Yes, I have returned to DA, after nearly two years of neglecting my account. Actually it was at the mention of a friend who had a profile on here (that would be you Patrick) that I decide to reaquaint myself with this site.

Quite a few things have happened in the last couple years but some things have remained the same. I am still attending Ventura College and majoring in art, although at this point I am quitee unsure as to what I want to do after college.

I'm not going to go into detail on what has occured over the last two years but I will give you the key points.

My grandma died about a year ago, and while it was very sad, I wasn't really close to her.

Last semester I got really depressed, despite the anti-depressants I was already on, and started doing badly in school and also got really into smoking weed. When I finally went to the psychiatrist I disovered that I was actually bi-polar and I had been misdiagnosed with depression since high school. We're still trying to find me the right medication. When I first got diagnosed and was trying out new medications I started to get really inspired and wrote a bunch of poetry which I will be posting some of on here soon.

My sister's best friend moved in with us and our parent's became her legal guardians and she is now officially part of the family. She has become like another sister to me and she even calls our parents mom and dad.

I've become insanely addicted to Harry Potter adult fan fiction and can't seem to get enough of the Draco/Hermione stories.

Last year I was in the student art show at VC and I had a sculpture, a drawing, and a painting on display. I won prizes for both the sculpture and the painting.

I have quite a bit of art that I want to submit but it will be a while before I can take pictures and put them on here. Until then I hope you enjoy my poetry entries.

Toodles all.

Okay I’m a big fat lazy ho. I meant to write an entry weeks ago, right after I went to Warped Tour, but I've been too busy with the sign language class I've been taking to do so. Granted I could have been typing one up one day instead of watching old reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but I'm just too caught up into it by now. So I'll just stop making excuses and catch you up on what's been happening with me the last couple months.

First of all I've been taking a night course at the college Mon-Thu which is American Sign Language level 2. I really liked my ASL 1 class so I decided to take another ASL class, but I had been planning on taking it in the fall so I could have the same teacher as I did for ASL 1 because he was teaching it in the fall but not in the summer. But when I found out that he wasn't going to teach it in the fall I decided to take the summer course with a different teacher to free up more schedule time in the fall. I was kinda ticked at the time but I'm really glad that things turned out that way now because I ended up liking this other teacher better anyway. The way she teaches and handles the class is so much better and I've learned so much more from her than I ever did from the other teacher, and we haven't even covered all of the material. She's very funny and I like how she makes the whole class get involved with the deaf community and each other. She made us learn the names of everyone in the class and we've now formed our own little mini community (which started out with about 14 and now is down to 8 or 9) and we're all pretty much friends. I especially like this girl named Stef, she's into art and has actually commissioned me and my brother to make a logo for her friends' up and coming hookah bar (and that’s a tobacco hookah bar for all you druggies out there). I also really like this guy in my class named Jeremy, he's one of the hard of hearing students (and pretty much the only one left) in the class and he's my age and real cute. Anywho, the last day is tomorrow and we're having our final and a little party afterwards with food and everything. So hopefully I'll get to tell you about it before I go away on vacation.

Yes, that's right, I'm going away on vacate for two weeks (which includes my birthday) with my family and we'll be back right before the fall semester starts. We're going to be in the Seattle area so if anyone here lives in Seattle and wants a visit let me know and I'll be sure to see about doing so.

So as you previously read above I went to VANS Warped Tour when they stopped here in Ventura County and it was AWESOME! I went with my sister and her best friend, had major fun, bought lots of music, and got free posters and pins. I also went out and promptly bought more music after seeing some of larger featured bands because I really didn't have many of their CD's. I got The All-American Rejects, some Dropkick Murphys, and another Distillers CD (though they, unfortunately, did not play at Warped Tour). My sister got My Chemical Romance, but I would've if she hadn't. It all rocks and I fully intend to buy more, including some Offspring and a Transplants CD I've been meaning to get for ages. There were also some other less well known bands that I wanna look up like Denver Harbor and The Silence. Aside from all the cool bands I also saw two people I knew from high school, both who, ironically enough, I also knew from a church I used to go to. First I saw my old friend Natasha, or rather she saw me, when The Transplants were performing. It was startling enough to find out she was an avid punk fan and a smoker, but then she revealed to me she is now an ex-Christian lesbian high school drop out. I had to struggle not to look so surprised, because after all I first met this girl in a church youth group. It was mighty cool to see her though, I’d always liked her and still do, I wish we’d exchanged numbers or something. Then later I ran into my friend Stephen who I’d had P.E. with sophomore year and also attended the same church. He hadn’t changed very drastically at all and was just sorta into the punk scene and mostly there to see fallout boy. I was disappointed to hear I could have had a third friendly encounter with my old friend Shawna, as she had been there actually next to me during one of the performances, but hadn’t said anything because she wasn’t sure it was me (I later found this all out from my mom who used to work for Shawna’s dad and they still keep in touch). My friend William also told me later that he had been at Warped Tour be he’d been backstage. I only wish I could have seen them both.

Anywho I guess we’re back up to speed so I’ll tell about what happened today. Me and my mom went shopping at K-Mart to get new duffle bags for me and my sister to take on our trip, as well as a new blender because we recently started this protein shake and salad diet (which I’ve already lost 8 lbs. On) and we need more then one blender so my whole family doesn’t have to wait to use the only one we have. While we there I also got some clothes that were on clearance, including a pair of bright turquoise capris that are so cute, and then I ran into another old friend from high school named Chris. He was just this goofy, sometimes mildly annoying, guy that I hung out and talked with during the art classes we shared. He was also friends with Natasha, and he is now also punked out and gay. It’s sort of more surprising to find out that he’s gay because I never got a gay vibe from him, even though people were always teasing him and calling him gay, but I figured that was just because he looked and sounded so feminine.

Well I guess that’s about it, though I do apologize for the lack of journal entries and deviations, as well as the slowness of commenting on all my friend’s new stuff, I’ve just been busy. Hopefully I’ll have some time this week to take care of all that. Until then give these people a look:

Just a friendly warning, this is kind of a long entry.

I must apologize to you all. I know I mentioned a few weeks ago that I would update and tell you all about my summer stay at Cal Arts, but two weeks ago I still had to finish my finals and then I was really busy after that, and this whole past week I’ve been so sick all I’ve been able to do is sleep, eat, and watch TV. In fact, I only got anti-biotics just yesterday and so now I’m starting to feel a bit better. I came on-line after a week without logging into DA to discover I had 48 messages. 33 we’re deviations and 7 we’re journals. I watch a lot of people, I’m just glad some of them are inactive. Anywho, onto more important things.

Last summer I went to the California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA), which is also more well known as Innerspark. Basically I got to stay at Cal Arts (one of the most prestigious art schools in the state may I remind you) for four weeks, living in the dorms and taking a certain number of short-term classes. You went to classes Mon-Sat and on Sat you could leave and spend the night at home with your family and hang out with them on Sunday, if you wanted to and you lived close enough (which most people didn’t), or you could go on one of the field trips they had every Sunday. There we’re several categories such as creative writing, dance, music, animation and visual art. I was obviously a visual art major and my roommates we’re a music major (singer) and an animator. My suitemates, as in the ones who lived in the next room that we shared a bathroom with, we’re two dancers and another singer. They we’re all pretty nice and cool.

How it pretty much worked for us visual art students was that we all had to take drawing and design classes, alternating between Mon/Wed and Tue/Thur, and attend weekly art and culture lectures. Then we got to select our majors that we went to Mon-Thurs (mine was painting) and two classes to take on Fri & Sat. I picked sculpture and since I wasn’t aware at the time I was choosing my class subjects that we should pick three, I just picked painting as a first choice and sculpture as a second, they stuck me in digital art. I really disliked the digital art class (luckily I only had to attend 7 sessions) and if I’d know when I was filling out the paperwork for my application (yes, you do actually have to apply to get in it’s a very prestigious summer program) that you should pick to second choices I would have picked photography. I hate digital art, at least the kind of digital art that they did. We had one big project in that class, and that was to make a short film that used digital techniques like green screening, integrated animation, or things like making it all have that old film effect. The class might not have sucked so much if we had been able to pick our own partners. My partners and I (there were 3 of us) had absolutely nothing in common and couldn’t agree on anything so in the end we had to take the cop out of making a sort of music video while most people actually told some sort of little story with theirs. About the only good thing that came out of it was my discovery of a really cool CD titled “spiderland” by an interesting band named Slint. After hearing their song “Good Morning Captain” used for one of the short films in my class (which I think was the best one there) I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head for months until finally last semester I tracked it down and found it at Salzers. I just love the tune at the beginning of it. Anywho, despite my digital art experience I had a really awesome time at CSSSA. It was a fulfilling experience that helped produce one of the most amazing paintings I have to date, Fervor, which was the last painting I completed for my painting class. Our last project was supposed to be a short series of small paintings but I never got around to finishing mine, and I still haven’t as a matter of fact. I also made one other painting, got some great experience with life drawing, and produced several sculptures in both my design and sculpture classes (one of which I already posted a pictures of, “spikes”). Yep, my summer at CSSSA was definitely unforgettable.

I still have one incomplete painting and two incomplete sculptures left over from CSSSA, which are just some of the things in a long list of projects I wish to complete this summer. Though lately I’ve been having a real lack of motivation, actually I’ve been downright lazy. This needs to change. Any advice? Anywho, next subject.

You know that guy friend I wrote that poem about, and referred to in my last entry? Well he came to visit me a couple weeks ago and I got to see him for the first time in a year and a half. We went for a drive and eventually pulled into a parking lot, and did, things. Needless to say, I had fun, lots of fun. And now that my feelings have changed about the whole situation, I think I’m gonna delete that poem, as I feel kinda stupid about it now. Anywho, I’ll just wait and see.

So I’ve been submitting new deviations on a more regular basis and hopefully will continue doing so. It’ll probably be a mix of old and new stuff, I’ll let you know in the descriptions. I may also be updating this journal thing more often, but I’m not making any promises. Until next time mi amigos.

P.S. I created my first ever stock-based manipulation. I’m not hugely proud of it, but it looks pretty cool.

stock by:

Well I finally got all my photos off my dad's computer that he scanned in ages ago, and I've been posting them. He didn't have all my photos scanned in, but I can get him to scan the rest in later. These photos we're almost all for assignments from the beg. photo class I took last semester, but that doesn't make them any less artsy. I think I did pretty good for my first time with a 35mm camera and a darkroom, not to mention trying to use photography as an art form. I'd always wanted to try to take, develop, and print my own photos, the old fashioned way.
I've never been a big fan of digital cameras and my dad couldn't seem to understand that since he kept asking me why I wanted to take a traditional photography class when we already had a ton of digital cameras. He just doesn't get it, just like he doesn't understand anything else from an artist's point of view. I mean, him and my mom have always been supportive of my art, as well as my brother's and sister's, and I don't think that's going to change. They'll just never understand things from an artist perspective. It really makes no sense that neither of them are artists, but all three of their kids are. It boggles the mind.
I'm kind of miffed about one thing though. Earlier I posted a shot, tastefully done, of a dead bird, and had it removed. It wasn't gorey and it wasn't roadkill, and I highly doubt many people would have found it offensive. In my opinion it was quite beautiful, hardly in the same category as offensive nudity, animal cruelty, and human pheces. Well, maybe I'll get lucky and they'll put it back up, but I'm not counting on it. Maybe I'll just have to post it somewhere else and put up a link to it. I wonder if that's a policy violation.
In additon to getting my photos on my computer, I also got pictures of some of my other art peices that were too big to scan and I will be posting those later along with more of my photos. I also recently posted a poem that I wrote about a friendship that appears to be metamorphising, but I'm not sure what into. It may seem like kind of a silly subject but I like the way the poem turned out. I'm not sure if I really want comments on it though, at least I don't want comments telling me how to change it to "make it better". The way I see it, I found a way to put my feelings into words, and since no one else truly knows that feeling that I only I can feel, they can't really give me advice on changing the poem to better describe it. Asking me to change the words would be like asking me to change my feelings. You know? Well, maybe you don't, but just keep that in mind while commenting, if you happen to read this before you do. Later.

Yeah, so obviously I posted a lot of stuff. At first I wasn't going to bother writing in the journal because I already have an online diary (which I haven't updated in a super long time, but I plan to update soon) and a journal on vampirefreaks.com (my name on there is paintedspace and you can go there for more info on me). But there are a few things I need to explain about some of my deviations. So I'll tell you about my art journal.

My art journal was a school project that was for two of my art classes in the beginning of my senior year, about a year and a half ago. I was taking three art classes because as a senior I was allowed to have three electives. I was taking AP portfolio, painting, and visual arts. Since the art journal was a semester long project for both painting and portfolio, and we had to do one entry per week as our only homework, I had to do twice as many as most people. It was a really fun and creatively freeing project and I really liked it. We used discared library books and put gesso over or added to the illustrations. We could do just about anything we wanted in it. We could paint, draw, sketch, collage, doodle, write poetry, pretty much whatever inspired us. It was supposed to help us stretch our imaginations, and it did in my case. After the semester was over I still liked to add to mine, only I did it much more sporadically. I still do work in it sometimes and later I'll post some of my more recent entries.

So far though I've only posted two entries from it and they are "The Walk" and "Staircase". "The Walk" is one of the entries in which I added to the illustration already in the book. It was a drawing of a girl but she had really ugly cloths and no figure whatsoever so I altered it to look more like me, or at least how I looked at one point (yes I did have purple hair at one point). Then I added a tree in the background with watercolor, and some shadows for it, and then I wrote out my poem. In "Staircase" I used the marking that were already on the inside of the back cover as the basis for the staircaise and worked in the "DISCARD" stamp that was already on there into the peice. All in all I'd say those two entries worked out pretty well, but then again so did a lot of my others.

Anywho, I guess that explains my art journal and I'll be posting more stuff from there later and I'll give you the dates that they were made, at least for the ones that have them. I also think I'll go back and do that for the ones that are on here. I should probably go do that now so I guess this is it until later. Seeya.