Books I want to read over summer

I'm not a fast reader so setting the bar too high can be frustrating, so I'm just going to list out book that I want to read over summer.

1: The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

2: Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky

3: Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman

4:Principles of Economics by N.G.Mankiw

5:The Art of Seeing- Kodak workshop series


As well as a bunch of art books for daily inspiration & practice

Week 10-Maya Deren

At Land


I've chosen to watch Maya's films because I'm always more interested to female directors. Her films from what i've gathered, are very experimental and freely expressive, shots occasionally reminds me of my childhood dreams. At Land's one of films in particular, stimulated that part of my memory as a child. Cuts that connects one simultaneously to two scenes as the characters move, it's like entering an alter dimension in a lucid dream.


The fact that she puts herself in a sort of observer's perspective is quite interesting.



Meshes of the Afternoon


I see it as a stop motion animation for some reason, At Land also has a stop motion quality to it.

I think that intrigued me about silent films is that you can be so creative with cognizable/ various sound affects and background music, one can easily turn a experimental film to a horror film.


She's probably David Lynch's muse, just saying.

NEWSWORLD

Question 1: STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Man he can talk
As I started reading this, the author's memoirs like writing style soon got me going into the flow. This almost long-winded stream of consciousness writing style has never been my cup of tea, mostly because it takes long effort to capture the writer's point or view (what exactly is their point!?).

 Question 2: LET'S DESCRIBE EVERYTHING SURROUNDING US!

Yep that's pretty much it
One thing that really kept my attention while I was reading is that the writer used a lot of words to unfold their surroundings (air; water; heat; families; girlfriends) this more immersive descriptive atmosphere helps the viewer to put themselves in the writer's shoe better.

Question 3: HAVE YOU PLAYED LIFE IS STRANGE?

A must play!
very similar to the writing style of this work, Cross platform video game Life of strange developed by Square Enix, is an episodic first person graphic novel game. (The game is in third person view) They both share a unique stream of consciousness feel so if I were to adapt this in another media, I would create a video game that's similar to Life is Strange so I won't have to change the writing system a whole lot. (copy and paste baby!)

week 11

I photobashed this

Manga/Comics that I'm gonna show to class

Online Manga: http://mymangaonline.us/manga-info/vagabond.html


Vagabond- Author:

Inoue Takehiko 

Main Characters:
Musashi Miyamoto

Sasaki Kojiro

    The reason why I chose this specific piece to talk about is because it's one of my very early artistic influences and guide book as an artist when I was a teen. Many of my inking drawings are deviated from Takehiko's style. The wild brush marks of characters in movement capture the rawness from this very chaotic time period in Japan.
    It's also one of very few manga produced in modern age that goes in depth questioning the meaning of life through character's course of adventure and various masters/ antagonists he encounters and fights. Eventually in his older times he realizes that the people he'd killed and overcame could not quench anything but his superficial ego. Hungry for an answer, he settles down and finds inner peace and enlightenment from being alone in the woods and eventually realizes that everything he's fought against and struggles with all start and end from no one else but his inner self.

more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagabond_(manga)

Trumpkin

Trumpkin 

The first reaction from me was: imaging placing this in front of your house, your whole family will never have to worry about egg supplies for your entire life.

He is a giant baby. This painting represents it very well already.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

When we were watching the film I was mostly caught by the color and glamorous medieval costume of this British film. I was specifically intrigued by the ways they had done their prop staging and lighting; the cold color tone on character's flesh against the violet back light really makes this entire film looking like its coming out of a renaissances painting. I did a ton of painting and costume studies of this piece and here are two of them:

Zweig and Wes

    Wes Anderson's film was just simply a solid piece of art, without a doubt.  Personally speaking I think Stefan Zweig has a more subtle and detail oriented writing style, he would put tons of words constructing the back story and the environment of a scene, whereas in Wes Anderson's film all I remember seeing was just huge chunks of colors and the flashy cinematography and extremely stylized editing. Both sides of works are excellent, just different execution.    
    Wes Anderson loves simplifying visual messages and mush it into his tinted class-like color filters. I love love love the way he organizes and stages miscellaneous props and characters, and pan shots everything. In the Grand Budapest Hotel for example, Wes smartly visually differentiate main characters to the background by making them wear saturated clothes, and although the villains do wear black, often times there're still a hint of red here and there. He is also an expert on communicating through the negative shapes. He's just so good at telling a story with a striking visual language and quirkiness which often times viewers get lost in his ocean of kaleidoscope and forget to look back at whom he's inspired by.

True Grit

When comparing two versions of films (1969 and 2010), it is interesting to note the difference yet interrelations between the two. By studying both versions that follow the same source material that come out so stylistically different yet somehow similar (except little parts like Rooster's eye patch relocation)

John Wayne is definitely, at least in my personal opinion, remains to be Rooster in my mind more so compared to Jeff Bridges, though the latter has a more realistic characteristic presented from his acting and actor's natural charisma, although I do have a harder time keeping up with his fancy heavy accent and his repetitive digression. 

Mattie Ross; the vengeful little 14 year-old who stand out among all the male characters in the old West, is a formidable character and both Hailee and Kim did a great job playing as her in both films.The character is, not usually from her age, bold, angry and straight-forward. She does not varnish her opinion and does not care or fear of ones who are bigger and stronger than her. Across the story her character has a strong presence of justice and would not tolerate anything against her will of revenge. "I'll use the force of law", was spoken by her multiple times in the story. This character is almost invincible because she has no fear; of anything in that treacherous time; almost like a superhero. Whether she's the true grit or not, her character does represents more on the ideal side. From time to time, Mattie makes me wonder: How does a 14 year-old knows her shit so well??? I mean she can bargain; knows the laws at least the basics of it; essential surviving skills and go across a river on a horse back without fear... She's for sure an over-achiever.

LaBoeuf the Texas Ranger definitely has pride and takes himself very seriously. Mattie had to be careful not to piss either side of the party off while making her point clear on their trip. LaBoeuf's stubbornness and pride got himself into disadvantages but he also is more of a sensible man.
It was touching toward the end when all three of them finally won each other's trust, When Rooster slowly turned from a selfish cold-hearted, ruthless man to someone who's willing to carry Mattie all the way to the doctor after the snake bite and stabbed the horse for her as an animal lover. LaBoeuf relentlessly saved Rooster's life by shooting Lucky Nat when he could easily abandon him and just go for Tom Chaney. 

The original Pride and Prejudice review

      Jane Austin is a very talented writer. Despite the old school plot lines and vocabularies, reading this book was quite a fun experience.
      The character interaction between Elizabeth and Mr.Darcy is kind of like a long and winding road; there's no major plot twists nor roller coaster-like-climactic-scorching love making scenes. Even during Darcy's marriage proposal it felt like unwrapping a little present; sweet yet simple.
       I also specifically enjoy the development of Elizabeth Bennet. This character in which was created in that time period was unique and intriguing. She's an intelligent female with a witty sense of humor, and among rest of the antagonizing female characters surrounded her, she still maintained a good virtue (like she traveled 3 miles on foot just to visit her ill sister) which in my opinion is what eventually attracted Darcy.( despite her harsh tongue)
      Mr.Darcy aka the proud owner of Pemberly, was arrogant and condescending at first but as the story progresses Elizabeth realized from the testimonials from the others that he was actually a kind and generous man. What the author tries to convey through this character is that judgement is better not be made so soon before knowing a person as a whole. Elizabeth's harsh opinions and undermining statements upon Darcy were overthrown later on after realizing what he was really like.
     Other miscellaneous characters by contrast, were more roughly sketched out rather carefully planned. Jane Bennet and Mr Binley were kind and bright, while other characters resides in Netherfeild were just shallow and superficial. It was intentionally done by author to strike out the contrast from Elizabeth and Darcy's colorful, vivid personalities and egos.
     Overall I enjoyed the book. It can be a bit dull and long time to time but overall it's entertaining.

week1 in class writing

       My name is Jingjing Cao. I was born in Canton, China in a cold winter of 1993. My family from both of my parents are Chinese. One from north and the other from south. My grandparents from my mother's side are from the deep mountains of Yunnan, China; A province where more than 30 minor races resides, Yunnan is also famous for its variety of mushrooms and wild lifes grown there.
      China contains 56 races with one majority race which is Han. I and my whole family from both of my parents sides are all Han. However, within the same race there are a variety of dialects and written language differences. My grandparents from my mother's side speak a dialect from Yunnan, it is so derived from mandarin Chinese that people from other areas might have a hard time understanding.

     There are several people who influenced my artistic ideas and taste, same as music and other forms of art. I would say the Cartoon network from the early 90s and early Japanese animated films directed by Hiyao Miyazaki changed my life as an adolescent. In a way it provoked my interest and desire to know what it is like in other cultures and that subsequently made me want to go study abroad and travel to different place.

     To me, the term 'ideology' is more like where my thought are at the present. The world is different in everybody's eyes, what I think an object is might not be the same 5 minutes later. My thought and my values do change from time to time. at the present I am writing this paper and to me this thing that I'm doing right now is the whole of me, it is one with me because my mind is serving for this action. This cognition is my ideology.

Hi