New Sketchbook ワ～イ!

I recently had gotten a new sketchbook after finishing my 3rd sketchbook in NY...so that would be 3 sketchbooks within 5- months, I think that's pretty good pace.

So for my new book I decided to try out a moleskin. This is what the masters used, so maybe it will add something to my sketches. They're really nice...but there are some bad in addition to the good points.

Good=
-They are small and pretty portable
-It's bound in some sort of leather like material and has a very nice presentation.
-The paper is pretty nice, it's toned too which could work for me if i decide to get more instense with my sketches.
-They handle felt marker and ink pens pretty well, so far the micron tech pens and staedler brush pens work the best for me.
-It's bound so that you can do a whole spread as one page; you can open it flat with no problem. This is probably the best thing about moleskins.

Bad=
-The paper is way too smooth and doesn't hold watercolor, sumi ink, or loose graphite and charcoal very well.
-They're expensive
-The size can work against it sometimes, it's good to carry around but obviously my workspace is limited.

What sucks the most is that it doesn't take the mediums I mentioned above...I heard fabriano makes a smallsized watercolor sketchbook, but I haven't found one yet. If only the moleskin had more absorbent paper...it would be perfect.

Anyway, here are some pics that I have scanned in from it. Enjoy!

Resolution

Ok ok, I'm going to post some pictures up next time. I disconnected my scanner because my room is really small and in order for me to get good reception for my wireless net I had to make room for my pc to get in range.

So for a while I'll be scanning sketches in from school.

Anyway, I just wanted to vent; get some emotion out.

I returned to New York Jan.6 and it wasn't that bad really. I had spent the previous three weeks in Miami in generally nice weather amongst friends. Though I was dissapointed that I didn't get to expand upon my artistic endeavors while I was Miami, I did enjoy my stay. The main thing was that I got a chance to relax. About a week after I arrived in Miami I realized just how stressed I was. It was ridiculous.

I basically fucked up coming to New York so early. I came with no real plan, just a passion for drawing, and about $500 from my job over the summer. One of my first mistakes was not securing an income or a decent place to stay. So I ended up living with my uncle in Queens, which I didn't like very much and added to my stress. After enrolling in school about a week after I came to NY my stress level soon increased two-fold. My days involved a 3hr total commute back and forth home, having to wake up early to get to school by 8:30, and getting out by 6pm most days to get home at 7:30-8pm, doing homework once and a while and going to sleep late, sometimes not at all in order to wake up on time.

What really did me in though was that I didn't have any real support in NY. Yes, it was a lot to handle but it was infinetly worse that I had no job or financial links to rely on, and no social backing, i.e. friends to get me through this.

I did meet some cool people, made a few friends, but with school and everything, I have yet to have really good friends that I feel totally at ease with and so on.

I could write a book on my many failures with girls, so I'm not even gonna go into it.

Anyway, with all of this, by finals week of fall semester, I was honestly an inch away from a total nervous breakdown.

So, I needed to go to Miami more than I ever thought I would. I really calmed down and unwinded.

But I've been back in NY for about 3 weeks now and though I've changed things to make my life less stressful (schedule, housing, job) I still feel that my social life or lack thereof is subtracting from my experience here in the big apple.

I guess I'm a social retard in a way. I often don't know how to react to people and am very quiet and shy most of the time. I really have no idea how to remedy this, because I'm sure if I was more open and outgoing I would be a lot happier but I can't just turn on a switch labeled "awesome" and become so.

Actually I should've mentioned this before, but when I came to NY I actually was a lot more social and less shy, but somehow the lonliness, stress, and rejection from a few girls here and there kinda stunted my social growth and it's just difficult getting back to that somehow.

So, my mom called me today to see how I was doing and I talked about this a bit. She said I should be looking for some female company...I just told her that I'm terrible with girls to just save her the schpiel. But she also suggested that I take a sport. Which is a great idea, Brian also suggested this. I just need a bit of money, which I don't have at the moment. I was thinking I would like to take a martial art, it builds confidence and strength.

I just wanted to get all that out, because I don't really get to talk to many people about that, I don't really have anyone to vent to up here.

On more positive matters, my classes seem pretty decent. I like my painting class especially, cause it seems like we're going to do a lot of very interesting techniques. Our first painting is a landscape done in a flemmish style like what Rembrandt used. Awesome, no?

There are some new students too in some of my classes, and they seem like nice people. This one girl Mayumi really reminds me of Tanya, they kinda look similar too since they're both Japanese/Filipino mixed....crazy.

Heh, I just wrote a comment on one of my friend's blogs about thinking positive and I wrote in my own blog something that was 90% negative...oh well.