The sun in retreat made the skyline look like crooked teeth

Tomorrow is the last day of my 2-week adobe illustrator class. I'm really glad that I took the class because I was always afraid to open the program and use it before so I just avoided it and stuck to photoshop and indesign. But this class forced me to figure it out and I think I learned a lot. A frustrating part of this week was when I had to make my first assignment which was to create this landscape picture of suburban houses based off a picture he gave us. I spent forever working on it because I was working on the old PC in the other room. It took maybe 5 hours. I was happy with it and saved it to the desktop, but the next day it was nowhere to be found on the computer! Totally gone! So I had done all this work and I couldn't turn it in and I looked like a slacker.

Today's assignment was to take a family photograph and draw it in illustrator. The boundaries were pretty loose so instead of a family picture, I wanted to make the project applicable so I chose one of Ewan McGregor smoking a cigarette and drew that. I made it into a movie poster that I imagined would be called The Wanderer and would star Ewan and also Natalie Portman and Jason Isaacs. Hopefully this one will make up for the lack of first project.




Also, last night, matt and I went to see The Wind Fisherman at AFI. It was a year ago that we worked on it. I remember how hot it was during filming. People were running around in 100 degree heat all day but when you saw the film nobody looked sweaty or red which was surprising but good. It looked really great with the original score added and the CGI work. It was also nice to see all the people who had worked on it. I like to be on the AFI campus because it's up on a hill and has the most amazing views of the LA skyline.

If you want to be someone else, change your life

I've been thinking about what I would be doing as a career if I wasn't going to be a designer. Here's a list of what I came up with.

1) A wedding gown designer. When I was 13, becoming a dress designer was one of my dreams. I used to scribble pictures of dresses on napkins when my family went out to eat. Unfortunately, my insight into the gown industry was limited and all my drawing came out looking like the exact same piece o'crap gown: thin spagetti strap, umpire waist and then simple flowy bottom, which is probably the last thing I'd pick as my actual wedding dress. Alas, I didn't become Vera Wang, but I do enjoy flipping through the bridal magazines at the drugstore and checking out all the new designs.



2) A mythbuster. I am totally hooked on that show and I think it'd be really fun to figure out the different experiments and test them out. Of course, I am clueless when it comes to science so I would probably never make the cut.

3) A Greenpeace (or PETA) activist. Yep, that would be me cleaning oil off all the baby seals and ducks. I don't think it pays well and I'd probably be arrested for disorderly conduct, but it would be exceptionally cool.



4) A foodie. I'd work for a local paper in some very chic town that has wonderful restaurants and I would go to them all and sample the food for free. Then I'd write about it. I'd probably be really fat, but at least I'd be fat and happy. In this vein, I also dreamed about being a pastry chef (and open my own bakery in Hell's Kitchen like Kyotofu) or a wedding cake decorator. Everyone loves desserts so I think it'd be fun to create the desserts that people love. I would be a lot like Sookie from Gilmore Girls.

If you're looking for a good Los Angeles food blog, my favorite is http://www.potatomato.com/mt/index.html


Sookie

5) An adventurer/riverboat captain. I had a dream last night where I was riverboating in a creepy bayou but it was more like roaring rapids and the boat capsized and I had to save my family from almost certain death. But in real life, I don't think anyone judges riverboat captains. You're not held up to very high expectations, as long as you don't steer the boat into a sandbank or something like that.



Although I could still ditch my plan to be a designer and go to culinary school, I'm re-energized now that my summer classes have started and I feel like I'm actually being productive again. My motion graphics class starts on Friday, I can't wait! My dad got to fly out to Pittsburgh for my cousin's Bat Mitzvah, but we couldn't go so I felt really left out. It was apparently a big family reunion and we missed it! Extended family has started being more important to me than it was when I was younger. My dad filmed my grandpa and his brother talk about our family history and I learned a lot of things I didn't know. For instance, I am a little Romanian. It really throws off your sense of identity when you throw a new heritage into the mix.

I went to see Jon Brion last week at Largo on Fairfax, my most favorite singer/songwriter/composer. He shaved off his lumberjack/Gandolf beard which was unfortunate because I've grown fond of it. He was amazing as usual and there seemed to be lots of famous musicians in the crowd who got up to play with him. There were the Watkin siblings from the group Nickel Creek, the drummer from Rilo Kiley, and some others whose names I have forgotten. I've also been at the Hollywood Cemetary for screenings of old movies. I saw Gilda not long ago and tomorrow is Rebel Without a Cause. We bring a picnic and I really enjoy going there, despite being surrounded by graves. It's not as creepy as it sounds.