Monkey See Monkey Do

Today I worked on the Blender class in a box #203. In this one we covered keyboard commands and learned how to use the camera. We also learned about the edit and object modes. (This isn't an imperial 'we', I'm just picturing myself in a class with other people.) This tutorial felt like I was really doing something because it had a hands on segment in which we imported a monkey onto the screen.

I'm also trying to decide which artist I want to use for my next Drinking and Drawing class. Anselm Kiefer? Ping Qui? Tibetan thangka painting?

Drawing and Dancing

My studies at Medici were interrupted for a time by events in real life. Since I got back in town, I've been trying to catch up. I missed one Drinking and Drawing class. The assignment was to draw a face. I did this one which served double duty because the assignment I missed was to draw an animal.

The subject of course was TL, hero of song and stories in real life. You can tell he's the sort who wears a tweed cap when driving his immaculate '59 Nash Metropolitan. The car has an elaborate number of chrome logos on the back that might have been taken from other cars given the disparity of fonts and sizes, but TL assures me that it was a factory option. The trunk contains 23 bags of Cheddar Jalapeño potato chips, and a 5 gallon drum of vegetable oil, which he uses instead of gasoline. Lays sponsors his F1 races, he explains. He also knows how to use a computer and how to mask text so that the supposed author doesn't see it until after it's published.

Last night's assignment was to do an abstract. Here is mine:

I also went through the 202 book on Blender, and learned more about how the interface works. This included going through the preferences and doing things like making PhotoShop the default editor. The program can work with a 3D mouse as well, which might be fun to play with.

DJ Keli has been doing a trance story-time around midnight on Sundays at KPO. I went to it for the first time, and enjoyed it very much. The story this week was Rapunzel. We discussed rampion, but no one had tried it. Was it really that good? Or was it a comment on exploitation, the child becoming a commodity, traded for a bowl of lettuce?

Blender

Sunday was convocation which officially opened the semester. We started at Bridge Brewing Co.  Rmarie Beedit, our chaplain, gave a blessing, then lit her staff, and led us in a parade around campus and down to the ocean. Tiffany Mosienko ended the march with a dedication to the x, y, z axes.

Monday I began the second Blender class, and downloaded the latest version of the program. The second class was about how the editor works. Not so much how to create something, but rather how to use the symbols that mean open and close, how to resize a window, and how to get back to the 3-D view. Hint: it involves the info button. I say that for future reference because it took me a while to find it, after the toolbar I needed disappeared. I stopped at page 32, also for future reference.

Here is my Drinking and Drawing assignment, which was to draw a plant. I drew an aloe with a charcoal pencil and some sepia ink washes.

That evening, I attended Uni 101, where we talked about participation and how to accomplish goals. In Drinking and Drawing, we critiqued our plant assignment. Next week's homework is to draw a face.