Day 22: Snow White

"Famed is thy beauty, Majesty. But hold, a lovely maid I see. Rags cannot hide her gentle grace. Alas, she is more fair than thee."

-Magic Mirror, Snow White

It's officially the start of the fourth week of my blog! This week's theme is "fairytale". I think this week's going to be fun. Today, I drew Snow White. She was always my favorite Disney princess when I was a child. I think my favorite item of clothing was a Snow White dress that I had. Until I outgrew it. What a sad day that was. Thinking back, I must have been a very shallow child because when you think about the storyline of Snow White, it's really quite terrible. A pretty girl who is waiting around for a prince is forced to flee from her step-mother who wants to kill her because Snow White is prettier than she is. But it's okay, every man she meets loves her and she is saved by them in the end. What a great story. Good job, Disney. But she was always my favorite and I'm still a big fan of the movie despite the fact that it doesn't necessarily send a great message. It was Disney's first feature-length film after all!

As far as the drawing itself is concerned, changed some details of Disney's drawings of Snow-White to make it less cartoon-ish and a little more realistic looking. Not like a real person (I don't think anyone exists with the facial proportions that Snow White has, seeing as her eyes take up half her face), but I guess I was hoping it would at least look more like a doll than a cartoon.

And, because I could spare about 5 minutes from my studying, here are a few quick fun facts about the movie Snow White:

• As I said, it was Disney's first full-length movie.
• It is based on the fairytale by the brothers Grimm
• Originally, there was a song titled "Music in Your Soup" written for the movie, but it never appeared in it.
• Disney won 8 Oscars for Snow White.
• Before the names of the dwarfs were decided upon, some other names that were considered include Awful, Biggy, Blabby, Dirty, Gabby, Gaspy, Gloomy, Hoppy, Hotsy, Jaunty, Jumpy, Nifty, and Shifty.
• The woman who played the voice of snow white was the casting director's daughter.

Day 21: Doodling

The entire point of doodling is that no matter what they turn out like, they are perfect.

So, obviously I was doodling in class today, But here's a blurb from an interesting article from Time in 2009 called "Study: Doodling Helps you Pay Attention":

Before the tape began, half the study participants were asked to shade in some little squares and circles on a piece of paper while they listened. They were told not to worry about being neat or quick about it. (Anderade did not instruct people explicitly to "doodle,"which might have prompted self-consciousness about what constituted an official doodle.) The other 20 didn't doodle. All the participants were asked to write the names of those coming to the party while the tape played, which meant the doodlers switched between their doodles and their lists. 

Afterward, the papers were removed and the 40 volunteers were asked to recall, orally, the place names and the names of the people coming to the party. The doodlers creamed the nondoodlers: those who doodles during the tape recalled 7.5 pieces of information (out of 16 total) on average, 29% more than the average 5.8 recalled by the control group.

So obviously, doodling isn't just a waste of time...which I guess would make this post not really fall under the theme of "free time". Except I wasn't even doodling to focus in class today, I just was really getting nothing out of being there. So I guess this works.

Day 20: Time Flies

"Time is flying, never to return,"

-Virgil

Day 19: Free of Time

"Clocks slay time...time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."

-William Faulkner

Day 18: Sleep

"From reading too much and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him and he lost his judgement."

-Miguel de Cervantes

Story of my life around exams.
I hate sleeping, but even so, if I had time to sleep longer I definitely would.

Day 17: Drawing

"What do drawings mean to me? I really don't know. The activity absorbs me. I forget everything else in a way that I don't think happens with any other activity."

-John Berger

Today, I did things a little differently. Rather than drawing a photograph that I'm staring at, I instead drew my own hand by just lookin at it. This is the first time I've tried drawing something three dimensional rather than a flat image, so it was rather challenging. It's a completely different way of viewing things. Although it's not great, it's not as much of a trainwreck as I was expecting. You can't expect to be perfect at something on the first try, after all. I think I gave a good effort.

Anyways, the drawing represents one of my new favorite hobbies that takes up much of my free time: drawing (obviously). It's amazing how much just drawing for a few months has changed (literally) how I view the world. I'm finding myself noticing shadows and lines more often, especially in faces (which, if you've looked at the rest of my blog, are my favorite things to draw).

And now, to wrap up today's post, here are some drawings that I found about drawing that I feel really capture the essence of why I'm doing this blog or why I've come to really enjoy drawing:

• It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character. -Camille Pissarro
• Draw, as much and as often as you can. When drawing lies fallow, the skill diminishes. -Gene Black
• No one can walk away from a fine drawing session and feel downcast. -Catherine Robertson
• Do not fail, as you go on, to draw something every day, for no matter how little it is, it will be well worth while, and it will do you a world of good. -Cennino Cennini
• Drawing is touching at a distance. -Sigmund Abeles
• Drawing is like the first kiss. It carries within it the deepest emotion and the challenge of the first step. It is the first cry after birth. -Ala Bashir
• Drawing not only develops hand-eye coordination, it teaches one to really observe, to see, as nothing else ever will. -Nancy Marculewicz
• Before you are able to draw, you have to learn to see, and you learn to see by drawing. -Mick Maslen
• To 'draw' implies everything the word stands for: to pull or to drag or to draw forth, as from the earth, a vein, or well. -Lance Esplund
• Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad. -Salvador Dali
• Drawing is the simplest way of establishing a picture vocabulary because it is an instant, personal declaration of what is important and what is not. -Betty Goodwin
• Draw as if the object being drawn has never existed - because it hasn't. -Andrew Hamilton

Day 16: Reading

"The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read."

-Abraham Lincoln

This drawing actually fits under the theme of free time. If I had any free time, this is the first thing I would do with it: read (from my Nook!). As you can see, I don't have much free time, seeing as I obviously did not spend a lot of time on this sketch. But it'll do. Lately, I really like historical fiction, fantasy, or science fiction books...basically anything that takes place not in this time and place. College life is so stressful, that if I can find the time to read, I want it to really take me FAR away for a little while. This week is the week before finals, so I know I won't have any time to do some reading, but a couple weeks from now I'll have all the time in the world to read for a few weeks! I can't wait until then!