At Home: “Triangle Stacks”

Dimensions: 18″x24″

Media: Cut Paper, Marker

At-Home: An Homage to Doodles

Title: “An Homage to Doodles”

Media: Marker & Pen

Dimensions: 18″x 24″

In Class #?: “The Most Houses”

Dimensions: Huge

Media: Playing Cards, White Gel Pen, Thin Marker, blueprints. and Colored Paper.

Title: “The Most Stable of Houses”

p.s. I know it’s a horrible photo, a new one will be used when I upload it to college board.

At home #?: Ribbon Art

Dimensions: 18″x24″

Title: Ribbon Art

Media: Marker

 

In-Class Concetration: [Insert Circle related title here]

okay, I actually have something new this week. This piece is based off of a game I learned a couple years back where you draw a silhouette of some object or person and then draw the biggest circle you can inside of it. Then you draw the next biggest and so on and so forth.

Things to be added:

-I will add more circles in the background. (I ran out of red paper)

-I will go over the circles inside the silhouette with a fine marker (left my markers at school)

Update on my Concentration: meh……

Hello! So, I have some unfortunate news. Over the weekend I realized that all motivation and passion I had for this concentration has died down to a level where I have no inspiration whatsoever. So, I’m probably going to change my concentration. Not sure how that’s going to work… but I’ll figure something out. Until then I’ll just post one of my pieces for the gallery. Enjoy?

Concentration Pieces #1 & #2

Sorry they’re a bit late, but here is a work in progress of my first two concentration pieces!

“on the spot game”

Dimensions: 18″x24″

Media: Notebook paper, cut colored paper.

Title: “South African Missions”

Dimensions: 13.5″x18″

Media: Cur colored paper &a colored pencils.

 

Keep in mind that both of these are work in progresses and I will hopefully have the full pieces up soon!!

Critical Me: Chronicle

When that one wonderful, beautiful, utterly inspiring and “fantastic” movie called “Fant4stic” (seriously, who decided the ‘4’ needed to be in the middle of “Fantastic”??) the name that I kept hearing over and over again was “Josh Trank”, whose name was somehow supposed to be a comfort for me when I knew the new fantastic four movie was going to be terrible. Pinned with his name was a little-known found footage film called “Chronicle”. I went and read reviews on it, and they were good, the premese seemed interesting, so I thought why not? How did I react? Well, let’s see…

Plot: The premise of the plot is that three high school kids somehow get magic powers some weird alien thing (literally not explained in the movie whatsoever, which I liked because it wasn’t truly necessary). What was nice was watching the character that we were supposed to identify with slowly lose his grip on reality. What could have been a cliche plot line for the main character was actually very gripping. While relatively simple, the plot was done well.

Characters: There are three characters that the movie focuses on giving any emphasis too. And that’s fine. It allows me to focus on the relationship between the three main characters and how it develops throughout the movie. Dane Dehaan, who plays “Andrew”, does a particularly good good job, especially when “Andrew” embraces his darker side. The characters were over all good, if not too archetypal at some points.

Engagability: I am still young and am extremely socially awkward so I can very much relate to the problems faced by the main characters in their high school setting without it delving into cliche territory. Also watching Andrew absolutely lose it slowly over the course of this film was a very good transition that didn’t feel rushed like it could have been, which made me more interested to see where it took him.

Technical: This is a found footage film, a particular style of movie making that I’ve never found to be interesting. That being said, I still enjoyed this movie. It still falters from the downside of found footage  films in that you are required to have that one weird character who always has a camera on. The actual effects of the movie were nothing mind blowing but could have been far worse.

Overall: While this film wouldn’t exactly get me in line to see the next film made by Josh Trank, it was a relatively enjoyable affair. I do think it is held back by it’s found footage format, but at the end of the day it is able to convey a good story with relatable characters.

Rating: 6.9/10  🌟🌟🌟

Critical Me: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Okay, so I got four reviews coming to you based off of two nights where I did nothing but watch movies I hadn’t had a chance to see yet. The first of these starts a series that I really hoping to become a fan of, and that is Planet of the Apes. Did I see the old ones? No. mainly because I’m so confused on which ones to watch and which ones not to so I figured that this reboot would be a good chance for me to enter into the franchise. I gotta say, I’m a fan. Not like I am with Star Wars, Hunger Games, Marvel or most other franchises I love, but this movie definitely got me to want to watch the sequel and the one that comes out sometime in the next year or two. Without further ado, my review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Characters: Let’s start off with the star of this movie, and that’s Andy dadgum Serkis. Besides the fact that his performance made me believe it was possible for an incredibly intelligent ape to live among humans in the way he did, he was the only character I genuinely cared about. Not that James Franco and the rest of the cast didn’t have good performances, I just never felt attached to them as I did with Caesar. Who knew that the best character development of the movie wouldn’t even be for a human.

Plot: The movie had only direction it could go, and that was to show how Apes began to take over Earth. This was the shining part of the movie to movie. Watching Caesar act in a way that showed his enhanced intelligence while also battling against his primal instincts in order to reach the Chimp he was at the end of the movie was easily the interesting part of the movie and it was very well done. Not that Caesar and James Franco’s relationship wasn’t touching, but every time I saw James Franco’s POV in the movie I found myself wondering what Caesar was doing. I haven’t watched the second movie yet, but as with Transformers, you should focus on the title characters, the apes, not silly human side characters.

Engagability: As mentioned before, I actually cared about what happened to Caesar. That’s about as far as it went unfortunately. Like I said, if the movie had focused entirely on Caesar, it would have made the movie a thousand times better.

Technical: it goes without saying that the movie did a phenomenal job with the motion capture technology of the movie. None of the effects looked too cheesy for me. Overall a pretty standard level of special effects for a summer blockbuster.

Overall: The movie has made me want to watch the rest of the planet of the Apes movies that are coming and I feel that it succeeded in that purpose. While not the most inspirational and groundbreaking movie to come out in years, the bright spots of the movie such as Caesar make the movie worth a watch.

Rating: 7.2/10

Critical Me: Finding Dory

Pixar is simply one of the best studios of any kind of filmmaking! The studio that can continually put out classics such as Toy Story, The Incredibles, and more recently movies like Inside Out deserves endless amounts of praise. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for a glowing review of the sequel to one of the most iconic movies of my childhood, you’re not going to find that here. Without further ado, I give you another Pixar sequel that I feel falls far short of the original.

Characters: The characters of Finding Nemo are some of the most recognizable characters in animated movie history. Finding Dory continues this trend with many of the same heroes, even some new ones as well. However, I have some complaints, and those complaints are named Marlin and Nemo. I get it, this sequel is about Dory, but I feel that putting Marlin and Nemo as side characters made their side of the story ultimately boring. For some reason their search for Dory did not have the same heart that Marlin and Dory’s search for Nemo did. Now, there were two redeeming factors whose names were Dory and Hank. The relationship between those two was simply entertaining. Hank personally was a favorite, but Pixar absolutely nailed Dory’s search for her parents. I explain more later why it was so engaging to me, but the level of heart that was there in the relationship between Dory and her Parents.

Plot:I feel there was always going to be a problem with Finding Dory’s plot being too similar to Finding Nemo’s and on a certain level I was correct. I did have a couple moments where I thought to myself “haven’t I seen this before?” Knowing very well where I had seen it before. The mystery of finding where Dory’s parents were was a nice touch, as it added a different layer to the story to which the audience could connect to. The climax with the truck I felt was a little much, but then again I felt the same way with the fishing net at the end of Finding Nemo.

Engagability: The shining moment of this film was Dory and the search for her parents, which it should have been. I personally have someone incredibly close to me who has memory issues and to see a lovable protagonist go through something similar helped me empathize with her. I flat out cried when Dory found her parents (I would say spoiler but honestly, is it really that much of a spoiler?) This is where the film earned back points for me. One thing I do wish to point out is that Finding Dory very much lacked something Finding Nemo did. When I watch Finding Nemo, I feel a sense of wonder for the ocean. I just don’t get that with Finding Dory.

Technical: it’s Pixar, it’s beautiful. Need I say more?

Overall: While Finding Dory does a great job with its protagonist and her main quest, the rest of the film feels like it was there for nostalgia value without entirely making feel the same feeling I did with Finding Nemo. Finding Dory is by no means  a bad movie, it is just simply another Pixar sequel that fell short of the original.

Overall Rating: 6.2