A LOT of Exciting Things. Busy, busy!

I haven't posted in a week, and it has been a busy one. A lot of exciting, and interesting thigs have been happening,so I have a lot to cover, and I mean a lot!

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Birthday

Sometime last week myself and my friend Megan, were talking abut having a bit of a joint celebration for our birthday, since we have the same one, October 11th, and a lot of mutual friends. Sunday, mom said we can have it here at my house, so I told Megan the next day.

For those of you wondering, she is a year younger than I am, so she will be turning 16, and I will be turning 17.

On Tuesday in the hall at lunch, where myself, Megan, Molly, Bianca, Jawshh, Kelsey... and everyone else in that "group" of friends chill at lunch, Megan started talking about it, and told everyone about it, then we started planning it out. Megan really wanted a Halloween theme, and Kelsey and Courtney were really love the idea too, so we went with that.

When deciding what to do, and who will do what, Kelsey immediately siad that mom "will definitely have the food covered"  with a big smile on her face as she pointed out how great the food she makes is. Megan wanted to do the baking, but so did Kelsey, so  they decided to both do it together with Courtney's help. Megan (and the others) will be making one cake, and mom will be making one as well because under our logic, two people means two cakes.

Also, Kelsey and Courtney got all excited because they wanted to take care of the decorations, so needless to say, they are. They have basically taken it upon themselves to pretty much plan the whole thing... but I made sure they knew to consult with me first! That was mainly meant for Megan. LOL!

Megan came up with this awesome concauction of coca cola/pepsi and fuit punch flavored Purity Syrup. She brought some for me to taste yesterday, and it was absolutely awesome, so guess what specialty beverage we are having at the party!

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Also on Tuesday, I got home and saw my uncle Dick who lives in Edmonton. I knew he was coming to visit, but I had forgot so it is great. It's nice to see him and Dad (brothers) together, they really have a good time together. Dad, Mum, Dick and I went to my Aunt Marg's for supper that night which was great! Dick is actually staying with Marg & Bob while he is here. My cousin Jamie, Bob & Marg's son, dropped by with Lianne, his wife, and heir two children; Taylor who is 3, and Landon who is less than a year.

I will talk about that more  in another post because this post is too long...

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Audition!

Tuesday morning there was an announcement over the P.A that said "anyone interested in auditioning for 'The Outsiders' go see Rao at the end of school".

This was the first I (or anyone) had heard about this, which mant that it must be the show Rao was talking about that he was planning on doing outside of school with his theater company. He said that there is a possible scolarship oppurtunity as well and that he is really looking for guys especially because girls always come in spades, so he really needs more guys. He also said last week that he had the show he wanted to do in mind, but couldn't say anything because he didn't have the rights to it.

Well it turns out he got the rights to it, and that's exactly what it was.

I went to Rao's room at the end of the day, where there were a few others that were talking to him about it. Basically, it was just to get your audition time, and he let us know that it would basicaly be a "cold read", but he was letting his current students see the script first, and he also let us know the obvious fact that since it isn't a school production there will be others form other schools, people who are graduated, professional actors, and all kinds auditioning.

He looked at me, told me my audition time was 3:15 (the same as almost everyone else), handed me script and right away said "Ponyboy", I just looked up at him while being a little surprised since that's the lead, "That's the one you want- He's the little guy, plus you'd be really good for it".

My first thought was amazement because he told me to audition to be Ponyboy, the lead... I mean Johnny's a little guy too, so why Ponyboy, but then I thought about the second part of his statement, so I was quite excited because my chances of him liking me for the part were pretty good.

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Wednesday, after school, I made my way over outside Rao's room with a bunch of others auditining, and more came as time went. He was seeing only a few at a time, and chances are: the longer he kept someone, the more he liked them. He had Gary and Mike, who graduated last year in his room the whole time (for while I was there anyway) to read the parts of almost every guy that spoke in a certain scene because they did the same scene for everyone, so he just needed someone to read the parts.

We were all hanging out, and talking & what not while outside his room waiting, and generally, those he knew well, especially those that were involved with Wonka, were seen later than a lot of others, especilly new people with whom he was't familliar.

When I first got there we all started talking, and just chilling. Most of us were wonkerers. Brianna, had two reallt big boxes filled with fortune cookies. Haha! It turns out that her boyfriend, Noah (who is awesome and Iève written about him in the wonka posts) had a lot of really sweet and creative surprises for her for their anniversary, and one of them in particular was well over 100 (probably 200) fortune cookies with a note attatched that said "I am very fortunate to have you".

Brianna, Lucy, Eilish, Courtney and I decided to go down the hall a bit, just past his room to read over lines. We chose the movie scene, and it turns out that was a good scene to choose, since that was the one he was doig with everyone! LOL! We found out after someone who we knew came out of their audition and told us, and every one of us had that first thought. 

Anyway, after a while, he called me in, so I took my script and walked in and saw two chairs set up just like the movie scene. Mike and Gary were in the back two, and two girls I have never seen before were in the first two.

As soon as I walked in, Rao's face practically lit up as he turn to the others "See! He looks like he could be 15! He could pass for it", he said to the others with a smile. I love that because from that, I could tell that was one of the things he was looking for, and my chances kept looking better and better.

He had us just read it first, then he gave people notes, and had us try it a few different ways. He looked really pleased with what I was doing. Then he excused the two girls, plainly telling them they will probably get a callback, and had us do the little bit of dialogue that were just between the three guys one more time, and then asked me to just step out for a bit, but don't go because he may ask me back later. So I did, but after a while he thankedme and gave me the okay to go.

Anyway, I don't want to get my hopes up, but he seems to like me for it and my chances for a callback are looking pretty good as far as I can tell. It would be awesome if I got the part!!

The callback list should be posted by Monday.

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Art Club!!

As you all know because I have said so in other posts, I have been super excited about art club!!

Today was our first meeting! As I thought, there were a lot of people there... actually I didn't like that their were so many, because I liked how tight of a group art club was last year and everyone became friends and it was a cool, special thing. There were over 20 people today... however I'm pretty sure, a is Ms. Starkes, that nowhere near that many are gonna stay in it and that in a month's time or so, the people who aren't staying will have left and we will have what wil be the "real" art club.

However, I also think that it will end up being about 12-15 or so, which seems a lot better.

Oh and Chris, who I used to call "tall tenner" showed up and actually seems pretty interested, and isn't shy at all, like I had origionally thought... Well he may be, because although he had no problem speaking out during the group discussion when Miss was explaining things and going through ideas she had for us, he still only kept to his two friends.

ANYWAY, first, Ms. Starkes started telling everyone about the possible ideas, and that this is our club, so we can come up with ideas and things to do, an decide what we want to do ourselves/come up with ourown ideas, and that we SHOULD, if we have any, that was obvious to me haha.

 Oh she also mentioned how there were returning members and new ones... Everyone was new, except Chelsea, Zach and I, and Leah when she returns from recovering aftr her back surgery, which got me a high five from Chealsea, "Hey, greg high five for not being noobs, and beng real members of art club". Ms. Starkes also mentioned me quite frequently when talking aout her ideas/possible plans for us and things, like "The next thing w could possibly do, which I mentioned to Greg, is paint the dragon boats when that event comes along.", and "There is an idea that could be good for Christmas that Greg and I came up with, along with some of the other members and that's making Christmas cards- water colour chritmas cards- and selling them, to rase a bit of money for art club supplies and stuff.

Then she got into what she really wanted to talk about which was painting murals. She started off with "You see the murals on the walls out in the hall just outside... " and talked about repainting some of them because... well to say the least some "could use it", which in a "blunt Greg translation" (as Zach calls it) would be: Some really need to be replaced with better/actually good/nice ones. Haha!

Anyway, the people who wanted to paint murals went outside the room with Miss for a bit, got into teams and decided on a wall or pillar to repaint, then went back in the art room to start planning. While there, everyone wrote down their name and Email down, for communication purposes. I will be taking care of the Emailing and such.

So there you have it... Sorry for the long post, and sorry if it bored anyone.



The Extra Carricular Fair!!

The extra carricular fair went awesomely for the art club!! The art club's first full year is off to a good start!

As soon as I got to school today I went right up to Ms. Starks presented her with all of my own artwork that I brought to put on display, andtalked with her about how we were going to be presenting things. That awful, ugly, rushed backboard presentation we made wasn't finished so since the fair was 2nd half of lunch she told me to come back 1st half of lunch so we could finish it.

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At lunch I immediately went to the art room to do that... After a we did as much as we could, it looked really bad still, so we decided to scrap that idea and made a simple sign that said "art club" took various pieces of artwork that were laying around the room (cubes with designs on them, paintings, flip books, and a few other things) along with my various drawings and my clipboard full of cartooning/animation studies and what not, and just put those around it.

It went really well! We immediately got attention from some tenners, and told them a bit about what it was, but answering people when they asked "what are we going to do?" was a bit difficult because we have ideas, but they aren't written in stone because we are up for working on anything any of the members want to do. There was one of those tenners that I found particularly interesting because he was really outgoing and talked about just about anything and everything. He should be interesting to have in the art club. Anyway those few joined, and then we kept getting more and more attention, and there was even a crowd around our table at a couple of points! Stephanie came up and said hi, while I wrapped my arm around her and said "how you doin'? Joine art club" knowing she was joining of course. We had a bit of a laugh at it because we got some looks from a person or two who probably didn't know we were friends.

At one point Jenny and Lucy (friends of mine) came up to our table saw a few cartoon doodles I had on a page that was displayed upfront and said "Greg drew this, didn't he?" I laughed and said yeah, and everything on the clipboard. Then lucy picked up an impressionistic picture made with pastels and asked who made it, so I told her it was mine, and as she started flipping through the pages of the sketchbook it was in, I told her all the rest were cartoons. I got a laugh when her response was "So? I'm going to look anyway and you know it!". I forget if Lucy did or not, but Jenny signed up for art club!

Those of you that red my post will know of the lad who I "know but don't know" because we met 2 years ago at this 2 day art inrichment thing for junior high students, and haven't really talked since, and who I call "the tall tenner" because he is lanky and towers above everyone (despite his baby-face and what not haha).

Well (as I knew) his name is actually Chris and he joined art club! I also mentioned that he seems shy... Well he is outgoing but only to his little group of friends, and as I said he doesn't seem to deviate outside of that, so he isn't all that outgoing in general. I found it interesting that rather than talk to myself, Emily or Ms. Starks he and his friends just watched for a while as some others came and went and asked questions, and then He (and his friends) looked at some of the work that we had there, made comments to each other, and then stood back to watch and talk amongst themselves while looking at what was going on... Then he turned to his friend and said "Do you wanna join art club? Are you an artist?" They said a few things and then asked him if he would and he replied "Yeah I kinda want to. With you two? Definitely", so it seems like he would be a bit uncomfortable joining without them, but I'm sure he will get over it, especially in my school! Anyway they all joined, so that should be interesting.

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By the end of it all we had about 20 or so names on the list (possibly more), but half of them probably won't show up or will just not stick with it... but considering that the best amount to have in the art room for creative purposes is 10-20 or so, maybe 20, it is ideal, considering the 8-10 or so members we already have in total.

Anyway this should be really fun, but I don't think our first meeting is until next Friday, so I am quite excited!


Lastly, while at the extra carricular fair I signed up for Kendelle's club (she is a long-time friend). It was the green project or something like that and is the "new and improved environmental club". Kendelle has always been quite the environmentalist, and dedicates a lot of time to it, and it's a big part of who she is. She is also an amazing artist, so she joined art club. She joined because we only meet every day 4 on the cycle at lunch time, so it doesn't get in the way of anything because Kendelle is a really busy person and has "a lot of irons in the fire".

One final note: We may be collaborating with the film club.

More Art Club Stuff!

Today was the first meeting of art club and I was well looking forward to it, expecting to see Zach (who I knew would be there) Emily, Chelsea, Kelsey and Courtney there since they are all of the returning members of the "original" art club since it only started last year.

We started really late last year so we didn't really do muc, and there were only about 8 of us but it was awesome!!

In art class toda, 2nd period Miss asked myself and Sach to represent the Art club at the extra carricular fair tomorrow, so we can try to recruit new members.
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3rd period was interesting since it was musical theater... We all went in the theater and throughout the class we just did some various games and excercises, all of which have a purpose, since we are just reviewing/going over the basics. First he had Olivia, who is a dancer do 15 minutes of stretches with us, and of the 3 males in the class I got praised for being by far the most flexible... (the skating helps haha), however I drew the line at the splits... LOL

We then played the "walking game" where everyone stood in a circle and one person would walk to someone elses spot and just by making eye contact the other person would know they are coming for their spot, so they had to move and take someone elses. It is to teach/develop non-verbal communication skills that are valuable in theater.

Then he had us walk around and he would call out a different part of our body to lead with, thus changing our walk, and seeing how creatively we could come up with a way to lead with said body part. This was for movement and character movement. How a character moves and their body language says a lot about their personality.

We then copied each others walk.

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In the art club meeting at lunch, only a few showed up... The only returning members were myself, Zach and Emily. The reason was because there were a lot of other meetings going on at lunch, such as meetings about various trips etc, so that's why Chelsea, Kelsey and Courtney weren't there, and I am hoping why some other tenners (grade 10s) weren't.

We talked about what we would be doing the year and then got talking about the fair tomorrow, so we got to work on a presentation board that we could have with us. There were about 5 people there total... Leah would have been there if she wasn't still on bed rest from her back surgery she had over the summer.

It was a lot of fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will be in the resource center tomorrow representing the art club and getting others to join.
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After school I met up with Stephanie (grade 10) where her locker is to meet with her and take the bus home. When I saw her, I first askedif she knew any artists because if she did she should tell them to join the art club. She replied "I was actually going to join but I can't really draw or..."I cut her off there and cut in "You don't have to be able to draw... It is an ART club! Drawing, painting, sculpting, photography, craft art, anything" so, I got another member to the art club!

As we were talking I named the hall where her locker was "tenner alley" because I haven't seen many tenners at all around the school... but apparently that's where they all are because that's all that little hallway are tenners because there are 2 grade 10 homerooms there...

She laughed "Wow, that's true! I like that actually. Tenner Alley!" We then mentioned how I felt so out-numbered and how I would be screwed if they all decided to turn on me, and suddenly come to the decision to attack all grade 12 students... I was the only one. LOL

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When I was talking to steph and mentioned art club, this one really tall tenner looked up at me... I found that interesting because I have seen him around a lot, and I have even met him before, 2 years ago in this art inrichment thing where students from grade 7-9 got off school a couple of days to do some art classes. We talked a bit there but haven't talked since then, and he keeps looking at me with that "I know you but I don't" kind of look... Granted he gets the same from me LOL! He did have an interesting reaction when I mentioned art club to her though... I hope he is at the extra carricular fair tomorrow! Maybe we could have another member...

When telling Stephanie about him, I even mentioned his name, but she still wasn't sure who I meant but when I said "The kind of lanky one that towers above everyone" she then said "Oh! I don't know him, like I haven't talked to him, so I don't really know him or anything, but he is in my homeroom"

Starting Up Art Club For The Year

Quickly, I will tell you that yeaterday (Friday), we only  had 3 periods of school because it got cancelled after lunch due to the threat of the tail end supposed "hurricane" which wasn't much of one at all... BUT I will get to that later.

1st period in Francais, we continued watching that movie and taking notes while we did and in histoire we played some game where one person would pick an aspect of history that is in the course and we would have to ask yes or no questions to guess what or whom they were...

Near the end of history, the announcement came over the P.A that school was cancelled after lunch, so a lot of people didn't bother going to 3rd period, but I did since I had art. I sat with Zach, Sondra and Bianca... Miss commented what everyone was thinking "I wish this class could be this size all the time" because it is WAY better with just a few people in the art studio!

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As most of you probably know, last year was Ms. Starks first year as the art teacher and although I didn't take art that year, we became good friends basically due to the art club she started, and at the beginning of the first day when we were only getting things set up, she asked me and Zach if we were interested in having it again. Neddless to say, we said yes!!

I was going to ask her about it in class as to when she was going to start it, but I didn't have to because she mentioned it and asked if anyone would be interested in joining, but she was referring to anyone but myself and Zach since it was obvious we were considering we are returning members.

It realized that because of my big involvement in art, and my relationship with Ms. Starks, it seems that I have become the "main" member of the art club... or the "leader" more or less, I guess one could say because Ms. came to me while I was working on/finishing up my tag project and told me she was looking into buying some special supplies just for art club. She then handed me a catalog and a marker and asked me to circle anything (drawing supplies) I thought might be good to have and that I knew/had a good idea of what we already have.

There wasn't a whole lot we didn't have there that I thought would be really good so I circled some stuff we did have just in case haha. When I was done we talked about the things I had circled and decided on the best things, as well as finding some others.

Miss found this water color card making kit and got really excited and exclaimed "I have an idea!". Her idea was to make cards at Christmas time and sell them at a low price to get some funds for extra supplies for us and what not, and I thought that was a brilliant idea! Needless to say I am really excited!

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As for this so called "hurricane", schools closed for now reason! I was kind of rotted, and not because there was no huge storm, but because I wanted to go to musical theater, and there was no reason to close school after all! However, I did get to go to Tristen's and chill with him for a bit so that was good.

One more thing about that "hurricane", I found this video someone from Newfoundland made using the Talking Tom application for the iphone.

Since it may be (and probably is) hard to understand for most of you due to the combination of the squeaky voice and the really strong, Newfoundland accent what he says is:

"Well, lord tunderin' Jesus! Shut 'er down and batten the hatches, Hurricane maria is comin' to town. I've done more damage with a good jesus fart! I wore me life jacket all day for nutting! What a waste of Jesus time and now it's hot n' sunny out! Only in Newfoundland!"

It pretty much hit the nail right on the head.

Some Great Works I love From Some of My Favorite Artists In History

Note: I will be posting the titles above the pictures.

Pablo Picasso

Portrait of Igor Stravinsky

Head of a Man

Decanter Tureens

Composition With A Skull

Marc Chagall

Chagall painted in a style all his own, combining elements of Expressionism, Symbolism, Cubism and, to a lesser degree, other Modernist art movements. A prolific and multi-faceted artist, Chagall left behind him thousands of works in many different techniques and media. It is because of this I love his work so much and it was difficult to narrow it down to just a few, and the most I could narrow it down to is 8.

Artist and his model

Artist at A Festival

Blue House

Blue Village

Blue Violinist

Burning House

Clowns At Night

The Magician

Claude Monet

Monet is recognized as being one of the creators of Impressionism and he was the most convinced and consistent Impressionist of them all. From his earliest days as an artist, he was encouraged to trust his perceptions and the hardships he suffered never deterred him from that pursuit.

Monet is one of the best of all time, and I absolutely love his work, so it was even harder to choose which works I should include, and narrow it down to a few. I managed to narrow it down to 11.

Autum at Argenteuil

 Etretat at the end of the day

 Poplers on the bank of the river Epte

Red Poppies at Argenteuil

The Cape martin

Haystack at the sunset near Giverny

 Haystack, end of summer, morning

Haystack, snow effects, morning

Water-lillies

Water-lillies

Impression: Sunrise

Salvador Dali

Salvador has made some of the wildest, craziest, and coolest paintings ever, and

  is basically the inventor of surrealism! Dali possessed excellent painting skills – his works were technically brilliant – and an extraordinary imagination. The artist was also an excellent showman, and had a love for outrageous and provocative acts.

Study for a self portrait

The Metamorphosis of Narcissus

The Invisable Man

The Persistence of Memory

The Disintegration of The Persistence of Memory

Quick Doodle Post!

These are various "clipboard doodles".
They get that name because I have a clipboard, equipped with a lot of paper for drawing anytime I want/drawing on the go, so "clipboard doodles" are just doodles that i have done using that. I also do finished, and structured drawings usin it as well, such as the cartoon practices and studies I have in the back of it which can be found on my cartooning blog.

Here are some recent ones I have done.

 The nerd it deffinitely my facorite here... he looks really intimidated by that big guy...

hilarious scared expression (above)

the full page (above)

The light switch is one of my favourites

Various Abstract Art

PERSONAL NOTE: New post on my cartooning blog! I posted various studies/practices I have done! http://gregscartooningblog.blogspot.com/

It has been a while since I have just posted some pictures that I have done, so here are some abstract pictures that I have made.

If you have any questions or anything, leave them in the comments =)

Beautiful!

I went on a walk the other day just for fun, and it was quite relazing and wonderful... It was absolutely beautiful! Take a look at some photos I took during it.

I honestly think I live in one of the most naturally beautiful places in the world... I love Newfoundland. Just saying! HAHA!