New Page Highlight July 31, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Science & Technology.comments closed
I would like to direct your attention to the new page I made today on this blog – FrontSight Info. There are 39 links to information about the Front Sight Firearms Training Institute. Blogfriend Retired Geezer at Blog Idaho has taken instruction there and declares it to be “Da shiznit, yo!”. That’s a good enough endorsement for me.
Curses! July 31, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Art.comments closed
I tried to sign up for the Art 201 class today and I was REJECTED by the system! Life Drawing has Drawing 101 and 102 as prerequisites for the class and haven’t taken those here. I took them a long time ago (1988 – crikey that’s almost 20 years!) in another state and I never had this school request a trascript. Grrr. Transcripts can take a while and I wanna get signed up now. I e-mailed the instructor (never had this guy before) asking for a waiver and mentioned a couple of the other instructors over there who’ve seen my stuff. Hopefully I’ll get a response soon.
I suppose I oughta put in for a transcript transfer request anyway. What a bother though. The world really ought to be reorganized to accomodate my laziness better.
Art 201 July 30, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Art, Home.comments closed
Well hey! The local community college has some night art classes this fall! I can take the watercolor class again, or ceramics, or Art 201 Life Drawing I: An introduction to the depiction of the human form with studies in anatomy and pictorial organization. Emphasis on technical skills base on observational studies.
I did some of this, years ago in Intro to Drawing but I could use some a lot more practice in this area. Hmm…
Final Project, Final Grade July 17, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Art.comments closed
Our last project was to glue some styrofoam together and carve it into a sculpture. My ambitions got the better of me and I wanted to do something big and extravagant with this one. Alas, time constraints were short and I wound up with something…largish and odd.
Yah, I don’t know what the hell it is either. The last week was a day shorter than all the rest so I only had two nights to work on it.
It’s about four feet tall and yay wide. The surface was covered in an acrylic / cement mixture that dried to a stucco-like texture. Stucco-like? Actually this is stucco. This is the stuff they use to do homes around here. Anyway, the idea was to paint these things too, but I had no time to do so. I’m not really sure how I would have painted it anyway so this is what it looks like now hanging out in my garage.
I e-mailed the instructor yesterday to get my grade for this thing and the overall class grade. Same for both: A-. Okay.
Now the question remains – what the hell am I going to do with this thing?
Booze Bloggering July 16, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Art, Science & Technology.comments closed
So, Mr. Stoaty Weasel put up a post about whiskey and the general distillation of spirits. I was curious about the taste of rye whiskey, and astonishingly he’d never tried it! Well, I have seen it in one of the liquor stores around here so in the interest of science* I said I’d pick up a bottle and give a full report.
There was two to choose from: Old Overholt and Jim Beam’s yellow lable. I went with Old Overholt.
I got it for $11.99. As you can tell they spared every expense. It’s been aged four whole years too! Usually you get some sort of story with your whiskey on the back label about how pure the water is at the distillery, how their methods have remained unchanged for 200 years – blah, blah, blah. No story here though.
Whelp – here goes.
Ah! Hmm. Well. That is certainly different.
*Shut up – it is too science!
***Update***
Okay, I’ve had time to mull it over and render a final verdict: rye whiskey = paint thinner. Now we know why only two companies make the stuff and why it’s not stocked at the grocery stores – nobody wants to drink it. It’s not a good whiskey for sipping – it doesn’t have a flavor that you would want to savor and linger over – you’ll just get punched in the back of the throat more often. And the flavor lingers anyway, clinging to your uvula and tonsils. As for shots, well, it’s unpleasant. Do you remember all those old movies where the guy goes into his favorite watering hole and orders up a shot of “the usual” and when he downs it he makes “That Face”? Well, now you know what his “usual” was. If you do shots of rye whiskey you will be making That Face, I guarantee.
I suppose it would be a good candidate for a mixed drink. It’s cheap at full flavored strength, but I can’t imagine what would taste good with it though, none of the standard stuff I wouln’t think. So there ya go – I’ve tasted rye whiskey. Will I buy it again? No I will not. From what I’ve read on Mr. Weasel’s blog I think he would like it though. Go pick up a bottle Stoat!
Smurf My Ride, Yo July 14, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Art.comments closed
No, really.
Smurf.
My.
Ride.
Clicky the pictures for larger views.
I saw this guy on the way to work a few days ago. I tried to get a good picture of the driver but he was really smurfing along and then he hit the exit shortly after this picture. Some other time perhaps. Thanks for the laughs dude!
Smurf out.
im n ur blahg gettn plastered July 11, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Art.comments closed
Tonight’s the last night of the sculpture class and there will be much rejoicing. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the class – I did, but the time-suck was ginourmous. Any way, I finally got some pictures of the project that was between the wire shoe and the book project: “Chip Off the Ol’ Block”. We cast some plaster pieces and got to carving. I think I may have already written about this, but I’ll quickly run over rules of the project again anyways. We had two things we had to put together in one sculpture – mine was “Snake skin” and “The Mandlebrot Set”. Somebody else came up with snake skin and I came up with the Mandlebrot Set. Here’s the result:
More Class Pictures July 6, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Art.comments closed
The wire shoe project was our second one and I did it a few weeks ago. Our third project was carving plaster, but I don’t have pictures of the finished piece so I’ll go on to the fourth: making something out of a book. We had to select a book (preferably hard-bound) that we would take apart and use it’s materials to construct a sculpture that related to the subject matter of the book. Originally, I had intended to use an old Time-Life series book on Mathematics and I spent a lot of time thinking about it. Ultimately, no ideas came forth so I went with “Huckleberry Finn”.
This is, of course, Huck and Jim’s raft. It has the canoe that Huck used for recon missions trailing behind. The stuff surrounding it are the waves in the river. Everything was made out of the pages and cover of the book hot-glued together.
Here’s a shot from the back:
I was expecting a B to a B- grade, but he gave me an A-. Hokay. If I’d gone with “Huckleberry Finn” to start with, I would have made an ol’ Mississippi steamboat instead, but I just didn’t have enough time. That would have been nice.
Next project – hot ‘n heavy metal.
Oscar Wilde Sez… July 5, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Art.comments closed
Blah blah blah blah blah. Ninteen pages of blather I have to read for my sculpture class.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I’m gonna be kinda glad when this class is over, frankly. The instructor is making this class way too much work.
Happy Birthday America! July 4, 2007
Posted by Mitchell in Art, Home, Politics.comments closed
For your present I give you Wire Shoe:
Click image for bigger size. A couple more below.
The Center of the Anomaly 
