Hidden Talents

Some of you may or may not know that I have a little bit of a talent for drawing people. It's something that I started when I was around twelve, and my father did it a lot when I was growing up. I think that's where the interest derived from. I just kept working and working at it until I got to where I'm at now. I can't say that my work is anything impressive right now, but it's a lot better than 10-11 years ago.

I started out as most artists do: My parents bought me a sketch pad for Christmas to kick it off. I then bought "teeny-bopper" magazines (or rather Mom did after much prodding from me), and I'd draw several pictures a night of everyone from Brad Renfro and Devon Sawa to Neve Campbell and Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Needless to say, they weren't anything terrific as I only spent about 15-20 minutes on each. I got frustrated because I couldn't draw anyone whose mouths showed teeth as they smiled. Instead of tackling the problem, I'd just draw a closed smile.¹ I always got so frustrated with my drawings (I still do), and I'd have to walk away to keep myself from ripping the paper up.

Through art class in 7th grade, I delved into the wonderful world of shading. While my teacher tried to tell me how you're "supposed to" shade on a drawing, I did my own thing, and to this day, it works for me. I've just tweaked my method here and there along the way. At one point, we had to do a portrait of someone, so I asked my sister if I could draw her. You can always expect brutal honesty out of a twelve-year-old for something like this, so I got plenty of constructive criticism on that one.² I tried my best shading job on that, but it ended up looking choppy.

All through high school, I continued to take art classes, and I had to fight my art teacher my senior year to prove that I was responsible and independent enough to take studio art (you needed the teacher's permission to be enrolled in that class). I finally convinced her on the promise that I would come up with my own projects regularly. It sure seems like I had to do a lot of fighting to prove myself in high school, huh?
Anyway, I was able to come up with several projects to work on, and I liked having the freedom to continue to work on my hobby without someone telling me what to draw. That had to be the best class Iroquois had to offer for me.

Over my teenage years, my drawing skills improved more and more. I began perfecting my shading and drawing different parts of the body. I used to have trouble with noses and mouths, and now I love drawing them because they're challenging each time I draw someone new. People used to ask me if drawing hair was really difficult (you wouldn't believe how many people). Honestly, that's the easiest part to draw. All it is is coloring and shading. As long as you can see the different shades in someone's hair and the direction it's going in on each part of their head, and you can translate that to paper, you'll have no problem drawing hair.

In my senior year of high school, one of my parents' friends bought me an 18X24" sketch pad, which was quite the upgrade from the 11X14" pad I'd been using. I'm still using that pad today, and I'm able to draw much larger pictures. Now everything I draw (that I finish, I might add) eventually ends up in a frame and is hanging up on the walls in my house. I've uploaded a few to Flickr if you want to browse through. They're not the best photos as the drawings are in frames, and they're far too large to scan.

Right now I'm working on a picture of Arnold (as you can see at the top of this post) for my husband. I still need to make quite a few tweaks to his face before I move on because I know I have some proportional mishaps going on in there. Unfortunately, this picture has been sitting dormant for several weeks now. I really need to finish it. I haven't even drawn his huge chest, and that could probably be considered the highlight of the entire drawing.

Now I'm left to decide if this is something that I could go further with or not. The only problem I have is that I can only draw when I feel inspired to. At any other time, I get extremely frustrated. My husband knows because he remembers what happened with my Tom Cruise drawing. I'm not sure if it's something that I can force myself to do anyway and I'd get better or if I'd grow to hate it by forcing myself. I'm not sure I want to take the risk. What do you guys think?

¹I, of course, learned how to draw teeth eventually, and I have a lot of fun with the challenge.
²She didn't like the way I drew the dip between the top of her lips and her nose. She claimed it looked like a mustache. I guess I couldn't disagree with her on that one.

The Facts

I find it interesting that about 93-95% of the people who stumble on this blog daily come from Google searches of Kingdom Hearts. That far outweighs the number of people who read this because they enjoy it. Sad but true.

To Whom It May Concern

In case any of you happen to be concerned (maybe you're not, and that's okay too), I went through Fast Track at St. Vincent Hospital last night because the the left side/the back of my neck was hurting, and it was giving me a headache.¹ I didn't really think much of it until I told my mom when I talked to her on the phone, and she got kind of concerned. After looking it up in her medical book, she said I should make sure I don't have meningitis. Eek.
I went to the hospital, and I got checked out. Thankfully, it's not anything at all but a pulled muscle in my neck, so they gave me some Motrin [I can see it: "That'll be $25 for that tablet." Cha-ching!], and I'm not supposed to lift anything heavy and take it easy. It feels a little better today, but I can feel it lingering in the background.
They didn't really say anything about my cold/flu thing I have going on, so I guess I'm safe to assume it's just that. I just wish I were feeling better. I can't say I feel much better than I did on Friday. I'm barely going to make it through the night at work. Just one more night, and then I have two days off.

¹This is purely to satisfy all those who have been pressuring me to get checked out to make sure I don't have anything serious.

And A Belated Memorial Day To You Too

I know it's been a couple days since I last blogged, and these sabbaticals are becoming more frequent, but I haven't had much to write other than the fact that I've been horribly sick the past few days. It causes one to slow down every part of the body, including the brain. Actually, that's the first thing to go out the window after the protruding parts of my body cease operation. I'm supposed to be going to Rack & Roll on Friday night and possibly sing. I hate to burst anyone's bubbles, but even today, I still can barely talk without losing my voice within five seconds. I don't forsee myself singing a song in three days. It always takes about a week after being sick for my voice to come to. I know from experience, unfortunately.

Anyway, I hope everyone was able to enjoy their Memorial Day. While you all were having hot dogs, hamburgers, and/or whatever else you ate, I was stuck at work for 8 1/2 hours of the day with nothing more to do than check the sales and e-mail on the computer every five minutes as if there would be some drastic change. On top of that, I felt like crap from being sick.
I failed to see the sense of us being open 10-7 on Memorial Day. Who shops at Burlington on a "picnic day"? The only places that should be allowed to be open are strictly grocery stores, convenience stores, and any other type of store that helps you get your picnic on and bumpin' wild...or something.

So who was buying furniture in Baby Depot on Memorial Day? Only one person, but he was in a group of three. He was a middle-aged Pakistani, and he bought a crib. Of course. What American would put buying baby furniture above raising his/her cholesterol? Come on, we're not that foolish. We have our priorities in check.
How did all of you spend your Memorial Day? I hope you at least enjoyed the weather for me.

But Why Is the Rum Gone?

I saw Jack Sparrow yesterday at work. Not Johnny Depp. Jack Sparrow. He had on the brown, pirate hat; the red hankerchief wrapped around his head; the dark eyeliner around his eyes; the long, brown, unkempt hair, the dangling earrings; the whole she-bang. He wasn't just dressed the part. I overheard him talking to the girl he was with (she was dressed "normally"). He had an authentic Jack Sparrow accent. I had to laugh to myself. I wished I'd had my camera, so I could take a picture with him (or of him).

Now there's something you don't see everyday at Burlington.

This Is Getting Old

I just got done posting last week about my bout with bad allergies. This is just a never-ending cycle for me right now. Just as I started feeling near 100%, I got kicked in the butt yet again.

Jon and I went on a double date with Tam and Matt Wednesday night to Outback, and then we saw Night At the Museum at the dollar theater. During the movie, my throat was starting to get a little dry, but I just pushed it aside, assuming it was just the air in the theater. However, yesterday morning, I woke up to a somewhat sore throat. It wasn't so much that my throat itself was sore, but the muscles in my neck and around my ears hurt whenever I swallowed. I knew it had to be because of my post nasal drip on account of my being sick last week.

I took some aspirin and went work, and I was feeling alright until around 1:00, and I just started going downhill. My head was beginning to hurt, and all my muscles were aching. I felt like I was getting a fever, and the problem with my throat was gradually getting worse. I didn't think I was going to be able to make it until my shift ended at 7:00, so I waited until my coworker, Sue, took her lunch, and then I left at around 3:00.

When I came home, I took some Benadryl in hopes that it would do something for me (usually that knocks me out cold). It didn't seem to be helping because I couldn't even sleep for the next five hours that I was lying down. My body just ached all over. It didn't help that I had gone to the Y the night before, so my chest, shoulders, and arms were sore already. I felt like I was getting a fever, but sometimes I have false alarms, but I decided to take my temperature anyway. It was a brisk 102.4. It makes it even worse that it was so warm out, so I was sweating like crazy. I'm still a little overheated today, as well.

I called in sick to work this morning because there was no way I was going to make it. I was hoping our store manager wouldn't be there because I didn't want to have to explain myself on the phone. My voice should have been enough indication that I needed to stay home. I barely squeaked out that I wasn't going to be into work. Thankfully, it was our third key, Becky, who I spoke with.
I'm just hoping that I'll be better by tomorrow because I can't call in sick at all during a holiday week or else I don't get paid for the holiday. Thankfully, I'll only have to work Saturday, and then I'll have Sunday off to give me an extra day of recovery. I'll just drug myself up with plenty of Tylenol (or aspirin) and possibly Benadryl.

Not Another Gaming Post...

Ok, you non-gamers out there are probably going to get sick of my posts about Kingdom Hearts if you're not already, but I'm going to do one last post (for the moment), so try to bear with me.
I'm thinking of my birthday present (mark June 30th on your calendars). I'm going to be like Ralphie from A Christmas Story and do some incessant bugging to try to get my "mits" on a collectible item. Since I'm on a Kingdom Hearts kick now, I've been really wanting to get both Japanese versions of each KH game. Actually, I've been pining for these for a couple years now, but it's been more pressing the past couple days. One is Kingdom Hearts Final Mix and the other (which just came out) is Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix +. I can wait on the latter since it costs over $60 $70 (if you count the shipping) at the moment. The first one is going for around $35 plus shipping.

I don't necessarily want to play these games even though the content is slightly different from the US versions. I need a Japanese chip put in my PS2 to play them anyway. I just want to keep them in wrapping and maybe someday they'll be worth something. Perhaps I can be like those crazy Star Wars fanatics who have all the old collectibles that have been long gone from toy shelves and homes for 30 years. Actually, I'd prefer not to be so introverted and creepy. On top of that, I would have absolutely no social life. I suppose I should state the difference between that scenario and the one I'm in...but I can't.
I digress...

They're currently selling it on Play-Asia(dot)Com. I feel like a kid in a candy store on that site. It's amazing how many goodies they have on there. My husband is going to be the unfortunate receiver of all the nagging. God bless him.