defend her friend Anthy. She wears a ring with a similar rose design. 

ahh 90s Anime

The biggest homage in this is the lovers themselves. They are actually the Demoliton Lovers from My Chemical Romance's album Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. It is a loose concept album about a man and a woman who got shot in a gunfight. The man makes a deal to make him and his lover, the woman, come back to life by collecting the souls of a thousand evil men. I stole the faces drawn by singer Gerard Way of the album and used the here in my own little tarot card.

 

This album cover was actually influenced by the Magritte painting called The Lovers

So far I am enjoying the project because I have interested in tarot cards for a long time (I am slowly learning how to read them) and making my own is pretty cool, I am very curious how the come up as I continue to work on them in the forth quarter.

I'm pretty sure by now you are tired of reading my voice. This has been real. Signing off in

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