Sigh.

[pretentieuse]

I'm Annie. I live in the Midwest. I am a girl. I go to college. I will probably major in art history. I am a fine art snob. I like short sentences.

Historically, I've been drawing as long as I could hold a pencil (what a hoary truism!), usually illustrations for my Dargeresque stories about marrying my cat. (I was three.) It ebbed and flowed throughout elementary school, reaching its apex in seventh grade, which was sadly crushed by poor art funding. I stopped drawing once I entered a shady crowd in high school. When I transfered schools, I was way too intimidated by the arts program to do anything. I flirted with ZBrush over the summer, and discovered the Art Renewal Center while exploring classical literature and reading history, wishing to know how those before me envisioned Odysseus and his ilk. I never entered the serious "braaarrggghhh realism!" bust-your-ass school of art. I really just liked it.

I wasn't planning on doing art in college, but I took an intro class and remembered the comforting blankness it brings. After that, it really became an obsession. I'm very stubbornly resisting doing my own compositions (you creative types with your countless storylines and crazy creature designs amaze me) until I get a better handle on foundations like anatomy, shading, and consistent, confident line. I mostly work in an 8x10 sketchbook with graphite, but am going to the art store tomorrow and hopefully will broaden my media

I'm mostly interested in the idealization aspect of art. Art obviously carries a heavy social message as well, but I don't feel comfortable exploring that, especially with so much competition...a lot of it heavy-handed, and I don't want to get into that. I always remember being absolutely struck by the supernatural beauty of Final Fantasy X characters when I was ten, and I still reference FF even now. My mental images differ drastically from what I offer now (especially with limited means), but I suppose I think in a baroque-classical-mannerist manner, updated for...now, with less tits. Someday I want to illustrate my crazy-ass dreams.

I have ideas for comic books and teen soft-fantasy novels, but other than that, I don't have a lot of concepts. You probably won't see more than Bargues or self-portraits from me at first. But come summer, I'm going to seriously make a killing. In art. To myself.

Sorry for the tl;dr.

[bkkm]

I hardly ever read posts in the Lounge section of this forum. In fact, I was going to write I never do, but, together with this and a few more posts you've written, that already makes a few. Brought here from post to post by a strange chain of (only apparently free) associations, I must say it is refreshing to find a well-balanced mixture of irreverence, quick wit, and good writing, all in one place. I am curious to learn what kind of history -- or art history -- will come from such a fortunate, and rather rare, combination.