My Trip to LA - Day 1

I had the opportunity last week to go to Los Angeles, California on a school trip.  It was a fantastic experience and I'm going to tell you all about it and what I learned!

Monday March 5
Most people flew out with the group, but my husband, me, and two others from the group decided to drive out in order to save money.  We left at midnight Monday morning and started the long ten-ish hour drive from Provo to LA.  I had tried to nap and sleep Sunday afternoon and evening, but was fairly unsuccessful since I was so anxious and excited for the trip.

So!  We drove all the way to LA.  It was dark pretty much until we hit California.  I was awake for most of the way, I dozed off once or twice and only once was even close to an hour.  Anyway, we were headed south on I-15 which means we drive through Las Vegas.  It's about half way on the drive.  The moon had just set, dawn was still an hour or so away, when we came along to Vegas.  We come out of the canyon and there was a SEA of LIGHT!  It was beautiful!  As far as the eye could see there were little lights from horizon to horizon.  There really is nothing else like that view of dark rocks and then suddenly, light!  We had a great time looking at all the fancy casinos and cool buildings as they were all lit up.  It's definitely a sight I recommend experiencing at least once.

We arrived about three hours before everyone else, so we hung out on the California State University Northridge campus for a couple of hours after eating a picnic lunch.  I had big plans to do homework, I have a short story to write for class and it's still not done.  I set up in the library on a couch, started typing, and couldn't keep my eyes open.  I sat there for maybe fifteen minutes half-asleep, unable to open my eyes, with my laptop out on my lap.  I decided that wasn't going to work, so I put my laptop back in my backpack, set my backpack on the couch next to me, curled up on it, and promptly fell asleep for a good hour.  After that I woke back up and typed away for another hour and pretty much wrote myself into a corner.

After the library we met up with the rest of the group and listened to a presentation by Laurel Long.  She talked about the process she goes through to illustrate a book.  The key tidbits I picked up from her were that she paints with cheap little craft brushes and a medium eyeshadow brush from Target, publishers look at competitions, and if you give publishers post cards they will keep them if they like them.  She gave a lot more advice, but those were the most important and new things to me.

After Laurel Long we went to see Nathan Fowkes at the LA Academy of Fine Art.  He talked to us about his work as a lighting designer for Dreamworks.  He gave a lot of advice, but focused on how you need to practice and push yourself artistically at least once a week or else you'll go nowhere.  You need to do the equivalent of gesture drawings with environments, go plein air painting (I don't know how to spell it) because it's the best way to learn about light and color.  It's good to do studies every night.  You don't know what a color does until you put it into context with other colors.  He was a very nice guy and very good at what he does.

After Nathan we went to visit Joseph Todorovich in his studio/apartment.  He had a fantastic set up with plenty of space and working areas.  He had three different easels with in progress paintings, and they were beautiful.  Sadly I fell asleep on one of his antique couches since I was so exhausted from the long day.  I did manage to catch him give the advice of how it's important to be passionate and to always be working before I nodded off.  We got back to the hotel after 10:30, and I did a few things before finally falling asleep sometime before midnight.  I didn't take any pictures the first day.

This is getting to be a long enough post as it is, so I think I'll post this for now and give you the rest of the week later.  I promise there will be pictures!  More exciting stories also!

Lists of Things I've Seen or Read

Anime
.hack//sign
12 Kingdoms
Black Butler
Bleach (most of it)
Blue Exorcist
Cowboy Bebop
Dragon Half
Escaflowne
Fruits Basket
Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
Ghost in the Shell (1st Season)
Hetalia (currently watching)
Kino's Journey
Mushishi
Natsume Yuujinchou (currently watching)
Outlaw Star
Princess Tutu
Read or Die OVA
Tiger & Bunny
Tsubasa
Ultramaiden Valkarie
Utawaremono

Anime Movies
Blue Submarine 6
Cardcaptor Sakura
Castle in the Sky
Escaflowne
Howl's Moving Castle
Kiki's Delivery Service
Metropolis
Naussica and the Valley of the Wind
Ponyo
Princess Mononoke
Return of the Cat
Spirited Away
Tokyo Godfathers

Manga
Bleach
Blue Exorcist (currently reading)
Dragon Eye
Dragon Half
Eden (1st 2 books.  Don't read.  Bad stuff.)
Escaflowne
Fruits Basket
Fullmetal Alchemist
Kuroshitsuji (currently reading)
Magic Knight Rayearth
Matantei Loki
Natsume Yuujinchou
Tsubasa

Cartoon Series
Avatar the Last Airbender
Kim Possible
Magic School Bus
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic
Star Trek

TV Series
Babylon 5
Big Bang Theory
Crusade
Dr. Who (currently watching)
Farscape
Firefly
Moonlight
Sherlock
Star Trek DS9
Star Trek OS
Star Trek NG
Supernatural (1st 14 episodes, didn't catch my interest.)

Plan on Watching Someday
.hack//G.U.
Battlestar Galactica original
Danny Phantom
Ghost in the Shell Season 2
Kino's Journey Movies 1: Life Goes on, and 2: The Land of Sickness
Legend of Zelda cartoon
Millenium Actress
Naruto?
Paprika
Stargate
Star Trek Voyager
Steins;Gate

Plan on Reading Someday
Dragonball Z
Mushishi
Scott Pilgrim


Please note lists are incomplete and will be updated regularly.  Last update 18 December 2012.

Smash Brawl!

So this weekend I had a party with a couple of friends.  Both of these friends have served missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints so were out of the loop on what was going on for 18 months, so we've been watching movies together that they've missed (well, one of them missed, the other was quicker at seeing some of them).  So far we've watched Megamind, Ironman 2, and on Friday we watched Avatar (not the airbender).  We watched the extra-extended one, so that it would have some new stuff for the friend who had already seen it four times.  It was so much fun!  My one friend was already freaking out about how awesome it was when we were only ten minutes in, and during the big battle she said, "Animation is so addicting!   Who needs ecstasy when you have CG!"  We all laughed and decided that was going up on our quote wall.  We put up a large piece of paper in my life drawing class to write our silliness on.  So far it's mostly covered with quotes from me... we need to change that!

We also played Super Smash Brothers Brawl on my Wii.  My one friend hadn't touched it since her mission and thought we would totally beat her... she beat us every brawl.  I decided to practice so I would know what I was doing the next time we play, which will probably be this weekend.  I've gotten to the point now where my husband and I are almost evenly matched.  My favored character is Pitt, although I really want to play Link.  Maybe when I get a bit better I'll try Link out again.  Although, my one friend despises Link and Peach because of how other people used them in the past.  However, for some reason she feels like helping Pitt, which could be to my advantage.  I really stink at flying back up onto the stage if I fall off.

Anyway, just thought I should update this a bit more often.

Odd out

I Used to Wonder

I used to wonder how authors could crank out stories so quickly.  When I wrote my first (currently unfinished and failed) novel I spent three years on it, mainly during the school year, and I only managed to write about 108 pages and struggled with the ideas.  Now I'm writing again, and happily I've found my muse.  I'm writing a completely different story and have over 135 pages and I've only been working on it for roughly two-ish months off-and-on at least once a week, and I have plenty of ideas and it's a much stronger piece.  I also am brimming with ideas and concepts for a sequel or two.  I am amazed how four years of maturity and educational training can make such a difference!  It's brilliant!

Get educated people, it lets you think better, even if it might seem boring at the time.

And so Spring Term has Begun

And it is busier than I expected.  I am taking Advanced Life Drawing, Doctrine and Covenants 2, and Character Design!  The Character Design class is lots of fun, I really enjoy it, but it's a little more work than I was thinking for some reason.  Life drawing is also being more work than expected.  The terms are so short!  Everything is crammed into such a limited time frame!  I don't have much else to say right now other than that.