This summer, as usual, I went to Camp Olson, this time as a staff member finally. I brought along my banjo, of course, and it got a lot of use. The final week of camp, I had the privilege to have a cabin with my brother and Byrnes, one of my counselors when I was a camper and the man who inspired me to pick up banjo. My cabin that week was super easy to take care of because they were awesome kids and never fought, so we had a lot of free time for banjo. I learned a few songs, including my now-favorite, John Hartford’s Steam Powered Aeroplane. I listened to a lot of Hartford’s banjo stuff, and then eventually Byrnes sent me this video of a young John Hartford playing Sunshine Lady. It was pretty singlehandedly the inspiration for this piece.

I’m really happy with this piece as a whole, but there’s one part I really really hate, and that’s that stupid splatter. I’ve never had anything like that happen with a marker before. I was just coloring away and a huge drop just dripped from the brush tip. Needless to say, I was pretty angry because I really like the plaid aside form that. Also, if you look pretty close you’ll see a few similarly green dots. Those are from the half-assed airbrushing I did around the edges and then photoshopped out. That was just a bad choice. I don’t think they detract too much from the piece overall, though.

I had a lot of fun doing the flowers in this. I took most of them from various banjo songs that I like, like Orange Blossom Special and Blackberry Blossom. The poppies are just because I really like them, though. I had lot of fun with this.

First, I had to make the steam chamber. It’s made from ABS pipe, foil, duct tape and a pot full of water and it looks like this:

It cost me about $20 at my local Ace hardware. I have it set on a small stack of stuff so it can be angled upward which allows the steam to get into the chamber. Here’s a close-up of the part that attaches to the pot:

WARNING! THIS IS IMPORTANT! DO NOT LET THE FOIL TOUCH THE BURNER BECAUSE YOU WILL HAVE TO CLEAN IT OFF! DO NOT LET THE DUCT TAPE TOUCH IT FOR THE SAME REASON. ESPECIALLY DO NOT LET THE PIPE TOUCH THE POT OR BURNER BECAUSE IT WILL MELT AND BURN AND MAKE EVERYTHING SMELL BAD AND YOU’LL DIE PROBABLY. After I learned this the hard way, I got around this by attaching the “skirt” a lot closer to the pipe and covering it with foil like this:

So back to the steaming. For some reason, I was soaking the wood for 2 hours. This is way longer than you need. Roger Siminoff’s book on banjo making recommends 15 minutes, which I found to be fine.
After the pipe heated up an I could see some steam coming out of the pipe, I grabbed the wood and put the lid on the chamber.

After about 15 minutes per piece of wood, I pulled them out and started rolling it on my 8.5″ wooden circle made by my roommate John. This was not a task to do alone. I didn’t have a good enough strap clamp to hold the wood to the form. That’s why my wood isn’t super circular…

I hope this won’t be a problem when I need to glue the pieces together. I’ll let you know how that goes, Internet.

I got a bit lazy on panel 1 of page 2. I’ll admit it. I dont think it takes that much away. I probably could’ve put some sort of indication of a background in like I did in the previous panel. The next panel I also like. I think I got the perspective and western-y feel down. The next 2 combined panels got messed up because I didn’t use a drafting T (you know what I’m talking about) and I forgot I was putting the 2 together so the perspective on the awning got screwed. I could’ve fixed it with Photoshop if I wasn’t going to show it off less than 24 hours from when I scanned this.

Page 3 is the most…simple. I had a bit of trouble planning out exactly how many panels I needed to draw and what orientation each was. Despite this, I think the top panel came out very well. The perspective isn’t perfect, but I think it has a very “Fistful of Dollars” sorta feel to it. I don’t think it’s sup apparent that Morning Glory saw Moonflower earlier. The lower panel was when I really started to rush with this project. You can tell because there are large black spaces and Morning Glory has a noodle arm.

The top double panel on page 4 more or less killed one of my favorite markers. Luckily I only used it on half of the page. The right half is fairly obvious Photoshop computer magics. I thought it would be funny to give the cowboys swords (even though Moonflower isn’t much of a cowboy.) The sceond panel took me a while because I’ve never really drawn a skeleton before. I was ruching at this point and didn’t pay so much attention. I think it made it look sorta cartoony like Mexican Cinco de Mayo skeletons. Which is fine by me.

This was a great experience, but next time I do it, I for sure won’t use markers. It kills them too fast.

All of my college application results are in as of today. I came up 3 for 4, accepted to Oregon, Puget Sound, and MCAD and rejected from CU. I’ve heard about financial aid from everyone but MCAD, but should be getting information by the end of the week.

These 3 schools are all incredibly different. Oregon is a fairly large state school, Puget Sound is a smallish liberal arts school and MCAD is a very small art school. I know that Oregon is about the same cost as Puget Sound with all the aid applied, and, for the sake of argument, I’ll assume that MCAD also comes out roughly the same. This does not by any means make my choice any easier. Because price won’t vary much, it is not really a factor any more. I need to weigh these schools based almost entirely on what I’ll get out of them.

I never actually wanted to apply to Oregon. My parents made me. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad school by any means. It’s more or less CU away from home. I don’t know if that’s a good thing though. Eugene is supposedly the same thing as Boulder, and I’ve grown sick of this place in the last while. The school is more personal than CU, but that’s not saying too much. I can do well in just about any social setting, but I have a hard time seeing myself in a big university setting. Oregon has a vary varied class offering, and, being a west coast school, good Japanese program. Like CU, I’m expecting a lackluster art program taught by TAs and grad students. I’ll find out when I tour later this month. I thin the bottom-line thing I’ll get from this school is a very academic education.

Puget Sound, I hear, is an amazing place. I have friends from school and camp who will be going there for sure. I’m a rain guy, weather isn’t a big deal for me. However, I’m very unsure of their art program since they’re a small liberal arts school. I toured Macalester, a similar school and was very disappointed in their art facilities. I’ll find out more once I tour, of course. Puget Sound is very into bonding and stuff. I think it’s a great place for “finding yourself” and whatnot, but I’m not positive it’ll give me the right kind of education for me. I’m not sure I’d like to end up in Tacoma after college. I think the bottom-line thing I’ll get from this school is a “great experience”.

MCAD has for a while been my top choice. I had to convince my parents to let me apply to any art schools, and I’m glad I did. I really like the Twin Cities, and would be very happy to end up there after college. everyone in minnesota is really nice. The faculty is made up of practicing professionals, which I really like, because I don’t want to be taught by TAs or grad students. MCAD is just shy of 1000 students, some of which are obviously weird artsy kids. That’s ok with me, and I have a lot of other friends in the cities. I want to continue studying Japanese in college, and I can do that at Macalester while attending MCAD. I very much like the way they go about teaching you over four years and that you have to have an internship as a senior. MCAD by far has the nicest facilities for art, though small. I’m a bit uncertain about the size of the school pertaining to social life, as well as academic roundedness. The bottom-line thing I think I’ll get from this school is experience and practice.

It comes down to three things: Academic education, finding myself, and practical experience.

My dad once told me I should go to the hardest school I can, compete against everyone and try to be the best no matter what and be a CEO or something. I think I could do this at Oregon. The thing is, I’m not really a competitive person and I don’t want to be a CEO or anything. It’s very important to find yourself and whatnot, but I’m not sure college is the right place to do it for me. I can always take a year off for that. I’m sure I would come out of Puget Sound with a great experience and a good deal of wisdom, but I don’t know about getting a job out of there. I tell myself a lot that I want to become a great artist, and the best way to do that, I think, is to draw/paint/etc a lot. MCAD would force me to do that. I have a minor fear that’ I’ll get sick of it at some point. Surely MCAD will be the best opportunity for art and practical experience in it, and it probably won’t be so hard getting a job with a degree there. MCAD would give me a very good taste of living on my own as well. MCAD seems to me like just the kind of change of pace I need in a college because the others seem a lot more like extensions of high school (especially CU, but I don’t need to worry about that.)

As of right now, I’m favoring MCAD. I can’t really make a fair judgement until I’ve received financial aid information from them and toured Oregon and Puget Sound later this month.

I got into MCAD, as many of you know. You can see my portfolio right here if you want. I don’t think I’m going to get into Puget Sound because I am just about to send them stuff. A month late. My bad. On the bright side I will be ACTUALLY done with college crap.

Graduating is another story. I’m short credits. In gym. So I’m taking jogging. Online.

Nuff said.

Prices are as follow:

Lines: $5 Color (markers): $10 Full pencil: $30 Painting: $40

In order by how long they take. No guarantees about how long it’ll take, but Ill try to have them done by the end of the year.

Thanks!

So I’m going for an action figure here, not a lame, stuff model. To see how the parts go together, I looked to my own toy box from back in the day and found 2 great, basic figures of the blue Power Ranger and Spiderman:

I think Spiderman will come in handy later when I’m actually modeling the figure (I still haven’t decided what it will be yet…). The Power Ranger is useful because it is held together with screws so I can take it apart. Which I did:

Now I know how to make the actual joints, even if that doesn’t actually happen until you’re done with the basic model.

More on this endeavor later.

On the other hand, I would be a little put off if the administration publicly acknowledged these threats and then took no action. It’s a hard situation to deal with.

I would also like to point out that the school is too spread out to either shoot up or bomb the entirety of.

I’m starting to put together my portfolio for colleges. I’m going to put it on a CD in Coudal’s awesome Jewelboxing system with some fancy HTML gallery stuff (if I can remember how to do HTML… even though most of it I know was out of date in the mid 90s) and possibly using Cabel’s sweet FancyZoom.

The big thing in my portfolio I’m working on right now is a sequence I call “Sunflower”. More on it later.

1. Synchronicity II – The Police

Not only does Synchronicity II contain a message about the environment, it’s insanely catchy. I get this song stuck in my head for days at a time sometimes.

2. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da – The Beatles

Life goes on, ah! This song is probably in my top 10 Beatles songs. There’s no better way to describe it than just a straight up happy story.

3. Alchemists – Dolman

Dolman is a really tiny indie artist, which is odd for me because I really don’t listen to many. My brother turned me on to this guy’s only CD, which is mostly more on the mellow side, but this track is a welcome exception. When I first heard this song, I was reminded of The White Stripes. The song is about, as the title suggests, alchemists, and how people aren’t appreciated until they’re useful. You can listen to the song on Dolman’s Myspace here.

4. Two of Us – The Beatles

What can I say? I’m a Beatles guy. I don’t actually like this song as much as “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, but I like the story better, probably because it reminds me of coming home from visiting my friend Galen in London with my friend Austin (who is also writing a post for this). That’s a great thing about the song, it sounds like some sort of love song, but it never really mentions love, just getting back home and taking your time going it.

5. Casimir Pulaski Day – Sufjan Stevens

Stevens tells a compelling story about a boy and his girl friend who had bone cancer and how it affected their relationship until her early death. This song’s story could be turned into a movie even, a movie with a great banjo part.

Stories have always played a very important part in music. This list is but one man’s opinions on some of the best. I hope you enjoyed it.

Today I went into Kokura again for the second time and my final train ride. I went to Riverwalk and that crazy strip mall place. In a music store I met a nice gaijin from Virginia named Eddie. We talked about music theory for a bit, and he suggested a music store where I might be able to find a cello. I found the store, but they had no cellos. Oh well.

At Riverwalk I finished up my shopping for people.

Tonight we had sushi for dinner at the kind of place with the conveyor belt. Is it a measure of convenience or cheapness to have the belt move as slowly as it does? The sushi was good though.

Tomorrow I plan on taking a final bikeventure around Yukuhashi and buying a few drinks such as melon cream soda to take back. If there was one Japanese drink I could make readily availible in the US, it would be that.

The day after tomorrow I have a really killer travel day. I go from Kitakyushu airport to Haneda, then on a bus to Narita, from Narita to San Franciso and finally to Denver. I arrive at the same time on the same day that I leave. Confusing.

Tomorrow is my last day at school, and my last day in Art Club. I have to try and finish a painting I started today… I have to get all my textbooks back to my teachers. I accumulated a ton of papers here, which I’m saving for the senior paper drop (woo). Most importantly, I have to clean my room. There’s stuff everywhere. Toward the middle of next week I’ll start packing and weighing bags. The weight limit is like 20kg per bag I think. I have no idea where I stand now.

Today I met my host sister An who lives away for school. Neither of us said much, but I gave her my 3rd Colorado shirt. The last one I’m leaving here for Takanoshin when he gets back from Oregon some time next year.

It’s all very sad.

I’m very sad I can’t be at camp this year. Today when I woke up for some reason it smelled like a campfire, and I thought of camp. Then at lunch, two kids started singing Country Roads, and then Yuga did at dinner (except in Japanese). If I could only get up there I would volunteer for a week or 2…

Next week is my final full week here. Sad.