Birthday #2

I wanted to make a quick and belated happy birthday post for my dad. His birthday was yesterday and I was unable to make a blog post because I was not at either of my homes. I wish I was home so that I could have seen him though! Here's to hoping you had a terrific day, Dad! Love you so much! :D

This weekend I went to Barrie to visit with Paul, and then from there we went to Toronto for a quick follow-up to a funeral. It is unfortunate that it was under such sad circumstances we were all brought together, but I did have a nice time meeting Paul's family - even some of his family from Japan were there - and get to know them a little bit more. We also had some delicious sushi and other japanese cuisine!

From Toronto, Paul and I went to Burlington to celebrate my friend Chelsey's birthday. Chelsey and I were friends back in 1999 before my family and I moved to Southampton. We had stayed friends for a couple of years after that, but things unfortunately fizzled out over time. Last year, we were able to meet up and are good friends again. She is actually also engaged, and I am one of her bridesmaids. I am so grateful that she is in my life again and I feel honoured that, although our time apart, she still considers me a best friend. Here is a picture of Chelsey, me, and Katie (the maid of honour) from Chelsey's birthday party last year:

I have also been very busy with class. I only have two weeks left and have 4 studio projects, a research essay, and final document and presentation due. I am so excited to have it all done!

Birthday time!

I wanted to take some time to wish my mother the very best of birthdays! She is a very amazing and inspiring person. I am honoured that I get to call her my mother. So, if you're reading this, mom, have a great day! Can't wait to skype with you later tonight!

As I write this, I realize how long it's been since I last blogged. I can't believe how fast Reading Week flew by and that I'm back in the routine of being a university student again. I meant to catch up on my blog over the break and share some of my art and experiences, and I'm sorry I didn't! March is going to be a very hectic month for me, and I will be very excited to head home for the summer where I can hopefully relax and catch up on things!

Skiing and a $6 fisheye lens

Today, my dad took the day off work so we could do something fun together. We had been planning to to to Blue Mountain to do some downhill skiing, but I chickened out and today we rented cross-country skis from a local outfitter and took them for a test run. It was the first time either of us had been skiing in a long time, so there were a few small falls (and maybe some bruises too) but it was definitely a fun experience!

After returning our gear, I hopped down to the hardware store and picked up a 180° peephole in hopes to make a cheap fisheye lens for my camera. Then I took a generic 52mm lens cap and drilled a hole in the centre to push the peephole through. Here is what the lens looks like:

And here are my first few shots with the new addition:

Not the greatest quality, but definitely fun to use!

iStock Update

It has officially been 1 year since my first picture was accepted for use at iStockphoto. It has been a long and tiresome process to get started, but I can finally say that I am now quite comfortable with the way it all works now. I now have 167 photos in my portfolio, and have 37 downloads. It is a lot easier now to consider iStock my second job when am actually seeing results and feedback on my images. Here are a few of my most popular images on iStock:

I find it really interesting to see the types of pictures that actually sell, because some of my downloads have really surprised me. It is also odd to know that these pictures are floating around the world somewhere on ads, in magazines, etc, but I don't know where they are or what they are being used for!

Almost done!

Today is a great day. I have finished my last art projects and midterms of the second half of the second term of my second year of university, and I am definitely ready for the reading week to be here! I'm excited to be able to go home, have a nice bath and be able to sleep in. But, I do have a lot of things planned, such as taking pictures for iStock, seeing family and friends, going to an engagement party, and planning weddings! I am also excited to go home and eat delicious food! Today, my roommate Alicia and I baked pink lemonade-flavoured cupcakes as a mini-celebration of the workload completion. They were very good!

Snowday, Sculpture and Exciting News!

I feel like I haven't blogged in such a long time! There have been so many thing I've wanted to blog about, but haven't had the time, so this post may be quite random. I know it's only been a week since my last update, but February seems like it's going by really slow. Not anymore though! I'm going to have a lot due in these next two weeks, but thankfully, Reading Week is coming up soon. Last week on Wednesday, Mississauga got a lot of snow, and we were granted a snow day. It was really nice to be able to sleep in (or try to) and not have to worry about going to class.

If you read my last post about my sculpture project, I mentioned three methods of working with cardboard. Lamination is where you glue several large pieces of cardboard together so that it becomes strong, and can be cut into as if it were a piece of wood. That is what I used on the main part of the can opener. The next method, skin, is pretty self explanatory, and basically like making a cube or prism out of paper. The last one, open cavity, is a little harder to explain. It's basically leaving parts of the object open and more abstracted than the other two methods. As a warm-up project for the final piece, we were required to make a piece of fruit out of cardboard using this method. I chose a pear as my fruit as you can see below:

In other news, my good friend Taylor got engaged to Josh, her boyfriend of over 4 years this past weekend. I was honoured to find out that she has chosen me to be one of her bridesmaids! They are set to be married this September and I couldn't be more excited for them! It's difficult trying to concentrate on schoolwork when I know something so exciting is just around the corner. On the reading week, we are all going to meet up and start planning together, and I can't wait to start! Here is a picture of me, Taylor, and Becky, another friend and bridesmaid:

Sculpture Project

Hello everyone! I'm really excited about the cardboard can opener I finished for my sculpture class today, and I just wanted to quickly share some pictures. Basically, the project was titled "Analytic Form," and the idea was to pick an everyday, recognizable object and enlarge it, made out of cardboard. We were to use three different methods of construction - lamination, open cavity, and skin. The object I chose was a can opener, and I made the cardboard version five times bigger. I am very happy with how it turned out, and here are some comparative pictures below to show what it looks like compared to the original.

I really enjoyed doing this project, although all of the measuring and enlarging did get quite frustrating. In the end, I was able to make the can opener work, so the handle turns the gear and the slicing disc also moves. It was really neat to see all of the other objects people enlarged today. There was a candle holder, a camera lens, two staplers, a combination lock, a spray bottle and more!