The Leaves Are Falling

I absolutely love this season. The leaves change color and nature prepares itself to sleep through winter. It's such a gorgeous sight to see. The smells of autumn, the crunch of the leaves and the aroma of cinnamon in the air. It's all what makes this season one of my favorites.

I can't wait to start getting out there with my camera. I've got so many ideas for photographs, which I will be sharing on my deviantArt and flickr. And yes, I am into shameless advertising.

Reflection

Dirty whore. Take a look at your reflection in the dirty mirror and see what you really are.

Success is all about Tagging.

Not entirely.

First, in the matter of appealing to a large spectrum, one must have something relevant to modern culture - something that most of the population finds some interest in.

The next part is tagging. Take deviantArt, for example. Just post a picture and don't tag it with anything - don't put any keywords on it at all. Now think about it. Who's going to see it? Sure, the people who are watching you will see it. Who's going to see it that doesn't already know your work? A few individuals may see it on the homepage. That is, if they have their settings set to show newly uploaded deviations rather than popular ones of all time. With all the people potentially posting art, the piece you've submitted may only be on that homepage for three seconds before it's outdated by the many other more recently uploaded images.

Well, what do people want to see? Honestly, that's all their business. If they like kittens, they'll search up kittens. What if they're searching up something that's similar to your piece? Of course you'd want your piece to show up in their search results. That's where the tagging comes in. By labeling anything you post with every possible accurate description of it, that is where you get viewers.

Watermarking Tutorial

Hello, my dear readers!

If anyone is interested in art but worried about potential art thieves (and don't want something obstructing the artwork itself), watermarking is for you!  

We'll start by going to Picnik and opening up an image. (For the images used in this tutorial, simply click on them to enlarge them.)

 Below: Choosing an image to watermark. This is a picture of my hamster, Cupcake. So cute!

 You'll be directed to a basic editing page where you can crop, resize, etc. The watermarking is in another tab, the text (unless you want to use a sticker as a watermark which wouldn't really be a good one to use)

 This is the fun part. In comparison to Photobucket's photo-editing software, there are way more fonts to choose from in Picnik. Pick the one you would like to use, and enter your text for your watermark (the best watermarks are ones that have your name or the username for the site you upload your work on). In this case, I'm just going to put my hamster's name as the watermark.

 Of course it's going to stand out like crazy when you first add it (which is why I don't recommend using a paint program to put a gray colored watermark - it still stands out like crazy). What determines the watermark is the opacity of it (think opaque like milk - you can't see through it; you want your opacity at a low percentile so that it's not as thick). However, in the case of Picnik, it's reversed to "fade"; where you want to increase that to decrease opacity.

 Personally, I like having my fade level set at 80%. But that's my preference. If you like it a little less noticeable, increase the fade to a higher percentage. If you would want it to be more noticeable, decrease the fade.

Also, depending on the picture, you might want to alter the color. Picnik has it set on white as a default - which is good for darker colored photographs. If your watermark is going to be against a light part of the picture, you're probably going to want to set the color to black or gray, and then fade it to your preference.

 And voila! You are finished. Enjoy!

The Art of Interesting

Lately I've realized that not many people really care about what I write here. And maybe that's the reason why I write what I write. But for something to be truly interesting to make people want to see it, now, that's a true talent. That's someone who's always up to date on all the latest trends, inverting it in whatever way they can to get people to pay attention to them. It's targeting the specific audience, the diversity of wanting to please all potential readers and get them hooked.

We're all just attention whores.

Editing, lovely.

I have recently become fascinated with picnik. It's definitely a lot better with the artistic possibilities than photobucket. The above is just a sample of what I plan to create more of. Though, I do wish that I had photoshop to edit my photographs better.


I need to start taking more photos.

Two New Blogs!

I've recently started up a couple of blogs.

The first blog is in preparation for the upcoming school year. It's my AP Literature blog, which can be found by following this link.

The second is a group blog. It's for Believe in Cosplay, the cosplay group I belong to. I am not the only author for the blog; everyone in the group is able to contribute to the blog. It can be found here.

Hope you guys enjoy them! I'd appreciate lots of followers for both of them! (:

Stage Makeup Tutorial

I wanted to make this so that everyone in drama club could access a quick to-do for stage makeup that thoroughly covers what you need to do. Let's start, shall we?

 

Supplies you will need:

Pancake Foundation (shown in Kryolan "Natural 2")

Shadow (shown in Kryolan "Congo")

Highlight (shown in Kryolan "Highlight")

Eyeliner (shown in Clinique "22 Charcoal Brown"; *Avon Color Trend "Black"; NewYorkColor "926 White")

Mascara (shown in Avon Wash-Off Waterproof "WC1 Black")

*Eye shadow (shown in Avon True Color "Warm Black")

*Liquid Eyeliner (shown in Avon Perfect Wear "W01 Evening Black")

Cheek Rouge / Blush (shown in The Color Institute palette)

Lip Rouge / Lipstick (shown in Clinique "Firefly" and Clinique "Rouge Violet")

Application sponges

Q-tips

Application brushes

Cup

*Eyelash curler

*Eyeliner pencil sharpener

(* denotes that it is optional)

Start off by washing your face. Stage makeup and street makeup are very different, so it's important to have a clean face when you start. Tie your hair back away from your face.

Using a sponge, apply your pancake evenly. Most pancake is dry and you will need to dip your sponge in water prior to applying the makeup.

 You can choose to start with either highlights or shadow, but I prefer to start with shadows. Shadows are to be applied in the hollows of the cheek (make a fish-face to find them), on the sides of the nose, and on the underside of the jaw.

Blend.

Highlights are to be applied above the eyebrows, along the cheek bones, along the front of the nose, and right along the shadow that was applied to the underside of the jaw.

Blend.

Add a dab of shadow to the tip of the nose.

Blend.

If you are MALE, you will want to add some more shadow underneath your lower lip. Females may add a dab if they wish but it is more common for males.

Blend.

Males will have to use brown eyeliner along the waterline of the eye. Brown is better for males because it defines the eye, but it is not as intense as black. Females may also use brown. However...

  Females will want to use a black eyeliner instead.

Apply mascara. Males should only apply a light coat. Heavier mascara makes the eyelashes much more noticeable on stage, and males only want to define eyelashes to the point where it can be seen that they do not lack eyelashes.

Females normally use a neutral brown eye shadow. You should not use a different color unless you are told so by your director, or eyeshadow at all unless your director wants it for your character. Neutral brown is the best though because it is not an intense eye shadow color.

Females may also choose to (under permission of the director) apply a liquid eyeliner to the top lid.

 Females should generally have more defined lashes than males. Looking at the picture, the eye on the left has more defined lashes than the other. The more defined lashes are a more feminine look while the other eye has more of a male look for lashes.

Both lashes are now defined femininely.

Add a dot of white eyeliner to the inside corner of the eye.

Apply rouge to the apples of the cheeks.

Females! If your character is flirty, you might want to use a bright red lipstick (shown in Clinique "Firefly").

If she is not a flirty character, a pink would be a better lip colour to choose. This is shown in Clinique "Rouge Violet". Always remember to consult your director for the final decision!

This next part covers how to make your character look old. You shouldn't do this makeup AT ALL unless you are playing a middle-aged or elderly character.

You're going to want to make a bunch of funny expressions to find the natural wrinkles in your face. It's much better to do this than to try to draw the lines in on your own, as an attempt does not look as realistic than if you were to draw where the lines would naturally occur.

Use a BROWN eyeliner and trace the lines you made. Black is too intense and does not look like an actual wrinkle.

Blend, but make sure that the like still retains its shape. For crow's feet, it's sometimes better to sharpen your pencil and draw very thin lines rather than using the blending technique.

Congratulations! Use your new knowledge wisely!

Racism Is Still Evident?

In the midst of a lovely conversation during AP English Language and Composition class sixth period today, colleges came up as a topic, shockingly. What I heard was very surprising, and I'd like to challenge that: Colleges have a "minority quota" that they must fill.

So wait. Are you telling me that not only do I have to compete with smart people, but I have to racially compete as well? I didn't know that I was able to change the color of my skin so easily. Where can I go to do that, and how much does it cost?

Isn't it ironic how Civil Rights Leaders pledged the words "judge not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character"? So technically, if colleges and universities are accepting people to fill a quota based on race, isn't that racial discrimination? Because I'm white, does that mean it's going to be more difficult to compete with, say, an Arab? We might be at the same intelligence level, but hey, colleges like racial diversity, so bye-bye to me.

I'm not trying to be racist, I'm just pointing out that race should not be a deciding factor when sending out acceptance letters. And anyway, I could be wrong, this is just from word of mouth and I haven't researched it all too much to qualify the information.

What's your opinion on it?

New DeviantArt?

For quite some time now, I have been contemplating creating a new deviantArt account. I have had my old account, linked here, for a few years, and an even older account that I started up in 2007. My current account was started up in September 2008 and I have all of my work on there. Creating a new account would mean leaving behind a majority of that work behind.

However, that could be a good thing. I have a ton of pictures that I haven't posted up yet, and starting fresh could give me a chance to post only the ones that I actually like instead of my current system of posting almost everything I do.

Another good thing is that I'd have a new name - a name that is more to my liking, as it is my cosplay/scene kid name.

The bad thing? I'd probably lose over half of my watchers because they are no longer active on the site.

Oh so happy watchers, please help me. (:

I Don't Understand Daylight Savings Time...

Seriously. I question it.

It makes no sense. Who in their right mind decided that people should wake up an hour earlier than they normally do? Nothing really changes. People are just crankier because they don't bother to go to bed an hour earlier.

So what's the point?

I know that it was created because it would add more hours to the day, but wasn't it created back before the light bulb wasn't invented? Therefore, it makes it unnecessary to a civilization that has industrialized many, many years ago.

I have light bulbs at my house. Lots of them. I think a lot of normal people do. So... use them. And don't wake me up an hour earlier than I want to be up. >.>

30 Hour Famine

This past weekend, I participated in my youth group's annual thirty hour famine to raise awareness of the poverty in third-world countries. This was my third year in the famine, but our youth group joined up with another. My friend Arianna was there with me (it was her fourth year) and so was my boyfriend Nathan (it was his first year).

The famine took place at a church in town that used to be a movie theater. There were a lot of students who participated in the famine, much more than last year's famine and the year before.

I have to provide a bit of background information before I move into the next part. There is a girl that Arianna and I have known since middle school. She has a mental illness and has a different mind process than most people. I'm not going to give her name out over the internet, but she's been called "crazy" and "creepy".

This girl was at the famine. I'm not particularly fond of her, so I just avoided her. However, she grew quite attached to my boyfriend. He and I didn't arrive at the famine together, so I was there before he showed up. When he showed up, she started to flirt with him and try to hold his hand. When I had a free moment (we were in the middle of a discussion about the famine, I believe), I walked up to him and greeted him with a kiss, just to subtly let this girl know that I was dating him.

He and Arianna told me that I was jealous.

There was a band that agreed to perform for us, and during the middle of the show, this girl starts to cry. She tells us that she had a friend who killed himself two years ago. My boyfriend just so happens to remind her of this friend. Once the band was done playing and we had about an hour of free time, she wanted to talk with Nathan. Another girl who was part of my youth group insisted that I was not in the same room. My friend Brittney knew that upstairs, there were windows that we could see them through because she knew that I was just concerned.

She and I go upstairs, and I see her cuddled up against him. She took his arm and put it around her and with her other hand she grabbed his hand. He had a confused look on her face but I could tell that he didn't want to upset her (she was somewhat emotionally unstable at the time). Brittney told me to notify her if I felt uncomfortable at all and she would run down there and tell them to stop it.

I was very uncomfortable at this point, but I didn't want to be seen as a jealous girlfriend, so I had to keep my mouth shut. The next thing I see is her taking out her phone and handing it to him. I presume that she's asking him for his number. I was incredibly uncomfortable with all of this and I asked Brittney if she could just get her to stop cuddling against him.

An adult walked into the room shortly after, but since I couldn't hear through the window, I didn't know what was going on. They leave and I go downstairs to meet up with Nathan. He was almost freaked out by this situation, but like always, he kept his composure.

Things settled down for a while. We divided up into "tribes". I was in the same tribe as that girl, but the adults were nice and switched out my tribe card with someone else's to make sure that I wasn't uncomfortable. I was in the same tribe as Arianna, so I was happy. We were called "Carrefour" and it was so much fun when we made our banners.

After we made banners, it was time to go to bed. They put on Finding Nemo and you could either watch it or go to bed.

Carrefour Banner

Things started to get psycho freaky. This girl became obsessed to the point where she was threatening to harm herself if she couldn't talk to him. She attempted to pierce her lip and her bridge with a thumb tack. I wanted to confront her at this point and tell her to back off, but I was smarter than that. After all, we were all going to be spending the night together. If she wasn't afraid to go after her own face with a sharp object, what was going to stop her from going after my face with a sharp object in the middle of the night?

However, she left around midnight or one o'clock. I guess she became frustrated that she couldn't talk to Nathan and wanted to go home to be alone or something. I don't know. What she does is none of my business.

The rest of the thirty hour famine was great, though, despite the occasional "I'm hungry! D:" Comparing the activities and games that we played to the ones at the thirty hour famines of the past, they weren't as good. There were three games altogether, I believe. The first one was a riddle. For the second one, we had to put dirt in a sock, dump the dirt into some water, get water into our sock, and then squeeze it into a container. Whoever collected the most water in 5 minutes was the winner. The last game was my favourite. We had a bunch of slips of paper and we had to figure out what they said. It was sort of like the game Mad Gab (right? I've never played it but someone said something like that).

We also did a lot of community service. We helped out at a senior center. There was a man there who was really good at playing pool.

We also helped out at a charity. I didn't care for it that much because they made us pull weeds. Arianna had a mild asthma attack and I was beginning to feel nauseous. (Read Blood Drive to understand the icky feeling I get occasionally.)

At six o'clock Saturday evening, we were allowed to eat. The team that had earned the most points was to get their food first. My team won, but I don't think that it was fair to make everyone else wait while people were starting to eat.

In all honesty, I liked the other thirty hour famines better, but that was also probably because I didn't have issues with a creepy girl at the other famines.

But I liked going home with Nathan (he came over to my house), eating fried rice, and passing out on the couch. (:

Blood Drive

There was a blood drive at my school today, and I decided to try it. This was the second blood drive I tried and would have been the first I actually donated in. The first blood drive was a no-go because I was anemic (my red blood cell count was too low). It wasn’t too serious for anemia, but the levels were low enough to where I was not allowed to donate.

For this blood drive, my red blood cell count was up (yay! no more anemia!) and so I was ready for the legit 16g needle to be shoved into my arm. My veins had another plan. The vein that they wanted to puncture decided to act like the Italian army (Axis Powers Hetalia reference), and they saw the needle as the British army. It ran away from the blood drive people and hid.

Normally I am terrible around any sort of puncture to myself to get my blood. I’ve been squeamish for a long time, even when I was in the fourth grade and had to get blood tests done. Crazy story but all in all I freaked out and didn’t want them stabbing my arm. During my sophomore year (the last school year) I was fine when my biology class did a blood typing lab. This year, in Medical Science I, I wasn’t doing so well. During the training we had to go through before we could work with blood at all, I had this nasty nauseating feeling and ended up puking in a trash can (which has become the new joke between my friends). For the first blood lab we did, I was a bit squeamish but was able to participate in the lab. The second lab was a blood typing lab like last year, and I was perfectly fine. When the blood drive people punctured the needle into my arm, I started to feel nauseous. It wasn’t as bad as when I puked in the trash can, but I was nervous that I might end up getting sick, so I asked them not to stick me again and they didn’t. So hopefully during the next blood drive I am well both internally and mentally to donate…. even though only two people can safely receive my blood.