The Good Earth

Today I’ve decided to read The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck for my outside reading project.  Has anyone ever heard of it?  I was wondering if anyone had read it and had any good or bad reviews on it.  It looks like an interesting book, but I hope there is enough drama in it to keep me engaged.  The last book I read, Anthem, by Ayn Rand, was a pretty good book, but was pretty bland and wasn’t exciting at all.

I’m reading this book for the second half of an summer reading assignment for ninth grade.  I have to read two books (the first one was Anthem) and answer five questions about each.  Each response has to be one page long, both front and back.  It was pretty hard to fill up two pages on each question about Anthem because there wasn’t much to write about it.  I hope this new book has more to write about.

 

In other blogging news, I’m thinking about adding a couple new sections to the blog.  Right now all I have is Main and The Fine Print.  Anyone have some good ideas for some interesting sections?  I’m thinking about an art gallery section, or maybe some art tutorials… *Shrug*  I’ll get back to you when I have some in mind

Dual Screen

Woo!  My brother just got back from Germany and he set up dual screen monitors on my new MacBook  Now I have the 13″ display as well as a 19″ display for blowing extra windows up  It is sweet!!!

 

This is going to make it a lot nicer to make art, cuz I can have reference pics on my smaller monitor and the full blown Photoshop screen on my larger computer…  Hopefully this inspires me to get more art done so there is more stuff for you to look at

 

My brother is also installing Bootcamp so I can have Windows on my Mac…  My little MacBook is getting lots of upgrades today

deviantART

A category that I will post a lot about is art.  I can’t get enough of it.  I like looking at it, analyzing it, making it…  I’ve been drawing seriously for two years now, since August of 2006.  I got started by a website called cityofheroes.com.  It is the homepage for a game by the same name, where you can make a superhero and fly around Paragon City fighting bad guys.  I stumbled upon a little part of the website called the Screenshot and Fan Art forum, and seeing the really cool art others made of their characters, I decided I wanted to make sweet art too.  So I made this, my first drawing, on August 26, 2006:

At the time, I thought it was pretty awesome.  ’Look at all the muscles!’ I thought.  ’Look at all the detail!  I even added his necklace!’ Hehehe.  Since then I would say I have improved in leaps and bounds.  I have studied anatomy, poses, composition, etc. in order to further my abilities.  I’m even considering the possibility of going professional one day.

 

For now, however, I will leave it as a hobby.  This blog will sometimes be used as a place to post WIPs (Works in Progress), as well as final pieces I am pretty proud of.  I will keep this updated with lots of fun stuff for you to look at, as well as read.  Someday, people may come here just for the pretty pictures–maybe when I get better though ;-P

So, for the title of this post: deviantART is my main art headquarters.  It is a website where you can make your own online art gallery pretty much.  It’s really fun and really addicting, because there are tons of things to do on there, like look at other amazing art, chat in the forums, or browse the latest news in the world of art and beyond.  Check out the homepage: deviantart.com  as well as my own site: backalleyscrapper.deviantart.com

 

As an example of how I have improved over the two years, here is a piece I will show you to close this post.  Gradient is my newest superhero, a mutant with the power to control five different elements.  Enjoy:

Bloggin’ Up a Storm

Welcome to my blog!  This is my little slice of the internet for everything and anything I’m thinking at the moment.  This includes news, art, music, science, media, comic books(!), etc. so expect a lot of diversity in my stuff.

 

I’m pretty new to this whole blogging craze, so any of you who start watching me from the start, please be patient as I figure out how this doohickey works  Oh, and also, please don’t mind the excessive emoticons

 

Anywho, welcome and enjoy your stay!