Inspired by a cAt!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

    This week was a weird one to say. I have found my inspiration this week from 2nd family comprised of my amazing friends in Pekin. To say the least being around them, and staying a for a weekend in Pekin has been inspiring because I couldn't imagine a better way to spend a weekend. Friday nights art simply going out dancing at Stone with my best friend, and her Joshua. Then being with our other 3 friends Dakota, Kari, and Cody. As well as seeing some of my amazing friends who are soon to be leaving, or have already left. Just having fun, and relaxing. Doing some amazing line dances, and just plain fun dancing. Such a good time with friends who you are close to, and have an interesting connection to in a psychological way. Just being around them on the weekends makes my world brighter, or talking to one of them on the phone, and getting constant texts from them make my life seem more important. 

    What happens after Stone is the drive back, or going to stay the night someplace. Just our little family not wanting to break up, and feel that loneliness that happens when you see a family member leave, and not know when you will see them next. I love my 2nd family. They are always there, and seeing some of the stupid crap some of them do inspires me, or just the driving around, and seeing what happens, and letting it be. I love seeing them. I wish I could see all of them everyday, but I guess I can settle for a weekend. I love being with them, and knowing that I can be free, and self expressive. I don't feel like I need to be contained when I'm with them. Even though sometimes when I get mad at the boys for doing something stupid like going onto a roof, and the jumping off, and one of them hit the gutter, and decide to be complete morons. I love them nonetheless. That is what inspires me this week.

Artist inspiration

    I find Janet O'Neal to be inspiring. I hope to be able to do some of the mixed media work she does someday. She is so inspiring to me in many ways. Her work is not just inspiring, but interesting in a way that I can't explain. Her sculptures are are so innovative, and have such depth to her work. When I see a piece of her work I analyze how it makes me feel, and what it inspires me to do. Her 2D mixed media makes me feel as if I can relate to her in some way, and makes me happy knowing that she can put this kind of work out there, and make what she thinks real in an artistic way. She has a way of catching your eye from a different view. You don't just look at it, an know what it is. You look at it, know what it is, and then analyze it, and appreciate the piece as it is. Her work absorbs me, and makes me feel just full of ideas, and puts me in a phase of content. She has such a variety, and movement in a different way that you don't see anymore.
    Janet O' Neal is inspiring in the way of looking at a piece of art, and wanting to know every aspect of it. One of her sculptures has me so captivated, and just flabbergasted, and just confused. A mystery I want to solve dreadfully. A puzzle I will hopefully someday solve.

 Something else that inspires me....

Sense of the primate @_@

   
Something that has inspired my over the years is animals. I feel that by observing their behaviors, and actions that I can create something to mimic their attitudes. Either by making it soft, spicy, or something that represents the behavior that I noticed while observing an animal. Monkey, apes, and chimps all have inspired me by their unpredictable behavior. Jand Goodall was one of my inspiration was when I observed animal behaviors in zoos, park, T.V., and online. I see that animals can mimic our behaviors as well. By being coy, shy, jealous, angry, murderous, vindictive, hateful, kind, open, loving, and willingness to follow what they believe. Animals have their instincts intact, and use it every day. We however, don't have that luck. We use more logic, and reasoning. True not all of us use it, but it's there for us to fall back on.
    Animals have a strong sense of self. They know who they are, they don't care who knows in their family, pack, group, flock, etc. Yet we are confused in many ways as in terms of sense of self with personality, sexual orientation, and trying to impress others to be accepted. Animal have this problem as well, but not to such a degree as humans due. Having that knowledge about them inspires me to be free. To not be afraid, and to not care about what others want to use me for. We are who we are. No doubt. It's all about how we get to the point where we are most happy in our lives with who we are. I feel art is the same. We may not know what our destination art wise will be, but we go through the journey to get there. We will eventually get to the point where we are happy with our art. We will have more than one of these moments in our lives when it comes to art. We maybe hateful toward one piece, but loving another piece we have created.

Freeing your inner stupidity....

    Taking a picture of yourself can go many ways. Unfortunately being obnoxious is one of them. When it comes to teens ,and photography sometimes teenagers abuse that artistic talent for something for someone to share it with so they can feel better about themselves(may be a bit blunt about it being used for sexual reasons). I love self portraits, but all the ones you see today is young teens making pathetic faces, and thinking it's cool, and showing stuff they shouldn't on the Internet. That is how photography is being abused in today's world by teens. What happened to the simple smile, and just taking a picture then letting the world see who you really are. Not some stupid pose, or way to make your face seem shocked. I admit some of those things amuse people. I am amused  by them, but sometimes teen's self portraits seem trashy, or just plain pathetic. I mean you can tell that their faces were made to look that way instead of the natural setting the face has. Letting the world see the natural beauty of the face. Don't change the face. Nothing is wrong with it. Change the setting on the camera, or the background. Don't change the person. Change the picture. Don't make yourself seem obnoxious cause other people are. Just make yourself seem natural. The real you. Not the Internet version of someone they don't know.
    The article did have some good points though. I mean some people are very creative with their self-portraits. How do we tell when someone is being just them, and not some hyperactive person jacked up on caffeine. Self portraits need to show the real person. Not the one they want people to see. It's difficult to do that in real life. So why complicate things even further? It's no wonder why so many teens get bad reps, or seem trashy. It may be because of their self portrait. Instead of being the real them. They are turning into someone they aren't. Self-portraits should be expressive, showing the you that you are, even funny at times. Not someone who globbed on makeup, and decided to do some stupid pose to make her self seem better. What happened to simplicity? What happened to being true to yourself? That's what the world wants to see.

What inspires me?

    What inspires me? Well that's hard to say as seeing I'm inspired my many things. Here is a small list of things that inspire me....nature, people, music, movies, houses, pictures, and of course life in general. I feel that life inspires me the most because in general it is one of the world's most interesting, and difficult things to study, and to collect data from. It is simple, yet complex. Has good, and the bad. I feel that in being inspired by what happens in my life by just looking around, and feeling like that I could make something out of what I see, and experience is quite fascinating. Life gives you what you need to live it out, and go through certain obstacles to show growth, and to change your perception on what you saw to what you see now. What you see now is what is going on at the current time compared to what you saw in the past. You see how life has changed in you, as well as around you.
    Inspiration can happen at any moment in time at any place. Easy to be inspired, but creating a work of art through inspiration is somewhat more difficult. I love being inspired at random moments so that's why I have a sketchbook with me, as well as it is teacher's orders. I feel having the sketchbook with me is very beneficial to me as a student for this class to always keep sketching out ideas, or just for the fun of sketching. Inspiration could strike me at any moment so I feel prepared in having a sketchbook with me.
    The inspiration that gets to me most would have to be music that makes you think about your life, and what surrounds you everyday, and the people that mean the most to you in your life. The two bands that make me think about this whenever I hear their music is MUSE, and The Motorhomes. They inspire me in a way that in my opinion is indescribable. At lost for words when one of their songs travel into my hears, and through my brain into something meaningful, inspiring, sad, depressing, or happy. Being inspired by music is one common way of being inspired in general. I feel it touches people in a different way.

Blog #1

            I think the easiest things to include in an art portfolio of your own would be work from your past years of doing art. Why? Because it's comforting to see how far you have came in your art, and how you should take the time, and improve your work from the past to add something new, or to keep the theme going in you past peace, but art doesn't come with out it's difficulties. I think learning how to always use what you have learned from the past, and combining with new things you learn will be the most difficult for me.
       I am very excited about doing pen and ink for the still life as our first class project. First of all I love pen, and ink, but don't have a lot of experience with it at all. Especially the dreaded quills, however, I look forward to seeing the little buggars again to use to my advantage to make my still life really something I can possibly be proud of. I would love a still life in my portfolio because it can show whomever sees it that you have the ability to pay attention to that kind of detail, and take the time to do it. Figure drawing I think will be a challenge along with self-portraits this year to use for my portfolio. I am willing to utilize my knowledge I have, and use what I know to add them to my portfolio. I was surprised that figure drawing was on the list though. I have to say I thought of that as more as observational free time type of drawing. Something to appreciate as you draw the subject, and just be in complete awe of what you have done. I plan to put in as much as a wide variety of things in the 2D media range as possible.
     As well as small 3D portfolio because I don't want to give up on possibly making projects that make me feel proud of what I have done, and be able to look back to see what I did in the past. I know that I want a still life, past work, and some new things that go along with my concentration in there. I want my portfolio to have variety of medias as well as a nice theme along with assigned projects, and concentration projects to really tell someone that I can do what I set my mind to. I would like to explore with 2D mixed media projects this year because I love doing mixed media project, and want more experience with them as well as using the to give more spice to my portfolio. When my portfolio before I head off to college is finished I want to show it to my future teachers, and let them give me their opinions as well as future fellow classmates about what they loved about it. Also what they think could be better. So I may take their view of what I have created into serious deliberation on what I can do to make it better.