Semester 2

...wow... What a hard semester... But I'd like to think it was still not as hard as the last because I was not getting up at 5:30 AM and working in a warehouse.
The last 3 weeks were spent on nothing but finals, from the rising of the sun to the very late going down.

But it turns out it was all worth it. Here is a copy/paste from my school's website showing last semester's grades (personal info removed):

Grade Report
Murdock, Kerry K.

Spring - 2010
Course Section Title Hours Final Grade
COL100 D Portfolio & Career Success
1.00 A

FS105 B Life Drawing
3.00 A

FS107 A Digital Imaging
3.00 A

Statistics
Attempted Earned Passed Quality Points GPA
Session 7.00 7.00 0.00 7.00 28.00 4.00
Cumulative 13.00 65.00 52.00 13.00 51.10 3.90
Statistics last updated: 06/21/2010

Current Option Settings
Program Session Year
UNDG SP 2010

Portfolio class:
The instructor of our Portfolio class wanted all new(er) students to take the Portfolio class as soon as possible. They said that as new students are going through their classes they will then be better prepared at creating pieces in their classes that they can add to their portfolio so that when they graduate they already have a portfolio already. That is actually something that I felt bad about UVU not doing for us. We ended up taking our portfolio class last. By then it was too late to put concepts of a portfolio into our assignments. So I am glad that AI does do that.
I do not have a seperate listing for the Portfolio & Career Success COL100 class because this website is my portfolio.
What makes me almost want to laugh is that our instructor mentioned that it was only a 1 credit class so he did not intend to give us a lot of homework. That way we could focus on our other classes. However, at the end of the semester, the portfolio was one of the hardest final project pieces I had to put together. It required a lot of gathering, printing (and re-printing), cutting, editing, organizing, and finalizing. But my portfolio is now tons better than when it originally started out.

Life Drawing:
By far one of the hardest classes I have ever had to take. Certainly I learned a lot - but I don't want to have to ever do it again!
They are offering an Advanced Life Drawing class for the first time next semester. They will cover the limb's muscle groups and faces. I won't take it and hope I don't have to! Instead, my wife bought me a book from a famous comic artist to help cover the faces aspects. No more bare skin for me, please!
And I was not the only one. At the beginning of the semester the class was packed full. Our instructor said there were 10 students but I say there was much more. There was hardly any room for my gear in a class that is designed to hold over 15 students.
By the end of the semester there were only 5 of us left. We were not all the best artists in the school-just the ones tough enough to stick it out! Models aside, it is not easy to sit in one position for 4 hours, on and off at a time, drawing the same subject over and over.
We actually had 2 students that showed up everyone once in a while, just to keep their status active in the school. Once they arrived, they would leave. They did this right up to the end of the semester. It made me feel bad, knowing that even if they are not passing the class they still have to pay for it.

Photoshop:
The hardest part of this class was the enviornment. For the entire semester the temperature gauge was faulty: the room was pumping out hot air when we desperately needed the air conditioner on. We tried moving the bookcase away from the thermostat, we tried opening the door, we tried talking to the superintendant. At times I just went home at the end of class to work on projects, instead of staying in class. Stiffling!
One of the great things of this class was the Wacom drawing tablets! My wife had always wanted one so we used the school's discounts to finally get one. Wow! What a great advantage and a lot of fun! I now use it for all of my graphic drawing projects.
At the beginning of the semester one of my previous semester's instructors told me that he saw one of my beginning pieces ("Terminator Mine: Metal Parts") and said how much he was impressed by it. He thought it should have been put on display.
On the last day of class the instructor actuall told me that he really liked my work. It made me feel really good, to know that I really can do this!

For now, we get 3 weeks off until the next semester. Yes! So much better than just 1 week, like last semester. I'm spending it well: sleeping in, playing with my boy, getting caught up on my site here, updating my own projects, taking my wife on dates, and spending time with my family!
We all went to the zoo for the first time last weekend and tonight my wife and I are going to see her favorite, "Eclipse." We were originally worried that with the start of the next semester we would miss it.
But the adventure continues July 12th, 2010.
Until then...