Our painting assignment this time was "whites on whites". The aim was to create a painting using the medium of acrylic that explores different shades of the color white. I chose to paint a watch I own, the Swatch SUOW 100, which proved to be a challenge because of the details it contains. Below is actually my second attempt, which I'm proud to say has came out decently and abstractly.
February was a busy month filled with heavy coursework and late night rehearsals- so glad we're finally marching into spring (see the pun there?). I spent my birthday weekend this year not on the plane, but mostly on stage performing works of my dear friend Shakespeare.
On Friday and Saturday nights, our cast of ten presented The Complete Works of William Shakespeare- Abridged at our school. The play is a parody of 37 Shakespearean plays and Shakespeare addicts find it either hysterically funny or offensive. The script contained many references to pop culture and we improvised some of them along our rehearsals. As a result, some of the modern twists we added could only be understood by people from our school. My two main characters (I had a total of five characters) were Titus in Titus Andronicus and Claudius in Hamlet. Titus Andronicus, originally a tragedy,was performed as a cooking show. I loved my role as Titus the most because I got to be a maniac on stage (but really, try going crazy because it releases stress)! For example, one line I said to the rapist was "let me go grind your bones to power small... and make a pasty of your shameful head!" (in an Indian accent). The fourth wall was nonexistent during my scene and I had the great honor of harassing and persuading the front role audience to try the lovely human head pie. My role as Claudius was yet another challenge because we had to perform the scene and our lines backwards, which looked like we all resurrected from death.
Titus in Titus Andronicus
Claudius in Hamlet
Claudius in Hamlet
Claudius in Hamlet
The thing about having a deep voice at a girls' school is that you are always casted as a guy... I guess my goal for my senior year plays is to have a female role. Luckily for the English-Speaking Union's regional Shakespeare Competition, I got to choose my own pieces while representing the school. I performed one monologue as Viola in Twelfth Night Act II Scene II and Sonnet 147. I ended up as the top 5 finalists. Although I would love to win and perform in the Lincoln Center in NYC, the experience of seeing other people perform Shakespearean texts was very enlightening. Here is a video of my first round performance:
In addition to the whole Shakespearean madness, my advisor baked me cupcakes for my birthday and my friend surprised me with a cake on Sunday night (by surprise I also mean I was pied)!
Stuck in Titus' World
What's better than a Shakespearean Birthday Weekend? :)
For our art project this time, we worked on perspectives. I chose Hunter (the science building at our school) because of its very structural composition. At first, my indolent side of me took hold of my sketching process as I estimated the vanishing points and spontaneously drew the parallel lines (I swear they looked really accurate). My teacher warned me that if I don't take the vanishing points seriously enough, the perspective might turn out malformed. So then, I found my vanishing points by lining up sketch papers (apparently, I lined up 5 sketch papers down the corridor of where I was sketching for one of the vanishing points... People passed by me and gave me that "stare"). After my ridiculous location of the two vanishing points, I had to decide how to present my drawing. I thought about cross-hatching to create this sketch-book feeling, but after a fail attempt to cross-hatch (never really learned the skill before), I decided to outline the building, extend the parallel lines, and fill in the building plus floor with pastel. The result was satisfying, partly because of the gray-blue colored paper I chose that created a cold technological atmosphere, but also because of the cool colors I used that helped bring out the feeling of this science building.
Hunter
Hunter 360°
In addition to finally having a long weekend break from all those heavy schoolwork and theater practices (and... occasional swim practices), we got a day off because of Snow Storm Nemo! Nemo's effect in my area could only be described as beauteous. I took advantage of this scenery and went out in the below-freezing weather to take some photos.
Sunset- taken from my iPhone 4:
By the way, happy Chinese New Year! Hope y'all have a great year of the snake!
