Last student blog entry :( May 6, 2011
Posted by Christine in art, Class, festive, interesting, Random, Uncategorized.Tags: contact, freelance illustration, good bye student blogging!, graduation, illustration prints, murals, new illustrator, original illustration, portfolio, prints for sale
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And now my final post as a usf work-study student. Tomorrow is graduation and I will (officially) be a usf alum in…twenty one hours(ish). It’s been a pretty good time, and I’ve learned a lot, and met all kinds of great people which makes it kind of hard to leave. Today me and Sarah made fun of Rodney for the last time (officially). I ate my last breakfast of reconstituted egg product (officially, hopefully), and this is my last student blog entry (officially). But the good part about it all is that I get to make room in my life for new things.
This Sunday I will be sleeping and waking up a few times to shower my mom with praise and presents. After that I’m going to look for a part-time job (any ole thing’ll go). The rest of the time will be spent turning myself into a small business so I can start freelancing, making murals, and writing. If everything goes well I’ll be able to start supporting myself with just these things! I already have a few contacts from people I know and word of mouth. To stay on top of work I am going to fill out personal time sheets and will not work less than eight hours a day five days a week.
It’s been a pretty interesting year and for anyone who reads it’s been great sharing with you. I would say goodbye for good but Kristen tells me I can keep blogging for fun whenever I want and I might fill you in on anything new or especially interesting if it comes to mind. In the mean time here is a link to my:
PORTFOLIO: http://christineannecalhoun.wordpress.com/
and just in case you want to contact me you can EMAIL ME at: christineannecalhoun@gmail.com
If you see anything you like I’m available for commission and would love any illustration job you can throw at me. I’m trying to make it as a professional now so while my rates are going to be reasonable I can’t do everything for free anymore (girls gotta eat). That doesn’t mean I will never do pro bono work though. Anyway, thanks for reading.
Christine
p.s. By the way, anything you see in my portfolio is available for purchase as a print for fifteen dollars a pop. This includes any of the illustrations in my senior project which you can see if you follow this link:
http://www.blurb.com/books/2135085
The book will also be available to purchase in hardback soon. If you want an original prices vary but like I said I’m super reasonable 😉 Just email me if you are interested.
Break Plans: Woolf/Wolf March 13, 2011
Posted by Christine in a book a week, festive, interesting, Random.Tags: books, spring break
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This Thursday night I had my last class before break. We had a critique over our latest project; redesigning the School of Creative Arts brochure for next year. This whole week in fact I’ve been pretty busy finishing up projects, all four of them. So at 8:45 that night I was pretty delirious with glee. You could pretty much tell everyone really needed the break.
My m is going to Florida, and I was planning on going to a Bright Eyes concert with a friend, but because of funds-issues I am homebound most of the week. Not that I’m complaining. This means I have even more time for homework, yay! I’m planning on getting the rest of the images completed for the book I’m working on and doing some writing too.
In the meantime though, I also want to get some nice literature in my system. I finished our book for creative writing On Beauty by Zadie Smith (thumb up) and am now free to get some more non-scholarly stuff read. My first selection is To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf that I picked up super cheap at a library sale (seriously… a nickel).
My second choice I picked up at the library in the Pope John Paul building at school. There is a little bookshelf on the upper level full of books without call numbers because they are all donated. The deal is, if you take a book you leave one of your own. I picked up The Wolfman by Nicholas Pekearo a little while ago but since I’ve only really had the time to study and occasionally sleep I’ve only had the opportunity to crack it open once. It seems to be really well written though. You can read a synopsis at amazon by clicking this link:
http://www.amazon.com/Wolfman-Nicholas-Pekearo/dp/0765320266
As ever, I also got a couple of audio books to listen too while I work. Mrs. Dalloway by Woolf again and The Invisible Man by HG Wells. You never know with audio books though because you might not like the actor’s voice. I feel pretty sensitive to voices myself. I couldn’t listen to the Harry Potter books because the actor for those bothered me. Maybe because he was an old dude and the characters (not to mention most of the readers) were young and even the author was a woman.
Apostraphe Update March 13, 2011
Posted by Christine in art, festive, interesting, Random.Tags: brookside ballroom, college publication, literary magazine, University of Saint Francis
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I wrote a previous post about Apostrophe, a literary magazine the school puts out each spring. This week I found out I got in. An art work and two pieces of short poetry. An example:
Dreaming Backward
It branches out
Into a glistening cascade
I close my eyes
A serpentine brand pulling me over the water
To the end of the end
Where the words drip sideways off the paper
And rise, like balloons through the purple-shaped gloom
Through the water, to the beginning of the beginning
And a striped piece of eternity
I fold the silvery paper in my lap
There’s ink on my eyelashes again
And flecks of space rock in my backpack
I walk through the suspended curtains
And tie my climbing ropes to my bedpost
Addy’s Prom Night cont.! February 27, 2011
Posted by Christine in art, Class, festive, Fort Wayne, interesting, Random.Tags: addy award night, Adfed Fort Wayne, Prom Night, sweetness
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At about six last night, I had gotten all gussied up for prom night and a couple of my friends (my dates; students who helped with addy’s too) came and picked me up. I even got to descend a flight of stairs when this happened. (They were concrete, but it was still pretty sweet.)
The Fort Wayne Museum of Art looked amazing, and there were all kinds of delicious foods out for us. Everyone was dressed to impress of course in their prom finery–bow ties and pearls abound. We didn’t have much time to look at the work, but we had helped hang the show (which went off without a hitch) so we had already seen everything. And then all of us Saint Francis students, and some IPFW students too, had our prom pic taken by a guy with a giant afro.
After the drinking and mingling came to a peak, we all got together and watched the awards being displayed in movie format on a huge projector. In between categories we got to see lots of bad, goofy, sometimes frightening dancing, which was hilarious and awesome. Some really spectacular adverting and design too; from self promotional designs, to web design, television commercials, logo design, everything from all sorts of agencies in the Fort Wayne area. Agencies like: One Lucky Guitar, Boyden and Youngblutt, Britton Marketing, BIG, LaBov and Beyond. Some of the clients you might recognize like Parkview, the Indiana State Fair, Fort Wayne Airport, and Vera Bradley.
Then came the student category. One of our students got around six or seven addy awards! AND my date won best in show for the students! AND I got a gold addy for my LGBTQ article about gay bullying leading to suicides among young men! All in all, Saint Francis completely owned in the student section.
Needless to say it was a magical evening.
Spring is in the Air–for now *squints eyes suspiciously* February 20, 2011
Posted by Christine in Dorming It, festive.Tags: cherry trees, spring quotes, spring!, stawberry pie recipe
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There is no argument, the weather this week has rocked the casbah. So in honor of our little appetizer of spring I gathered some quotes to get us in the spirit before it snows anymore (which I’m pretty sure it will).
“Break open a cherry tree and there are no flowers, but the spring breeze brings forth myriad blossoms.” -Ikkyu Sojun
“I drank the silence of God from a spring in the woods.” -Georg Trakl
“I love better to count time from spring to spring; it seems to me far more cheerful to reckon the year by blossoms than by blight.” -Donald G. Mitchell
“I want to do to you what spring does with the cherry trees.” -Pablo Neruda
“An optimist is the human personification of spring.” — Susan J. Bissonette
“Sweet springtime is my time is your time is our time for springtime is love time and viva sweet love. ” — e.e. Cummings
”The difference between a gun and a tree is a difference of tempo. The tree explodes every spring. ” — Ezra Pound
”Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems. ” — Rainer Maria Rilke
”I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face. ” — Langston Hughes
”Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.” — Doug Larson
And to top it off: a link to a STRAWBERRY PIE recipe! Yes!
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/fresh-strawberry-pie-i/Detail.aspx
Snowpocalypse!!! February 6, 2011
Posted by Christine in Class, festive, Fort Wayne, Random.Tags: "chilling", Abominable Snow Man, cancellations, closings, delays, homework, snow ball fighting, Snowpocalypse
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Abominable Snow persons and beasts
Dear University of Saint Francis,
Thank you ever so much for closing from 12 noon Tuesday to 12 noon Thursday. I got to miss every class except creative writing. I probably wouldn’t have skidded into a snow bank while going to class since I live on campus, but all the commuters could have. However, considering all the snow mountains the plows made, I might have suffocated in an avalanche or frozen to death walking from Bonzel (residence hall) to the art building. So thank you, thank you, you glorious institution you. I haven’t even mentioned all the homework I had the opportunity to get to caught up on but didn’t. Hallelujah!
With inexpressible affection,
Christine
If you ever wondered what a Snowpocalypse is like on a college campus (at least Saint Francis’s campus) here is the big scoop:
1.1 You hope and pray and pray and hope the night before that you will be given that extra day to do homework. Gossip about it to your friends and check the school’s website constantly for that glorious news.
1.2 They have about a few ways of informing us students about cancellations and delays. One: the website. This time a giant red box was at the top of the website telling us when classes would resume. Two: they contact everyone via their cellphones with text messages. And I’m pretty sure word of mouth is big too. I heard about our first cancellation from someone who checked facebook whose friend posted about the delay after they had heard if from the school.
2. The dining hall actually stayed open! You would think that the staff that drives here to make us food would stay home but they braved the weather and the school put them up that night in some of our free dorms in Trinity hall. We made a big banner and hung it in the dining hall with a million signatures and notes of thanks.
3. Slipping and sliding and snow-ball fighting happened, not to mention movie marathons and flocks of residents in the common room.
4. Snuggling with the electric blanked and cups of tea also happened. Indeed, snow days are AMAZING. They are also a lot less frequent than snow delays and cancellations in highschool. In fact this was our first closing all year, and the last one I can remember was two years ago. Hmm
5. And then you have to move your car out of the parking lot for a while so the plows can get in.
6. And then you have to make a snow person or beast! I COMMAND IT! }:)
Good News Tuesday! January 26, 2011
Posted by Christine in festive, Random.Tags: Altenburg MO, American Advertising Federation of Fort Wayne, awsomeness, BABIES!, getting hired, portfolio, Prom Night
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FYI – this post is full of random info, images, and good news. Today I sort of talked like that, too–in a stream of run-on sentences because I was so excited! Wanna know why? Wanna know why? Wanna know why?
I just got a niece today! The first grand-kid in our family. This weekend, my Mom, brother and I are going down to Missouri where my other brother and his wife live to see them all. She’s nine pounds and shares her birthday with her Dad. The whole thing went off without a hitch! omg BABIES! omg ROADTRIP!
To the fantastical, faraway realm of Altenburg, MO.
And I got an Addy award! I’ll explain for any non-designers out there. The Addy Federation or American Advertising Federation of Fort Wayne is a group that organizes and networks people in the advertising community. They have an award contest each year. You can get a gold, silver or an honorable mention (I think). Agencies enter the contest but there is a chapter just for students too, and Saint Francis takes a ton of trophies every year.
As a designer, your portfolio is the most important thing you bring when you tried to get hired. It shows off what you can do: your technical skills, your ideas, and what you, as an individual, can bring to the group. In an earlier post I mentioned the Addy Advertising campaign that our group did. That’s another portfolio piece for sure, because the work is actually going up as what it was intended for, instead of just an assignment for school made up by the instructor. And it shows that I’ve done collaborative work, which is very important in most agencies. In fact, other than my internship, it was probably the closest to real life experience I’ve had as a student.
The award ceremony is more of a celebration night with a theme. This year the theme is Prom Night.
Distractions, Distractions…Aliens, Crazy Dudes, and a Cozy Bed. January 5, 2011
Posted by Christine in festive, Random.2 comments
majestic snow horse
A few of the wonderful things about winter break that have been distracting me from working on senior project:
1. Library. I go a little much when I’m on a school break which contributes to my fourth vice.
2. Books. Finished about six-ish(?) books, not all of them top quality. None of them qualified as mind-trash though so that’s good. Here we go: Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel García Márquez), was amazing! I decided I will make my kids read it when they are old enough to have crushes.
“To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else’s heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.”
Also: Salem’s Lot (Stephen King) Midnighter’s (A YA trilogy by Scott Westerfield), Good Omens (Neil Gaiman), this one was especially cool, the back said “The Apocalypse has never been funnier” and it was right. I just finished the third Frankenstein book in Dean Koontz’s series and now I’m on to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
This one wasn’t exactly a novel, but a kids book. I found that it’s pretty sweet; full of all kinds of questions we ask ourselves sometimes about the future and the unknown, like “where do we go when we dream” and “is there only one of me in the world.” The illustrations were really neat, sometimes funny line drawings.
3. Boyfriend. He comes by once a week from Fort Wayne to see me and then we usually spend the whole weekend together. The problem we have is a tendency to be lazy. I have a theory that laziness follows happiness.
4. x-files. This could be included in the boyfriend category, since we have been obsessively watching x-files on Netflix and are now dedicated fans. Two other great things on Netflix available instantly: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Pillars of the Earth (both very nice works of fiction as well).
(Mulder’s Poster)
5. Sleeping in. I have more time now to indulge in this area of necessity that I’ve been lacking in since school started in the fall. Not to trash the dorms, but my bed at home is much more comfortable. I also have an electric blanket that I switch on every night. Boyfriend says it causes cancer from radiation.
And now after all that random bla bla-ing here is another even more random video. It’s by PES, a first class animator, and it rocks the casbah.
That was fantastical!!!
Winter World January 5, 2011
Posted by Christine in festive, interesting, Random.Tags: crow decoy, snow, snowman, sunshine, winter, winter pics
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I went on a little walk the week before Christmas, and the sun was actually out, so I decided to take some pictures. They’re all taken on my parents property just outside Larwill.
Here’s the little winter thing I made with all the stuff I found outside. My mom likes to use the word festive. She’s also likes it when I put pictures up, so this one’s for you mom. Anyway, FESTIVE!
Christine's USF Blog 