the art of the hobbyist

So here's some of my stuff. People tell me I'm good at drawing...fair enough, but I don't consider myself an artist. Hobbyist at best. I read Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev once and the intensity scared the crap out of me. And listening to other people talk about their paintings during class critiques...uh-uh. I get a picture in my head, I want it out on paper or canvas or computer screen, I put it there, and I'm happy. Just for amusement.

Speaking of amusement... this was when I pranked the signboard on campus. The words "JEDI ACADEMY" are brown tempera on paper pasted over the original signage "UNIVERSITY". I unwittingly did it on a prospective students' visit day and later heard there were parents taking pictures. The lightsaber is Photoshop, since I don't have a 'real' toy one.

This was supposed to be an "abstract self-portrait" where you can paint yourself however you like. Most people didn't even do their faces. I decided to paint my family as mushrooms; the 'good' explanation for why Mum isn't in there is that she's supposed to be the tree nurturing the rest of the family; the 'real' and 'bad' explanation is that I originally only put in five mushrooms, and picked Pa over her. The acrylic was fun to work with because it dries quickly and really hard so you can texture it. Made lumpy tree bark.

Colour still life. This was probably one of my best paintings. The prof put it on display in the gallery so it's probably still there...must retrieve when I go back to get my other stuff.

More later when I make the digicam files from TA's camera smaller.

This isn't really art unless it's like 'found object' or something...I bought jumbo eggs for the first time and discovered that the reason they're jumbo is that most are double-yolked. Hm...wonder if chickens can have twins. Seems unlikely given the limited amount of nutrients and gas-exchange area available.

Gah. I've got to figure out how to get the layout to work properly. This is argly.