Wednesday, March 31, 2010

A Little Pick-Me-Up


These clouds seem to be making everyone kinda sleepy and sluggish today.
Here's a little pick-me-up to brighten your cloudy day :)
I love Woody Allen, don't you?


Tuesday, March 30, 2010

My Friends Are Models

A few of my friends visited from New Jersey this weekend. We somehow wandered over to the College of Fine Arts building, so I decided to take them inside and show them my drawing classroom. They had a lot of fun. Here is proof:





It's so sunny in these pictures, it makes me sad to look outside and see all of the disgusting rain. It's so rainy that I actually can't see outside my window. I get to carry my cardboard dinosaur to class in this monsoon later. But for now, I must draw Gregory and start a variety of other assignments. I have five hours to be productive, I need to make the best of it!

Monday, March 29, 2010

Quote of the Week


There is so little of life, and it is fraught with chance. We meet, we don't meet, we take the wrong turn and still bump into each other. We conscientiously choose "the right road" and it leads nowhere.
Jeanette Winterson Lighthousekeeping

Friday, March 26, 2010

Mosaics and Dinos

I've taken a bunch of photos of the projects we've been doing in drawing class lately, and I must say they are pretty neat to look at. There are two mosaics, where our teacher would give each of us a tiny scrap of paper that was part of a bigger piece, and we would have to enlarge our piece to 18x24 and then connect all the pieces together to make a larger version of it. We weren't allowed to see the completed piece before figuring it out on our own. The other project is a room full of dinos! And my new dino.

This first picture is from Tuesday, with everyone's successful and unsuccessful dinos. We had to draw them. My dino, along with many others, were so complex that they couldn't be put together in under three minutes. Thursday we had to return with a successful dino.

This is Gregory. On Tuesday night I had to come home, take apart the amazing Alfonso, who took me DAYS to complete, and put Gregory together in like 20 minutes time. I guess the lesson I learned from this is that sometimes going over the top is not beneficial. Sometimes you have to keep things simple to get the job done. I'm not sure if that's what I was supposed to learn, but that's all I got. I guess Gregory is still kinda cute, and he's my height and stands for three hours and can be put together in like 2 minutes.

This is a mosaic we did of a VanGogh painting. It was a major pain in the ass because the whole thing is basically shading. It's funny because we were told not to do any shading in the entire class, but here we are shading entire pieces of paper. Whatever. I guess it looks cool. My drawing is on the bottom left.

This one is a Durer drawing, it looks much cooler hung up on the wall now, but there's a lot going on it it, I still can't figure it all out. My drawing is the second one from the bottom with words on it. I had no idea what I was drawing at the time, but it turns out I spent about 3 hours of my time drawing what turned out to be an old man's foot. Funny.

Well, that's what I got for now. I am sure I will have plenty of other ridiculous things to show you before the semester is over.

Monday, March 22, 2010

The Boring Adventures of Dinosaur Construction Part Dos


This is Alfonso.
He is a vegetarian horse/rhinoceros mix.
he is not quite my height, but close enough.
After several revisions, a pulled muscle in my right hand and hours and hours of cutting, taping, and wiring things together, he has been assembled, and taken apart into pieces to be reassembled in class tomorrow, in under 3 minutes. ain't gonna happen. but i think he will be able to stand up the full three hours. that's what she said. heehee.

now me and karen are watching new moon and having celebratory ice cream.

Gardens




It's officially springtime, but I'm looking outside today, and the trees are still bare, and the sky is still gray. And it certainly doesn't feel like springtime. Today, I've been thinking about The Secret Garden, and how much I'd love to have a garden like that one, complete with a swing.
And I've decided that when I have a house someday I will grow my own fruits and veggies and flowers.

Quote of the Week


I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me. My love's not impersonal yet not wholly subjective either. I would like to be everyone, a cripple, a dying man, a whore, and then come back to write about my thoughts, my emotions, as that person. But I am not omniscient. I have to live my life, and it is the only one I'll ever have. And you can not regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time...
Sylvia Plath

(photo source unknown)

Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Boring Adventures of Dinosaur Sculpting Part I

So you know how I had to make a small dino sculpture?
Well now I have to make one that's my height (5'4")
It's taking FOREVER, and it sucks because it's not like a paper where I can go out somewhere with my laptop and do my work.
No, I have so much crap and materials and cardboard and tape and scraps that I am confined to my apartment basically. I spent so much time on it today and before I knew it it was dark outside and it was dinnertime and then I got very tired, which is where I am right now.
I just want to be done with this stupid thing. I hope tomorrow I figure out something FAST so I can get this thing finished. Regardless, I am making sure I go out and do something productive and fun for a little bit, like a trip to starbucks and a little bookshop browsing, and some yoga and a jog perhaps.
At least today I spent some time making myself a good dinner.

Anyway, I am making more than one dino post because this is quite a process, and I am taking pictures as I go along. Here's the start of it:

Step One: gather a whole bunch of "materials" such as cardboard, scissors, a cardboard cutter, wire, and several kinds of tape.
Step Two: Consult drawing from which to make a replica. Devise some sort of loose plan.
Step Three: Start with the head and neck, make it out of cardboard then rethink it and redo it entirely out of paper.
Step Four: Go through the tedious task of creating a durable rib cage that can be disassembled:
Step Five: Put it all together and hope that the rest of the dinosaur will be easier, and faster, to make:


Wednesday, March 17, 2010

My Tumblr


Hey guys, does anyone else out there have a tumblr?
I do, and have for a while. I sort of forgot about it for a bit but last semester the spark was reignited. I think I ignored it for a while because I was very wrapped up in this blog, which I still am, but I discovered that my tumblr could actually contribute to this blog, by helping me to gather quotes and pictures to make Born in the Doorway prettier!
What I'm asking you guys is:
1. Do you have a tumblr?
2. Do you have any favorite tumblrs that you follow?
3. Would you follow my tumblr? I would follow yours!

I am looking for more tumblrs to look at, and more people to look at mine! I may be more motivated to make it interesting that way :)

Here is a link to mine: http://jdelbalzo.tumblr.com/
I originally started it as an assignment for my mass communications class junior year, but I have held onto it because it's so much fun to look at everyone's posts.

(photo via Daniel Terrio's Photostream, discovered through tumblr)

Monday, March 15, 2010

Quote of the Week


"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice Kingsley Alice in Wonderland


(photo via nonsolokawaii.com)

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Creepy Flying Buzzing Crawlies


This warmer weather is such a tease.
Yesterday I sat on my back porch and just felt the sun on my face and listened to the sounds of my neighborhood and allowed the vitamin D to perk me out of my winter coma.
Even when there's no sun, I take a vitamin D supplement every day, because I will get noticeably more depressed in the winter if I fail to do so.
However, there is absolutely no substitute for being outside, and yesterday felt amazing.
My dad and I also took the dogs for a brief walk which was good for all of us.

However, with springtime comes the opening of french doors, and creepy flying buzzing crawlies decide to make my house their home. And they like the smell of my leftover pasta from Maggianos. And I have a very inconvenient phobia. So, when I had my first intruder of the season last night, I left the ravioli on the counter and left the house. And then my dog got to eat the ravioli, not me.

Anyway, what I guess I'm getting at is, though I hate insects, the warm weather is completely worth it. It protects my health, my happiness, and my sanity. So if someone told me to pick between winter with no bugs and summer with bugs, I'd pick summer every single time. So I really need to get over this dumb little hang up and be able to enjoy my ravioli. and my favorite time of the year.

But I won't get too excited about springtime just yet. After all, on April 1st last year we had a snowstorm in Boston. The trick is to never get too comfortable with a weather pattern, but hopefully we'll have some really warm weather days in between the anticipated random snowy ones. You gotta take what you can get.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Quote of the Week


So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go!
Jonathan Safran Foer Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Hooray it's Spring Break!


So it's Spring Break! I'm out of class until the 15th and am in New Jersey. Though I'm not in class it doesn't mean that I don't have lots to do. For a couple days, however, I'm just trying to chill out, and I'm pacing myself for all the things I must get accomplished, such as:
1) Writing my 6 page magazine anaylsis (No biggie)
2) Create a replica of my dino skeleton that is MY HEIGHT: (5'4" ish) out of cardboard, string, wire and tape, and it must fit in an 18X24X16 box, and it must be reassembled in class in under 3 minutes and it must stand for 3 hours. BIGGIE. I have no freaking clue how I'm going to accomplish this.
3) Also, I have various yearly doctors appointments that I must go to, and get poked and prodded in many lovely places,
4) As well as cleaning out an ENTIRE room of various knick knacks and pieces of crap that I've collected throughout my life.
5) Also, I am going to try to work out/do yoga most days, if not every day. I don't know how feasible/realistic this is
6) I also want to finish reading the Wild Things

And through all this, I must also make time for some activities! Just writing this has exhausted me. I think I'll make myself some tea.

Ps. It's getting prettier outside!
PPs. I'm sorry I don't remember where I found this picture. But it's really lovely.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Creative Writing


I am soooo much more comfortable with poetry writing than I am with short stories. I often write poetry, and very rarely do I work on short stories. I also just feel like I know a whole lot more about poetry. Anyway, I have a short story due tomorrow for my creative writing class and it has been quite the struggle. I am used to being able to write things that are up for interpretation with metaphors, symbols, etc. With a story, however, there needs to be a real plot, and though I am excellent at bullshitting analytical essays, I've struggled quite a bit trying to get a beginning, middle, and end that are clear.
The results are not something I am very proud of. 10 pages of really depressing stuff. I don't really know what inspired me to write something that's such a downer because I am a very happy person most of the time. Anyway, it needs A LOT of work and I am nervous for the grade I'm going to get and also I'm pretty sure my classmates will think I'm insane.
All I knew was that I wanted to write about a house that has only one door, and I sort of went off from there. At least it's (somewhat) finished?

Quote of the Week


An "anyway" friend is the one person in your life, no matter what they say or do, no matter what they've been through with you, they love you anyway.
Sam Bennett Private Practice

(photo via weheartit)

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