Standing in Lines
Sep. 5th, 2007 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pasitheaSo... I mentioned it briefly last week but I'd been holding off until I finished this project.
The week before last, I spent on vacation with Stacey, her mom, and sister. Oooh. We went to Disneyland! I'd never been to Disneyland but we had gone to DisneyWorld a few times when I was a child. I think that a part of me went looking for something that couldn't really be found. Maybe a sense of family or a return to some childhood innocence.. Though I was pretty aware of the world even then and observed issues like class and race (in part because my parents complained about the Cubans and other foreigners) Whatever it was, I didn't quite find it, but I did find other things in myself that I appreciated more. I may write more about that one of these days.
Stacey's family is much nicer than mine, but like the earlier trips, I enjoyed most the times I was alone and could do my own thing and let myself get lost in fantasy (which I was able to do, despite the marketing, hype, noise, etc) On the whole, I'll confess that I even had a good time although mostly through my own devices rather than the affections of Disneyland.
I took a small (3x5) sketchbook with me and spent time filling it while standing in lines for the various rides. There's something to be said for the ego boost of slack-jawed yokels cooing about how well you draw when you're just making scribbles standing in line. A little positive re-enforcement isn't so bad. Also, drawing fascinates small children and they spent more time watching me and less time complaining than they otherwise might have, given the heat and line length (I could hear further away points in lines too so I'm fairly sure this did have a calming effect)
I really liked a lot of the sketches that I made while doing this. Most of them weren't quite good enough to turn into 'finished' pieces of art that I wanted to showcase, but they were good enough I wanted to show them a bit. So then I hit upon this project idea. Vacation Slides Everyone has them and no one really wants to look at them, and that's exactly what these drawings were. Memories of my trip. They're not fantastic but a few friends might enjoy them.
So... Then I took it a step further. Since they are small vignettes, I figured I could color them quickly and since I didn't have a huge attachment to them and nearly 40 to do, I might learn some ways to do certain aspects of my coloring faster and better.
To wrap up, I made all the little sketches into a sort of slide-show presentation in Flash.
It's about 700K and Flash.
If you'd rather look at the individual images Click here They're around 40K each and 2 to a page.
I really think that drawing my vacation rather than photographing it made for more lasting memories. I was able to talk with Stacey and her mom and sister while drawing and it made me take a lot more notice of some of the things around me and really look at stuff when I was doing some of the rides (and isn't that the whole point of a theme park over an amusement park?)
Now I should finish lunch and get back to work. :)
The week before last, I spent on vacation with Stacey, her mom, and sister. Oooh. We went to Disneyland! I'd never been to Disneyland but we had gone to DisneyWorld a few times when I was a child. I think that a part of me went looking for something that couldn't really be found. Maybe a sense of family or a return to some childhood innocence.. Though I was pretty aware of the world even then and observed issues like class and race (in part because my parents complained about the Cubans and other foreigners) Whatever it was, I didn't quite find it, but I did find other things in myself that I appreciated more. I may write more about that one of these days.
Stacey's family is much nicer than mine, but like the earlier trips, I enjoyed most the times I was alone and could do my own thing and let myself get lost in fantasy (which I was able to do, despite the marketing, hype, noise, etc) On the whole, I'll confess that I even had a good time although mostly through my own devices rather than the affections of Disneyland.
I took a small (3x5) sketchbook with me and spent time filling it while standing in lines for the various rides. There's something to be said for the ego boost of slack-jawed yokels cooing about how well you draw when you're just making scribbles standing in line. A little positive re-enforcement isn't so bad. Also, drawing fascinates small children and they spent more time watching me and less time complaining than they otherwise might have, given the heat and line length (I could hear further away points in lines too so I'm fairly sure this did have a calming effect)
I really liked a lot of the sketches that I made while doing this. Most of them weren't quite good enough to turn into 'finished' pieces of art that I wanted to showcase, but they were good enough I wanted to show them a bit. So then I hit upon this project idea. Vacation Slides Everyone has them and no one really wants to look at them, and that's exactly what these drawings were. Memories of my trip. They're not fantastic but a few friends might enjoy them.
So... Then I took it a step further. Since they are small vignettes, I figured I could color them quickly and since I didn't have a huge attachment to them and nearly 40 to do, I might learn some ways to do certain aspects of my coloring faster and better.
To wrap up, I made all the little sketches into a sort of slide-show presentation in Flash.
Click for animated slides
It's about 700K and Flash.
If you'd rather look at the individual images Click here They're around 40K each and 2 to a page.
I really think that drawing my vacation rather than photographing it made for more lasting memories. I was able to talk with Stacey and her mom and sister while drawing and it made me take a lot more notice of some of the things around me and really look at stuff when I was doing some of the rides (and isn't that the whole point of a theme park over an amusement park?)
Now I should finish lunch and get back to work. :)
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Date: 2007-09-05 07:48 pm (UTC)Raven
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