Mm Mm Free!

Yesterday was the Grand Opening for the new student run Quiznos in Sterling. All of the students and faculty were invited for a free meal throughout the day. The line was out in the parking lot everytime I went by but a group of people in the art dept decided to go about 2:30 so I tagged along. I indulged in a free Classic Italian sub, which strangely, was not prepared by any of the students.
I spent the rest of the day, 7 hours or so, tackling my latest graphic design project. It is really weird to have to design something with only 3 colors: black/white/gold, and have it not turn out looking like it came out of a Dick Tracy cartoon.
Oh, gosh the ugly thing to the right is one my still lifes from Painting class. I figured, I should put one up since everyone wants to see them so much. Yes, it really was an ugly pink bowl.

Resume Nowhere

I think it is funny how they tend to shovel snow here in Lyons particularly around the main square. There was definitely a larger amount of snowfall here than what we got back in KC. There is probably a good 3.5 ft drift in the back yard, and a foot on the roof of the neighbors side of the duplex. I downloaded a cheapo panorama maker and threw this photo together of East Ave & Main. This pile is actually smaller than some of the others.

It is that time

For Spring Break!
It began for me yesterday really since all of my Professors kindly canceled their classes for Friday. Godfrey was not so fortunate; he has an exam to take today. We will be heading back to KC Saturday morning. No real significant plans so far. I will get a guided tour of Park University on Tuesday and hopefully meet some of the Prof's from their Art/GD departments. I might try to go see a High school soccer match, but it looks like it is supposed to rain the entire week. Will probably do a little summer break job hunting while I'm home too; can't start too early with this blah economy. There is a softball tournament here this weekend but I'm not sure I want to go out there, it is not exactly warm out, and it looks like it could rain any time now.

At Last

I'd like to say it has been a slow week but it has not really been. Probably because Spring Break begins this Friday is why time is "slowing".

In Painting we are doing a full blown abstract piece; you could not have found a happier class of people when they were told they could throw paint randomly on a board. Our teacher encouraged students to use a giant brush and their palette knives or other objects to create their paintings. It is certainly a nice break from the continuous still life works.
We have also started a new project in Graphic Design class: the Matchbox holder. It is one thing to have to create a design for a flat purpose, another for the menu.. but this, is a Challenge! We have to design something that actually folds up into a display box to hold objects. We each selected our package designs out of a monster book of cut-outs the Professor has. I think I spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to put mine together to determine what folds which way and where and which sections will the graphics appear on. It is by far the most difficult thing I have had to do.
(The photo is from a softball double header yesterday, they beat the other team so bad they ended up mercy ruling both games!)

Well then..

This was one of those strange busy unexciting weeks. I spent most of the week working on a group presentation for my Sociology class. We had to present on the topic of Families; specifically within the Sterling community. We surveyed and video'd a wide variety of people: students, single moms, adopting families, old folks, young families etc. Of course I turned all of our information and images into a Magnificent Powerpoint - yes, I might be bragging.The Professor really enjoyed it but it took too much of his class time away from him.

I felt it was time for another strange photo so, this is an edit of Dario playing tennis at school.

about that storm..

So, we spent all day Saturday at the ball fields watching a double header which ended around 5 PM. There were some clouds rolling in, but they were not the normal ominous storm clouds you usually see in KS when you are about to encounter a substantial thunderstorm. Apparently not many others thought they were menacing either. As we were leaving it started to sprinkle, and then all of a sudden it switched to straight torrents of hail. I had to pull off the road because the road was completely covered in ice. You would think these were winter photos, but it was still over 50 degrees when this stuff started coming down. We saw 3 motorcycles, and we stopped to ask this guy if he wanted to sit in the car until it stopped. I think he was actually enjoying himself though out there in the chaos. Our friend Jordan had also taken his motorcycle to the theater in Hutch to see The Watchmen, when the tornado sirens went off he said they stopped the movie, and he went and got his bike and pushed it into the lobby of the theater before heading to the storm shelter. It was a strange storm, it never got very dark, and there was very little thunder or lighting where we were at when it hit.

More Graphic Design

Our current assignment for Graphic Design is to make an interchangeable dessert menu for a fictional restaurant dreamed up by the Professor called Granny's House. Basically it has to be made so that pictures of the desserts can be switched out whenever the special changes. This menu would be a tri-fold display on every table.

I whipped this out in one class period!

More about this later

This an image from yesterdays storm.. yes that is hail.

Dinner to Go

I didn't feel like cooking anything, and wanted something wih lots of veggies so I decided to go to Subway for dinner. I also felt the need to take advantage of the nice weather; so I elected to walk to Subway, and then eat at home. It was a nice walk, I observed some rather clumsy pugs in a gated yard. One was walking around the porch where a lady was seated and it randomly tumbled off the porch backwards. Then it figured out I was walking by so it came charging through the yard only to be sent somersalting by a patch of some kind of tall grass. After recovering it then tried to put itself through the fence which looked pretty uncomfortable. There was also an encounter with a sprinkler that was hidden behind an office sign. Overall it was a nice fun walk and took about 35 minutes.

Not Bad

Today was not quite as nice as yesterday which was about as perfect as it gets when it comes to weather. I spent about 2 hours outside chasing around soccer balls watching the womens (and a few guys) team play with the latest recruit.
Thursday also means newspaper day! I actually look forward to reading the paper now that I contribute to it. The picture with this is my little feat of joy. I am already wondering if I will be able to continue shooting when I transfer to Park next fall. Either way I will still be out there especially for soccer season. Watching that game from the photo was kind of awkward I felt like I should be rooting for both teams.

Warm!

Yes, I am pretty excited about the temperature expected today. So excited I had to dig out a nice flower photo to go with it! It could get as warm as 86 degrees outside. I am going to go watch a new recruit play this afternoon who as the coach says is "very good"; a rather ominous yet positive description.
Things have been busy as usual here; yesterday was advising day so there were no classes. I spent the entire day working on my project for 2-D Design so I don't have to stay through my one class on Friday. The mens soccer team has another tournament this weekend and the movie "The Watchmen" comes out so this will be a very entertaining weekend!

2 for 1

Two posts are better than none, and better than one! Since the last one did not have a photo I felt compelled to add another. These are

two of my 2-D design pieces from this semester; my two latest ones are on the "wall of fame" still. I am kind of bummed that one of them is upside down on the wall, but oh well. These are made from paper, card stock, and foam board. They are not very easy to photograph either..

The top one (blue) is our Monochromatic (one color) study, and the bottom one was an Analogous study. Until our last project we were not allowed to create anything recognizable.

Another sport bites the dust

So I was strangely excited that Sterling's first Tennis match was supposed to be today. I emailed the coach to find out where they play since could be either the college or highschool..no reply. Before heading to the weekly newspaper meeting I noticed that there were no people gathered around the Tennis courts so I decided to pop into the coach's office to see if the games were cancelled. I didn't know if Tennis is one of those "fair" weather sports and it is still pretty chillly today. (After all they cancelled Baseball & Softball already due to weather - thank goodness because it was too cold to stand out there with the camera.) After a brief conversation I discovered that the Tennis season had been scrapped, for reasons unknown to me still.
Strangely this is second sport that has mysteriously disappeared since I've been here at Sterling. Womens golf vanished without a word from anyone, not even a courtesy email to the students. I just happened to be perusing the web site one day to see that it had been removed.
This College has an interesting habit of causing things and people to go away.