Happy Birthday!

[tarotgal]

Happy Birthday to me! OK, it's not my birthday. My birthday's in April. And so's my boyfriend's. But we just got around to exchanging presents tonight. LOL It's funny as our anniversary's Sept 8th so now we have to scramble and buy more presents LOL

Presents he got me- HP2 DVD(actually, he gave it to me the day it came out, but it was technically a bday present so I'll list it), bleach (cuz I need some and don't have any, long story), a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, a Simpson's mug featuring my favorite quote("Trying is the first step to failure"- SOOOO true!), and a HUGE book that I've been dying to have for about 5 years now- the J.W. Waterhouse book by Peter Trippi.
John William Waterhouse is my FAVORITE artist of all time. He did a lot of paintings of women... and most of them either from myths/legents (Celtic, French and mostly Roman and Greek) or Shakespeare. He did a whole Lady of Shalott series that is beautiful and haunting and mesmerizing. I LOVE his works. I've got at least 80 saved digitally... but the book's got such BEAUTIFUL details in his paintings, plus tons of sketches and LOTS of discussion about form and concept and trends and his life and oooohhhhh! SOOOO happy! Boyfriend is so sweet! Can't wait to sit down and read and start analyzing composition and art and perspective and all that fun stuff! I've already looked through it three times and inspected every single picture *G* Happy me!!! *bounces*

Presents I gave him- Family Guy on DVD (seasons 1&2), a specially-constructed bag of tootsie roll pops that contained only ones of his two favorite flavors, a stuffed animal care bear- the good luck bear(his favorite... plus I think he could use the luck!), 9 CD's I burned for him containing tons of MST3K shorts and clips and specials and interviews and things that I downloaded for him over the last 2 months (as well as a few Highlander things, cuz I couldn't resist), a DVD rack (he currently keeps his DVDs in a a large pile with his video tapes on the floor, just tosses 'em in there... no stacks) and two more DVDs- Young Frankenstein *giggle* and the Batman movie ($5 in Walmart bin, I couldn't resist, and tons of neat features)
He knew about Family Guy and was with me when I bought Young Frankenstein, so those weren't any surprise. But he seemed to love the rest. He's got a trend of putting things I get him in the corner and never opening or using them... so I'm trying hard to get him things he will like and use...

Anyway. Happy, happy. He also made dinner for me tonight. I'm stuffed! I had to choke down thirds.
Oohh, and then he let me watch a little Star Trek TNG at his place (and I made him sit through the end of Boy Meets Boy) and then he even let me flip over momentarily to naked Daniel at the beginning of SG-1. Is he sweet or what? heehee!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

*lol* Happy belated b'day! I'm that bad with presents, too. I once waited so long to get my friend her present, that we'd already left highschool and started Uni in the meantime, and I had to mail it to her. Hehe. She's used to it, though. I think the thing is, I have to get the perfect present - even if it means the present being 3 months late! Opening presents with your bf sounded like so much fun, though! *l* I love presents, giving and getting :o) They make you feel so special! The art book sounds beautiful. Do you like to draw/paint?

girlwithtulips

[tarotgal]

So true! I really enjoy buying presents for people... and timing is nothing when it means a really good present! It's always worth it in the end.

As for art... ug... I'm hopeless. Can't draw stick people or pine trees... (see the art page of TG's Realm's 'memories of the past' section for examples of my patheticness!) I have a sketch book with something like 5 drawings in it before I decided to give up because they're horrible :-)
In the art department, I'm strickly an admirer who wishes desperately she had some talent. I'm a huge pre-raphelite fan but I like a lot of other genres too. But John William Waterhouse is my favorite by far. http://www.jwwaterhouse.com/

[(Anonymous)]

>Can't draw stick people or pine trees...

LOL! I'm sure you're not *that* bad! Drawing's an on/off thing for me. More of a distraction than a talent. I sketch and doodle a *lot* in lectures and class (that's what my notebooks are full of... which can be a scary discovery two days before an exam), and every now and then I get the urge to do some "serious" drawing. But I find I draw best on scraps of paper and on the backs of things, so my sketch books are always empty and I've never finished a proper work!

Sometimes I see absolutely breathtaking drawings, though, and wish I could do the same! I'm pretty much convinced it's a natural thing... either you're born with the talen to draw, or you're not, and you can learn, but it's not the same... like people who naturally know how to write, and those who learnt to write. I think I like drawing better than painting, because I like the scientificness and exactness of getting the lines on paper. And I have colour issues. (I've tried to explain this to a few people, but either they haven't understood, or I haven't explained properly, so don't be surprised if you have no idea what I'm talking about!)

I see colour (and things) as they should be, not as they are. If you ask me to paint a tree, it will have a brown trunk and a green circle on top. Leaves are green; I'm going to paint them green. My brain doesn't *see* the changes in colour where there's shadow and light, where the leaves are yellow, etc. It just sees it as "green" so I can't make a painting look realistic... The same thing happens with drawing. My desktop is a drawing of Legolas, and I am just awed at the talent of the artist. If you cover the picture, and leave just the mouth, you know know it was Legolas anyway. It's *his* mouth. Whereas I can't see what makes his mouth different to anyone else's mouth. When I draw a mouth, I draw a mouth, so I can't get my pictures to look like anyone! Well... that's the start of my problems, anyway *l* I don't know if I made any sense. But still - drawing/sketching/doodling is a lot of fun, and I like doing it as long as I don't need to do anything with the final results.

Waterhouse sounds very familiar, and like an artist I'd like. I have *not* been able to appreciate abstract art! I like artists with technical talent *l*

girlwithtulips

[tarotgal]

Ohhhh, I promise you, I am as bad at art as I say! lol I'll go to draw a stick person and get the head and body, but then I'll make the arms too close to the head and thus the torso is WAY too long and then I forget that the legs don't intersect the body the way the arms do and instead are at the very bottom (else you get a stick figure with a penis) and so I have really awkward, lengthy, deformed stick people. It's horrible.

And I can't doodle. I physically can't make my hand draw random shapes either when I'm concentrating or not. If I try, I end up with letters or just a large circle or figure eight that I go over and over. I wish I could doodle, it would really help pass the time on the phone or in classes. My class notes are always filled in the marjins with parts of stories, though. I have to squint when I go to type them in... and I usually write them on a diagonal in the top blank area of a notebook page. My best friend is a fantastic artist- INCREDIBLE doodles even. She once started putting her drawings on t-shirts and selling them. I'm so jealous... you'll never see one of my paragraphs on a t-shirt! LOL!
I'm SO jealous of people who can mindlessly doodle. I'm just retarded, my hand won't move that way :-)

And I completely agree about the talent thing. It's got to be something you're born with. I've taken at least 7 different art classes so I certainly have an appreciation for form and technique and things... I just can't do it myself. Once in a while I do manage to draw something great but that's if I'm copying it. Like if I sit in front of a soda can for 4 hours drawing it you'll get a picture of a soda can from me in the end. But it's not really that great or anything. I can understand lines and perspective and things... I just have no brilliance to see something in my head and put it onto paper with beauty and emotion and stuff.

As for color- I completely get you. When I attempt a tree, I start making all the leaves green... no shading or outlines distinguishing one leaf from another, and just get a big green blob where leaves should be. Because... they're greeen! That's what they're supposed to be! But they all run together in my drawing and not real life. And if I try to put in shadow and things, I end up with some really weird looking mostly-black leaves or something. Just doesn't work for me. I can see form and shape but distinguishing that from shading/comor changes and reproducing that is impossible for me.

Ooohhhhh Legolas' mouth *dreamy sigh* I know exactly what you're talking about.

As for abstracts- I completely don't get them. Nor do I get the modern art where the canvas is all one solid color. Sometimes it's nice to look at, the way a painted wall is nice to look at, and you can see slightly different shades within the one color... but that's all I get from them.
I don't mind a lot of modern art, though. I've had some positive experiences with it (especially sculpture) so I'm not as turned off by it as I am with abstracts in general. But less, er, modern art is much more my thing. I went through a huge cubism/Picasso period (though I like some of his students' works better than his) and a huge DiVinci period... and I could probably hang out in the impressionists section of an art gallery for days and still find beauty there (though the Degas ballerinas try my patience) Still... pre-raphelites are my favorite :-) Especially the works that come from myths and stories and things... I love works of art that can express whole pages and pages of a story in just one canvas with SO much emotion and movement and ohhhh MAN I wish I could draw! heehee!

[(Anonymous)]

>And I can't doodle. I physically can't make my hand draw random shapes either when I'm concentrating or not.

That's so strange! *l* I don't have any other helpful comments besides that. But I think it's incredible you can write bits of stories in lectures! I can't think on more than one topic at one time, so that's why I doodle, because it's mindless. I certainly wouldn't be able to scribble down notes for stories!

>I'm so jealous... you'll never see one of my paragraphs on a t-shirt! LOL!

Oh... I don't know... I've read some absolutely fantastic sneezefic passages of yours that I wouldn't mind having on a t-shirt! *l*

Art... I'm a very limited appreciator. I will usually look at something and say "that's nice", or "wow, that's so well drawn!" (meaning that it looks a lot like what it's mean to look like). I did art for four years in high school, and I never really understood the whole "interpreting art" thing. Where you balance the shapes and brush movements and colours and symbols and all to find a "higher" meaning in the work. That's probably why I can't appreciate abstract art (ie the colour splashes) - because there's nothing there for me to say "Wow, this looks so much like the subject matter!" Or - sometimes I will feel that the colour splashes look nice, but that's about all I can read into it... no overwhelming emotion, or anything profound like that! I'm currently looking at some of Viggo Mortensen's work, and I have to say that while it's nice enough, I really don't "get" it. It does look like it'd be a lot of fun to paint, though! *l* I'd love to get a huge canvas, and just paint colours and colours and colours, without worrying about *what* I was painting...

girlwithtulips

[tarotgal]

Doodling- yeah... people have tried to teach me, but I've never managed to doodle properly. If I ever try, I just end up with awkward-looking figure eights. As for writing, it's much easier for me to pay attention while letting the words in my head pour out in the margins. It's the problem I have with dancing. My body just doesn't move on its own, I have to concentrate to make it move in certain ways and then it looks forced and awkward. I can't just dance (drives my best friend crazy- she's always trying to explain that dancing is something that doesn't require mental capability... but for me it totally does. I have some mental block about it)
I learned in 10th grade how to nap and take notes at the same time. The trick is just to get in that "falling asleep" state where you're not awake but just on the cusp of deeply asleep, and to let the words the prof's saying go through you into your hand. I'm a master at it. I wake up minutes later and there are lines of notes. Usually they're slanted, sometimes accidentally written on top of each other... but usually I can recall enough of it to clean it up later.

Oh... I don't know... I've read some absolutely fantastic sneezefic passages of yours that I wouldn't mind having on a t-shirt! *l*
LOL! Yeah... maybe the problem is I can't see myself or anyone actually wearing said shirt!
Or maybe I should start a store for tg's realm? I could put quotes on mousepads and cofeemugs and t-hsirts and well them? LOL