If you're an art kid and you go to Japan, you should definitely check out their art supply/stationery stores. They are seriously super amazing, with the neatest little pens and pencils and markers you ever saw-

_{OH MAN my cat just hopped onto the desk between me and my brother (who is using his laptop) and curled up right in between us. She's so ridiculously cute, and while she's always been a massive attention whore, she's been really affectionate ever since we got back from our trip. I think she was lonely, and she seems to be kind of jittery that we might leave her behind again. I'm pretty sure she was the only reason we actually came back to this country. I love my kitty.}

Where was I. Oh yes. Art supplies. In Okinawa I got:

-1 set of Pentel crayons. Japanese crayons are really nice - the colors are so bold and vibrant and they glide on so easily that they seem more like oil pastels than crayons.

-1 tiny watercolor/colored pencil sketchbook. Now it'll be easier for me to make itty-bitty thank-you cards for all the graduation money I got from all family friends. I'm a total cheapskate, so I usually make my own thank-you cards instead of buying them like a normal person.

-1 ludicrously tiny (around 3 inches long) and cute pink pen decorated with cherry blossoms

-1 bright orange mechanical pencil with an amazing eraser

-1 thin eraser with a blue plastic cover

-1 fairly large baby-seal-shaped eraser in this tiny plastic case that's so heinously adorable I want to leave it there to look at and never ever use it

-And a 24-pencil set of colored pencils which were a very expensive (over 6000 yen, namely around 60 bucks) gift from my lovely aunt.

I tried out both the crayons and the colored pencils today. The latter were particularly interesting since they forced me to tweak my coloring style to use them. At first I used them the same way I use my Prismacolors, with EXTREME EPIC FORCE. But I quickly discovered that this method didn't work at all with this brand (Uni, which might sound familiar since they also make pens which are sold here in the U.S.). I can't really just add massive pressure onto the paper to create value, which is what I usually do and is what makes my coloring look so painfully dense when I use Prismacolors. So instead I have to think more about what colors I'm using, and where, and the result is that I use my colors up less quickly (which is good given how expensive these things were), my hand gets less sore, and it's a nice refreshing change from my usual style.

But I'll probably still slam colors on like a madman when I use my Prismacolors, which I'll still use most of the time since on the last day of art, my teacher gave me an entire plastic carton of them that the room ran out of space for since they buy new sets every year. It's just too tempting, and I have this obsessive aversion to white spaces when I use Prismacolors. I don't know why that is (sounds a bit like horror vacui when I say it like that, even though it isn't).

Anyway, on a more fun note. I didn't take photos of anything I ate in Japan - for a great deal of the time I didn't have a camera - but here are a couple of sketches I did yesterday for my Livejournal of Things I Got To Eat:

"Milk Crepe": [link]

"Banana Pie": [link]

I'm not sure if the crepe was actually a crepe, and I'm pretty sure the pie was not really a pie in the technical sense of the word, but they were both incredibly delicious so whatever.

EDIT: Holy crap. I just found out that Tasha Tudor, who did really lovely illustrations for The Little Princess, died only around 10 days ago. She was probably my favorite children's illustrator, so...wow.

Just arrived this evening, actually. We got off the plane like...an hour late. The airport people are so obnoxious. Or maybe it's just the culture shock. Japanese airport employees are extremely polite and considerate (they labor under the motto that "the customer is God", according to my mother), AND THEY ARE HEINOUSLY GOOD-LOOKING. omg. No joke. I wanted to take on home with me. I learned today that there's actually a very strict age limit for airport employees, and no doubt when you go to a job interview or whatever your looks are factored in as well...because these people were some crazy hot.

At any rate, I'd gotten used to people being very courteous and respectful so I had to get back to being used to expecting people to be rude. Took a few minutes, though.

But yeah, Okinawa was fantastic. Like. I don't even know where to start talking about it, so I won't.

I will, however, throw out a bunch of miscellaneous topic here for you guys to look over. So if you want to ask about any of these, go ahead (note that any answers will only be pertaining to my two weeks' worth of experiences and/or impressions and probably shouldn't be taken as a view of Japan, its culture, or its people in general. Especially since it was Okinawa, which is in fact quite different from mainland Japan).

-People
-Fashion
-Scenery
-Wildlife: OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. AJ;KLFJAKLS;G
-Bathrooms: Japanese toilets= the most amazing things ever and that is no joke.
-Beaches
-Teenagers: a category in and of themselves!
-Food
-Culture
-The aquarium (whale sharks! Manta rays!)
-That One Trashy Market That I Liked
-Shopping
-My family
-Random crap
-Souvenirs (as in, what I got for me and for other people and What You Should Get If You Go To Okinawa)

...as stated by the card given to me by the girl I tutor. As of today I never have to go back to the hellhole that is my high school ever again!

Graduation itself really wasn't that exciting. Or emotional. The only thing I got excited about was throwing my cap, and my mother took the liberty to tell me that '08's cap-throwing sucked compared to my brother's clas of '05. Apparently we were very anemic. Well, the teachers didn't call our class The Most Apathetic Bastards They Have Ever Seen for nothing.

I threw my cap with extreme prejudice, of course. A lot of people were all ohhhh I don't want to lose it better just toss it lightly but I was like SCREW THAT LOSERS I'M NEVER SEEING THIS EVER EVER EVER AGAIN. And I didn't. I felt that it was very symbolic. At least, it would have been, had a friend of mine not caught me walking out of Constitution Hall and been all, "Oh, I noticed you lost your cap, so I just picked one up off the ground for you. Here you go!" I took it because it was very nice of her and all...but as I didn't know where it had been it was sort of gross. I didn't put it on.

But yeah. Wow. I still haven't quite gotten my head around the fact that I'm not a high school student anymore. I think I would feel sadder about this if I'd stayed in Miami and graduated with all the kids I'd known since sixth grade (or even kindergarten and first grade, some of them). As it is, I'm just sort of glad I got through it all. We got our transcripts, too, and in some mysterious way I've managed to snag a 3.5 GPA at the end of it all. This confounds me, especially given how many F's and D's I've gotten on my report cards this year. Then again, every class I took this year, aside from Computer Graphics, was an IB course, so. Yay for weighted grades! Speaking of IB, after we get back from out trip it'll only be a few days till scores come out. I really want to see mine.

But screw graduation - on Monday we're leaving for Japan! So I won't be around for the next couple of weeks - maybe a bit longer, since as soon as we get back we're leaving for another trip to Richmond. We're not going to Tokyo or anything (though I would most certainly kill to visit Akihabara and the Ghibli Museum); just Okinawa, where my mother's gargantuan clan resides.

I'm so mad. When I got to school - way late, because the stupid DVD with our film trailer on it took HOURS to burn - it turns out that the DVD player wouldn't read the disc. The trailer was the highlight of our presentation, and we focused practically all of our attention on it, so the rest of our stuff was pretty half-ass. And...that was all we had to present.

SERIOUSLY SO ANGRY ARGH RAGHHHH HULK SMASH

Honestly, I wouldn't really care if it was just me. I'm used to not doing anything. But it sucks because this was a group project, so our overall terrible job was in large part my fault since I not only came in late, but I also screwed up on the DVD burning, so we couldn't even show what we'd worked so hard on.

_{Plus I pulled an all-nighter to do that crap and in retrospect, considering how it all turned out, I should really have just gone to bed. Oh my precious hours of sleep...}

SO I DECIDED I'D JUST TAKE A SURVEY TO MAKE MYSELF FEEL BETTER OH HO HO HO. Filched from *keiiii.

1. What do you like about your style?
Honestly, I don't know. :/ I guess the fact that it seems to be improving, albeit really slowly.

2. Which is the most popular deviation in your gallery? Why do you think people like it so much? What do YOU like about it?
My most popular deviation ever is "Fun in da Snow", back on my old account. I think people like it because, I mean...it's cute even if it's sort of crappy.

On this account, my most popular deviation is by far "u neva luv me liek u luv him". Honestly, I have no idea why people like it, since it was a really half-ass sketch I did on a whim one day. People do tend to point out how it mentions "BABIES", though, and everyone likes babies, so...

I do happen to like the orangey color scheme. I bet you didn't know that I like orange.

3. Pick one of your least popular deviations. What are the things you like about it, despite the lack of popularity?
"The Journey Comes Full Circle". It's not at all popular because IT'S NOT ANIMU LOL, but that's exactly why I like it. That and it helped me pick up on how exactly I best utilize oils. I also think the subject matter is really nifty - there's so much mythology connected to it.

4. Which is your favorite picture, concept- or idea-wise? Would you ever revisit this idea and try to make a new picture based on it again?
Concept-wise, "The Handshake" is definitely the best. I might try out a redo one of these days. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. [link]

5. Do you have a favorite quickie? What are the things you like about it?
I guess "u neva luv me liek u luv him". Again, it's the color scheme. For some reason I also kinda like how Sothe turned out.

6. Do you have a favorite piece that involved tons of time and effort?
My latest Nino picture ties with that one of Micaiah - I put a lot of time and effort in both of those, and I think they're my best jobs at coloring in my gallery.

For CG it would have to be "Rocket Collecting". God, I spent so much freaking time on that one.

7. Lastly, pick your top favorite image in your gallery. (If you picked this picture in any of the previous answers, please pick the next favorite or something.) Why do you like it so much?
I actually really like my latest Haruna one. It was just a lot of fun to do, and for once I actually kind of liked the style I used there.

IB exams may be over, but finals are not. I've still got two more of those to go, one of which is a simple one-page essay, but the other one is a GIGANTIC MASSIVE PROJECT OF EPIC PROPORTIONS. Which I for serious need to get an A on, because I haven't turned in a single assignment this quarter - ergo, a massive F so far. I wouldn't particularly care - whether I fail this quarter or not, I'm still graduating, which was my only concern - but it's a group project, so I really need to get my act together.

The project involves a large poster, tons of writing, and endless editing of my partners' writing, since I'm the resident Grammar Nazi and hole-plugger of our group. Oh, and a gigantic film trailer via movie-making software which I know absolutely nothing about. Still, it'll be epic! I hope. It's faux-promotional advertisement for an imaginary movie adaptation of the book The Road. _{Yes, I know that Hollywood is already in the process of making a movie out of it anyway, but our imaginary movie will be BETTER, and that's no joke!} I'll post it on Youtuve when I'm done so you kids can get a kick out of it too.

On a random note, lately I've been attracting the attention of some of creepy old guys lately. And by "creepy old guys" I don't mean guys in their twenties or thirties. Or even forties. They're in their fifties. One of them is probably in his sixties or seventies (when someone asked him how old he was, he merely said that he was "less then a hundred"). It's super gross. I seem to have this special penchant for attracting nothing but really creepy and/or nasty guys. Ergh.

Haha, I love this post has had nothing to do with art or anything. I've been sketching a lot recently, but...nothing FE-related for once.

But yeah. I'll get everyone's sketches done as soon as my final projects and financial aid drama is settled. Totally.