la bonne cuisine

ever since sumer 2006, i've been asked to create the graphic design for our community choir's summer chorus. each year the songs fall under a theme. this year's theme is "la bonne cuisine," and all of the songs are about, you guessed it, food. it took me a while to come up with this design but i finally got something i like. this design will be used on t-shirts, posters, the program cover and in the cd jewel-case.

program used: adobe illustrator cs3
resources: microsoft clipart collection (office online)
procedure: decide on shirt color (dark green because i have to appeal to men as well), then grab a bunch of clip art. import the art into illustrator. mix and match the art, editing the colors (no more than 4 colors for a t-shirt) and flipping the shapes around, rearranging them, re-drawing some parts, deleting other parts.

i've always felt a little funny using clipart -- i mean, i am supposed to be creating my own drawings, right? but then i realize that i in this case, i am a designer, not an artist. a designer takes resources that others have created and puts them together into an attractive presentation. that happens all the time in book world, for example. most books have both a cover artist and a designer. plus, i heavily edit the clipart i use, so i've made it my own. Clipart rules!!!

i feel bad about the neglect...but at least i survived the 1st year of grad school...also carmina burana love

i am sad because i'm not doing a good job of keeping up with this blog. but this semester was a killer. 2 term papers (20+ pages each) and heavy reading on top of that. but now it's all over. no more excuses...yeah right. lol. i've just been quite unmotivated these past few weeks. plus i'm suffering from post-choir-concert depression. the community choir i sing in has been working on the wonderful carmina burana all semester, and we just held our concert on may 17th. in addition to our large choir, we had a full orchestra (11 violins, 6 violas, 3 cellos, 2 basses, 2 pianos, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, 1 english horn, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, 1 timpani player, and 5 percussionists), 3 professional soloists (who did a good job but i still have mixed feelings about a community choir using professional outside soloists) and the n.c. boys' choir. there were well over 150 people on that stage (major genius points to the person who organized us all on the stage so that everyone could be seen). a full house. LOUD sound. we were all mesmerized by the orchestra. sure, the performance wasn't perfect, but my god, it was the best we've done since spring '06. everyone in my family who was there loved it (as in really loved it, not just "oh that was good" but "oh, that was good").

we had only 2 three-hour rehearsals with the orchestra, and then the performance was only 1 hour. after that, it was a huge letdown. all that i was so depressed. excited, yes, but depressed because it was all over. nothing else seemed exciting anymore. all i wanted to do was talk about the concert and listen to carmina burana on my itunes and watch it on youtube. now, i've sung in choirs ever since 5th grade and i've always had these post-concert withdrawls, but this time it was stronger than ever. after all that adrenaline and excitement build up and then bam, it's over before you know it. i'm cut off from all of my fellow choir members. my family doesn't want to hear about the concert any more. nothing, in my mind, will ever match up to carmina burana. it's so unlike most operas and classical music. even if you don't like classical music you will probably still enjoy carmina burana. the primitive rhythms, the catchy melodies -- it's so easy to respond to it. i can't wait to get the concert cd!!!

i'm doing a lot better in terms of my withdrawal. every day it fades. now i'm pretty much back to normal, so yay!!!!

here is a playlist that contains a great performance (not ours) of carmina burana. i think their tempo is a bit too fast, plus the audio quality of the video isn't that great, but it's amazing nonetheless. i love this conductor's energy. i would love to sing in his choir!!! also they did the entire thing memorized. WOW.

anyway, you really need to listen to the entire playlist (8 videos) in order to get the real feel of carmina burana. there's so much more to it than the 1st movement.



ok. that's about it. i know this is supposed to be an art blog...but music is art. hah. next entry will contain new graphics of mine, promise. :-)