Featured image: [Unknown] by Michael Chase
Welcome To Cali Graphite. This is mgaumer13 and I am writing this post as an introduction to this blog. Because everything needs an introduction or else we have no clue what the bloody hell is going on. Here’s what’s up:
I’m taking 21 units of art classes this semester. This site is a place for me to collect my thoughts, notes, art, and anything else that may emerge from my schooling in the next seventeen weeks. (Sixteen now?)
It’s Friday, August 19. My first week of Fall 2016 at Shasta just finished with a somewhat exhausted bang. This morning, I found my tire to be flat so I drove the Spyder up to Redding. When I pulled into the school parking lot, I realized I left my drawings in my trunk back in Red Bluff. It was 7:50 A.M. I didn’t figure there was any point for me to be in class without my work, so I turned around. By the time I made it to class after driving the 80 minutes home and back again, it was 9:10 A.M. Over one hour late. Absolutely agonizing.
While in class, my brain was struggling to add graphite to the right places on my Bristol Vellum 300 paper. I could already feel the effect of commuting for five days in a row and drawing, drawing, drawing. The real work hasn’t even begun.
While I am loaded down and somewhat apprehensive of the semester before me, my whole being is exploding with joy at the task of creating art EVERY DAY. I am positive that I will soon be groaning at my 6 A.M. alarms and buying excessive sugary coffees, but for now I am ecstatic.
This page is an outlet to fuel that excitement. 6th gear until December. 80 mph.
I am now a machine. I refuse to tire or slow down until I complete my goal. It’s the same thing I tell myself when I’m mountain biking. If I tell myself to keep pedaling, I will. I will get out of bed every morning. I will draw every day. I will fucking kill it. That’s just who I am.
Now that we have that established (mainly for myself; no one will be reading this anyway) here are my Fall* 2016 classes:
Beginning Freehand Drawing
Beginning Figure Drawing
Three-Dimensional Design
Two-Dimensional Design (a.k.a. Form, Design, and Color)
Beginning Ceramics
Western Art: Through the Gothic Period
Western Art: Renaissance to Contemporary
I plan to post a bit on each and will most likely create separate pages for them. My art history classes will have the most extensive posts (mainly notes I’m presuming), and I also hope to post progress on my work that I do in class. Additionally, I will post sketches from my practices, artworks from textbooks and lectures that inspire me, and general art information that I find useful and/or interesting.
Now that we have that established, let’s begin. I have a week’s worth of school to record and I haven’t got all night. (JK I totally do. School is life now.)
*Saying “Fall” has been bothering me so much after I heard that thing about Europeans always saying “Autumn” and Americans always saying “Fall.” “Autumn” sounds so much more sophisticated. Why have we developed the use of the word “Fall?”
CALIGRAPHITE 