The Final Stretch. Q4.

Finally, I have reached quarter four and I am about 5 months away from being a senior. Very exciting but I need to start really focusing on my portfolio. In quarter 3 I made floor plans for a house I want to build. For fourth quarter I plan on building this house and if all goes well I will add it onto my portfolio.  My major will be architecture and my minor will be interior design. I have chosen these two because I do plan on majoring on either one of these two in college and I want to experience both and see what I feel more comfortable with. I chose architecture as my major because I already know a lot about interior design but not much about architecture.

Last quarter has made me more comfortable with architecture. I do still need some practice but it has been getting better and I do find myself enjoying it. I still do have a lot to learn and since I plan on building this I have more to learn about materials and different techniques to build it. I haven't had a chance to play around with interior design but I know its something I love doing. I am really looking forward to putting both of these talents together.

For the book I have decided to pick Renzo Piano. He is an Italian architecht. He seems really interesting and I did a quick Wiki and it shows that he has done a lot of work and has worked in different areas. I am really excited to read his story.

Q3

This is has been a very successful and exciting project for me. I am working on an architechture project. I made several floor plans for a house I plan on building. I started a couple of weeks ago. I really had no idea what I was doing I was looking things up on the internet. I didn't know the symbols for the floor plan. I was working off a couple of pictures I found on Google. I started off by making the boxed 3'' each then I decided to make them 1.5'' it helped me see everything much clearer. I at first felt really over whelmed because I wanted to incorporate everything I love about houses into this one project. After a bit of thinking and planning I decided on just putting in everything I like but in moderation. My biggest inspiration was a house that is being built around the block from me. It is on my drive to school everyday and I see it everyday and I love it more and more each time I see it. I chose this as my project because I have always been interesting in building things and making things. I love interior design and I have always found architechture interesting. I plan on majoring in one of the two in college. I know a lot about interior design thanks to mom. I did not really know much about architechture, this is my first time experiencing what its like. I find it pretty cool. After looking at floor plans and seeing all the different types of buildings that can be made it made me realize that I have a drawing board and whatever goes on it is extremely unlimited. A regret that I had was not starting earlier. I feel that if I had started earlier everything would have been in much more detail and I would have more and it would be more to my liking. I also had to realize that I don't want to make it too complicated just yet either because if I did it would be been almost impossible to make in the time I have and I also did not want to get too crazy. I am pretty happy with what I have its not too far off from what I imagined. I tried to put in a lot that I wanted and it turned out nice. I think what i still need to work on is the math and the proportions. I put up pictures of my three floors. I am not able to tell you which floor is my favorite because of the fact that they are all uniquely designed and they each have something different about them that makes them great. Starting with my first floor, I like this because of the big kitchen. I believe that kitchens and bathrooms are what people usually remember in a house. I also like the dining room because it has that curved wall. Although I am thinking about changing that into a more square shape and make a balcony. I am going to decide soon. What makes me the happiest is my staircase its the cool curved one. Im excited about that. What I wasn't too excited about what the size of the bathroom. I feel that it could have been bigger. I love big bathrooms and kitchens. On my second floor i have four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The cool part about the second floor is that they are joined bathrooms. Meaning in between two rooms is a bathroom. Something else I like was the halls. Its a full square hall and you would be able to walk around. What I wish I could have done better was make more room for a actual master bedroom. All of the bedrooms are about the same size. I would have also like to have added a walk in closet. As far as the basement goes its pretty cool. In making this house I had shows like MTV Cribs and house shows of celebrities. They usually have movie theaters and arcades in their basement. I decided to put in an indoor pool. I thought it would be awesome to actually have an indoor pool in your house. On the other side of the basement would be a mini arcade and in the center just a living room. Unfortunately, not big enough for a theater. Lastly, I included a laundry room next to the mini arcade. For fourth quarter I plan on building the house and designing the interior. I am really looking forward to making this its what I enjoy doing. If all goes right I will use the final project as a piece for my college portfolio. I am going to link a website that taught me some basics of architecture and the picture of the symbols I was using. I hope you enjoyed!

"Architect Symbols for Framing Small Home Plans." Architect Symbols for Framing Small Home   Plans. Make My Own House, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2013. <http://www.make-my-own-house.com/Architect-symbols.html>.

White, Ray. "1. Architectural Basics." 1. Architectural Basics. White Files, 2004. Web. 10 Apr. 2013. <http://whitefiles.org/b3_q/1_architecture/zqla/qla1/1_bscs.htm>.

Architecture.

This is my basement. This is probably my most interesting floors. I have an indoor pool. I really like it and think it would be awesome to have an indoor pool. Why wait until summer to take a swim?

Architechture

This is my second floor floor plan. I have two bathrooms and four bedrooms.

Architecture.

This is my first floor floor plan.

Sketch number two

This is another sketch I worked on. Also a landscape. It is my favorite out of both landscapes. I tried playing around with different techniques to make clouds and that was the closest i got to clouds. I believe this was in the Tuscany area. I don't know if this is turning into a 365 but maybe because I do find myself working on one everyday. I will try to make a sketch once a day.

italian adventures.

A bit jet lagged but I am back from of the most beautiful places on earth, Italy. It was such a great trip. I learned so much history and art history. I got an idea from Lisa Boneta, it was to sketch out pictures of pictures I took on my camera. It was really cool. I did a lot of them on the plane ride home and I wanted to share them. I took many pictures of landscapes and was hoping to eventually paint them as well. Beautiful landscapes is something you could never run out of in Italy. It was almost impossible to fall asleep during bus rides because you did not want to miss out on a view. This first picture was of a mountain landscape. I wanted to really just stick with shapes rather then detail at most I spent five to 10 minutes on each sketch.

Start of something New.

So today in Stac Luke wanted us to brainstorm an inquiry so I thought this was a PERFECT opportunity to start my research on architecture and interior design. I'm really excited. I woke up yesterday and started redesigning three of my Sims houses from 8 AM until 12 PM. It's what I really love doing. I can spend hours and Home Depot and furniture stores for hours trying to mix and match things. Two weekends ago I spent my Friday night reading this book on backyard designs for about 4 hours. I also know that I have an interest in architecture and I totally want to play around with that. I am really excited. In a couple of past blog posts I've been talking how I want to try those two things! Now I finally get to!

My Turn!

Second day of the acting workshop went really really really cool. We started off with Grace and Danny's script. It went really well. The parts they both got were good and they worked off each other well. Their script Danny's character is asking Grace's character for girl advice. Grace's action was to get someone to learn how to stand on their own two feet. Grace's as- if was to help her sister get on her own two feet because she was being bullied. Danny's as- if was that the girl who is freakishly obsessed with him is getting too comfortable with him and she has a boyfriend. The girls boyfriend was about to beat Danny up and he had to go to his older sister (Grace) for advice. It was really well played a lot of emotion came out of them too. I didn't think the as- ifs would really work because I thought someone could just fake it. It's really not that easy to fake. Finally, I went up with Kaitlyn and we did our part of the script. I didn't think that I would get out a lot of emotion out of that. It is hard for me to get upset or cry or anything in front of people unless I am REALLY upset. I try to keep those things private. I didn't cry but I felt that I wanted to as I was walking home. In the script I played Millie and Kaitlyn played Lindsey. Millie was basically concerned on that path that Lindsey was going down. Millie is a goodie- too shoes and someone you would find playing by the rules. Lindsey was the same way but started to go off in a tangent. Lindsey started not hanging out with Millie and hanging out with the stoners and all of those kids. Lindsey wanted Millie to mind her own business and leave her alone and to worry about herself. My as- if came literally at PERFECT time. I literally mean perfect. In the beginning of the workshop we worked on Grace and Danny's script and I got a text from my friend. She had told me that her and her friends got tickets to a concert that both of us were going to go to together. We have had this planned since about Thanksgiving. The concert is next week the day before my birthday (Passion Pit). It really hurt me that we have had this planned and all ready to go and she just bailed out on me because her friends got her the tickets. She doesn't go to our school she goes to a school with kids whose parents have A LOT of money.  So the tickets her friends got her were probably amazing tickets. Anyways, my action in my script was to stop my friend from going down the wrong path. So I used this. Kaitlyn's as- if was of her ex- boyfriend not giving her space. Her action was basically her trying to get me to accept her new life stlye. When we did the as- if game I got upset and actual emotions came out not just me trying to fake it. It was a wild experience. The only problem Kaitlyn and I had was that we were not too confident with our lines. I always get two lines confused and when we were told to go from the as- if to the scene we started off well until we got to the middle part and I had to stop and think about my lines. We left off with Andrew and Dani. Looking forward to see what happens tomorrow!

30.

This post is called thirty because it it my thirtieth blog post! It is hard for me to sit down and write everyday. I am starting to like it more and getting used to it so its sort of getting fun! Anyways! Today a couple of us had an acting workshop and it was really really cool! We started off by introducing ourselves and talking about our future our current status in acting and things of that nature. Second we did some relaxation, yoga type of stuff. We ended working on Sabrina and Kadambari's scene. It got really intense but it went well. Sabrina's task was to get faith and trust from Bari's character and Bari's task was to get reassurance from Sabrina's character. They got "as ifs" Sabrina's was that she was begging her mom to go on a one in a life time chance trip for dance to California. She tried to get her mom to let her go. Bari's as if was she was having trust issues with a guy on her club because he wasn't getting his job done and since he wasn't getting it done it all fell on Bari. She needed to get reassurance from him that he will get it done. At first the audience didn't really see a reaction from anyone. As time went on you could tell Bari was about to jump off her seat and go to the school and yell at the kid. Even after the workshop ended she was telling me how she was still really angry and she would not be surprised if she went up to this kid and actually yelled at him. Sabrina also did really well she was getting so frustrated at her mom for not wanting to sign the papers and give her the okay to go. She even bounced off her chair a little bit at one point. It was really exciting to see how the as ifs worked. Excited for tomorrow!

iBook

I read the book "A Practical Handbook for the Actor." It is hard for me to relate with a lot of the things the author says since I just started acting but I can imagine a lot of the things he says about teachers not teaching correctly. I haven't had that experience with acting but I have in other aspects of my life. A quote that really stuck out to me was "talent, if it exists at all is completely out of your control. Whatever talent might be, you either have it or you don't, so why waste energy worrying about it? The only talent you need to act is a talent for working" I really loved that quote it reminded me of Luke and my art instructor at camp. They both really spoke about practicing and working hard and how they both get you further in life rather then the guy who relies on his/her talent. That just really connects with all arts and basically everything in life. I also really like how it says you can't control your feelings. I feel that that is one of main problems when it comes to acting. I am really focused on how I am supposed to be feeling rather than things about what I actually have to be doing in the scene. I'll be posting more intriguing posts from the book soon!

Canvas.

Finally got some free time after midterms so I decided to paint. Im painting two people on a swing. The two people represent President Obama and Michelle Obama. They're just really precious together so I decided why not and paint them. This has been painted using oils. Drawing it out and painting it took me about 3 hours. I really want to practice more painting because I have started to notice that due to my lack of practicing I am starting to "suck." With my hands hurting and my lack of practicing, it gets really frustrating so I want to change that for sure. Then maybe have a really cool project for STAC night, like last year. My mom also got my new brushes so iI wanted to use them. I plan on finishing it sometime in the next two weeks. I am also going to continue working on my acting in STAC but also finally starting to look at majors for college. Since it is literally around the corner I want to look at schools, schools programs, locations and all that fun stuff college has to offer. I really want to start looking into architecture and interior design in more depth in the next couple of months to see what I feel more comfortable with. I know that I am interested in both. Maybe along the path I will find something else I like better! I don't know I guess we will have to see. STAC live is also this Friday and I am looking forward to preforming with the a capella group. It sounds awesome!

Boop.

So today was the work shop for the a capella group for stac live. It was really really fun! I was nervous before going I was scared that I had to sing alone or something. I don't really sing but I decided to try it because I heard people talking about it at the mock gossip girl auditions and it sounded like a lot of fun. Andrew was really nice and fun to work with. We chose Settle Down by Kimbra. I'm listening to it right now. I've listened it on replay about 50 times to get more comfortable with the song. I am really looking forward to Thursday and Fridays rehearsal! I am extremely to present this to the school it was our first day doing it and it already sounds really good.

Gossip Girl Auditions.

Last week we had a "Mock Audition Workshop." It was a wild experience. Prior to the audition I looked over the script and I tried looking for the scene of which episode it was to see how the actors themselves did it. It wasn't until i got home and my sister told me it was the first episode. I've heard Luke give the musical people advice the day before they auditioned and how to act and the do's and don't's I took into account a lot of those things. I wasn't sure if I needed to have it memorized but it turns out I probably should have had it somewhat memorized. I was in complete shock that I was the first one to go. My shock lasted for about 5 seconds then I went in. I wasn't as scared as i thought I would be. I felt more confident than usual which is a good thing. A weakness I had I would say would be that I didn't have it memorized and I kept looking down at the sheet. I used the information given to me during the audition the second time i read the script. I was told I did much better. Overall I thought the whole thing was cool. I had really bad anxiety before the audition I can't imagine the emotions I would be building up at a real audition. I don't know if I would have gotten the part. I mean I wasn't as prepared as I should have been but I feel that if I were going to a real audition next time I would be more prepared and be more on top of things.