week one: done

Date: September 8, 2018

The first week of classes is over. I'm taking five classes this semester: drawing, painting, sculpture, art history, and literature. The last two are the academic ones and they're not much different from high school, with assigned readings and a teacher reading off a slideshow. Blegh.

The absolute best part of the week was Drawing class. My teacher is a guy named Rudy Mendoza. I didn't think I'd ever heard of him before, but after he introduced himself I realized he was the illustrator for the “Petey Peter” books. I was freakishly into those books when I was a kid, so it was kind of amazing to meet the person who drew so much of my childhood.

Rudy didn't dismiss us once he was done introducing himself, either, not the way some of the other teachers did. Instead he told us to take out our sketchbooks and we spent two hours drawing a live model. Like, a real-life naked person, exactly how it is in movies. Honestly, it felt pretty weird in the moment. Kind of embarrassing, I guess? I felt like I was staring too much, and didn't really know where my eyes were supposed to be. But I'll get used to it, especially since Rudy said we'll be drawing from models pretty much every week for the rest of this year.

Of all the drawings I did in class, I think this one came out the best:

Even though it was weird, I'm glad that he didn't just send us home early. I feel like Rudy's really serious about art, and making us into good artists. I can't wait to show him what I can do.

J.

"untitled [cats]"

Date: September 15, 2018

Cat videos are really distracting.

friends? :/

Date: September 18, 2018

Someone pinned this up in the hallway outside of the painting studio, and this pretty much sums up exactly where I am right now.

My mom's been getting on my case about making friends lately. She thinks it's weird that I've been in school for two weeks and don't have anyone to eat lunch with yet. I'm pretty sure she's the weird one – no one else can be as social as she is. My mom's the kind of lady who makes friends with the people behind her on line at the supermarket. She even went out on a date once with a guy who rear-ended her.

I don't think it's weird that I don't have friends. And even if I wanted to make friends, which I don't, I don't really know what I'm supposed to say to do that. Before, in high school, when people came to talk to me I knew what they wanted before they even opened their mouths. A poster for this club, or “hey, can you draw me?” or something. It was always because I was the best artist in school. People only wanted to talk to me because of what I could do for them. But now I don't even have that.

Not that I miss high school. I'd take no friends over fake friends any day.

J.