Saturday, January 9, 2010

Chiaroscuro kit

This blog is being written even though I have no idea what I want to write about! You see, this is the problem; I never write blogs because I don't have topics, but my problem is that sometimes I am just too hard on myself on what would make a good topic. I always want things to be planned out from the start, rather than just going with it.
Right now I am sitting at the library with freezing cold hands because I swear they have the air conditioning on even though it is the middle of winter. There have been a whopping five library patrons so far, and we have only been here an hour and a half. Saturdays are so quiet! I am getting very hungry.
My classes start February 1st! I am really nervous. I have never taken online classes, and since this is an MFA in art, it is going to be pretty intense. I really should start some projects in the meantime so that I can get some practice in before the start of the semester. One of my classes is Chiaroscuro, which is the study of light and dark upon objects. In this class, I will be using various figure models in a kit as objects to draw under various lighting conditions. This will teach me to view objects in a 3 Dimensional fashion and produce a higher depth of shading in my drawings.
Well, all of this is good in theory, and surely will be good in practice, but I spent a whopping $440 (whopping is my word of the day, apparently) on a Chiaroscuro kit, which consists of several white clay-like castings that look similar to Greek statues. The kit contains a sphere, a cone, and a cube. It also contains two female heads, a female torso (complete with a butt, but chopped off legs), chopped off arms, and a set of breasts (all features included). At least this is the only nude drawing I will have to do in my program, and my model is a statue, but come on now! Why did I have to spend over $400 for this? And what exactly am I going to do with it once this class is over? The torso is about a foot long, so it is quite sizable. Let's see, let's think of all of the uses; 1. I could place the torso on my vanity and drape various necklaces over it in a "department style" fashion, 2. I could display the torso and heads in my living room or garden as "Greek art", 3. I could store the body parts in the closet in the odd chance that I may need to re-use them in future semesters, 4. I could display the torso in the window (like the Christmas Story lamp) and see how many cars stop to check it out, or 5. I could sell the objects on e-bay, and hope that a pervert doesn't decide to be the highest bidder. Decisions, decisions. Boy, is all of this amusing!
I am looking forward to my classes, and laughing about things like things eases some of the pressures I am putting on myself. I tend to be way too hard on myself. I think I would be better at my artwork if I didn't try so hard to make things perfect all the time, which brings me back to what I was saying earlier about my inability to write fluently. However, I see that I have not had a hard time writing this blog, and I did in fact find a topic. This goes to show that when you just relax and trust your creative abilities you never know where the road may take you. For example, I had no idea when I woke up this morning that I would be blogging about this! lol.