Nick to David Bowie Make-Over: The process of giving a black and white portrait painting the David Bowie make over

Now let me just start this post out by saying... I had a lot of anxiety over this project thing we did in my painting class. I wasn't entirely sure I felt about taking a portrait that I really really like and changing it up/ "tattoo" it (since I had picked a portrait instead of the landscape for this project). Now let me give you this photo real quick so y'all know what I'm talking about

 

Now... I know it's not entirely the best portrait of Nick ever... there are things about it that bug me. But if I was going to actually do this part of the interlude assignment that was given to my class between finishing our Master copy paintings (blog post to come about that next week possibly. I need to fix something on the painting and get photos) and starting our final project (another 9 sq. ft painting, and we have a month of classes left!!!! O_O) where we had to "litter the landscapes" or "tattoo the portraits" we did at the very beginning of the semester and they were black and white paintings. Now, I had thought that the painting came out great and I put it away... but then yesterday came it and it was time for me to do something to it. Originally, I was going to turn him into Jafar from Aladdin but I just wasn't feeling it. And I was really really nervous, to the point of almost hyperventilating over this. I really didn't want to do this and ruin the portrait. I wouldn't be able to handle that. But anyways, I got to school at around 8am (class starts at 9 but I'm always an hour early), sitting in the computer lab. And for some reason, I found myself looking up David Bowie photos... and I got an idea in my head... Does the title of this post make sense now? 

So I decided then and there I'd give him the David Bowie makeover. Now we had the option of putting plastic wrap over the paintings if we really really loved how our black and white paintings came out and paint on top of that, take photos, and then take the plastic wrap off. I considered doing that. But as I'm sitting in class, watching every single other student in class wrap their paintings in the plastic wrap, I realized that A) I have to be different and actually paint on top of the painting and B) I'm not one to paint on top of plastic wrap, I'm someone who just totally, 100% commits to something. I had to actually paint on top of the black and white. My poor friend, Aly, had to really nudge me to get started after that because, again, I really liked my portrait and was totally afraid of ruining it and also... I was worried that Nick wouldn't like it. And as silly as it is, it's important to me that he likes it because it is a portrait of him and I want to do him justice, artist to artist and not just fan to YouTuber. 

Finally I got started. I started off simply, to really ease myself into this. 

(ignore the red bottom lip for now. For some reason I forgot to take a photo of when I just added the lightning bolt thing to his face). Okay. Lightning bolt glaze added. I was doing two things at once (which made my professor happy. Not that that really matters because he's not really checking these things...). And I liked it. So I sat staring at him for a few minutes before deciding that I needed to add something else to it. So I decided to paint Nick's lips red. Now they don't look exactly like they do in Nick's photo, which for me was kind of the point.  David Bowie sort of does these weird things to stand out and since I was giving Nick the Bowie makeover... you get the point. (Another photo I forgot to take: when the lips were done) The next addition... 

I decided to add a bit of color to Nick's eyes. Originally I was going to do just one and I was going to do it brown, like his natural eye color. But I decided that wasn't Bowie enough... so I made it red. And let me tell you something... I walked away from the painting for a few moments to go see what one of my classmates was doing, totally forgot I did the eye, came back, and scared myself with the eye XD Just about died laughing from being scared by my own painting. After this... 

I couldn't just leave the other eye not done at this point. I was sort of on a role really... So I painted it green (Fun fact: Nick's favorite color is green, if I remember correctly, which is something he and I have in common!). And I fell in love. So I put it to the side to work on some other paintings/experiments. Came back from lunch and pulled this out again and flipped it upside down because I decided the background needed a little treatment too.... Now I'm really into splattering and dripping paint and one of my classmates did something really cool with hers so I totally stole her idea for my background (with permission of course) and did this: 

That was a really fun thing to do! I love drips and splatters and things that get messy :3 It just makes painting more fun sometimes when you just sort of let loose on a piece of canvas :) So I put it away to dry again. My friend and I decided that we were so into what we were doing that we couldn't just clean up at 2:45 and go home so we stayed and continued to work... for another 2 hours and 15 minutes XD I did pull my Nick painting out again because I felt that it was missing one more thing, just a little bit of something something. I had a bunch of lime green and purple glazes that I had made for something else I had been working on and I really didn't want to waste it.... so I did this 

The painting is officially done at this point. I decided to add this to A) really bring out the red eye, B) to use up some of the glazes I had left still, C) because it makes it different enough from just the David Bowie lightning bolt that it's different, but keeps the essence of what I had in mind, and D) (this is the most important one), I feel like it really makes Nick look like Nick, even though he doesn't do weird/crazy things like this with make up. I'm totally more in love with the portrait now than I was when I started the 10 hour day I had at the school. 

Again, I'm just really nervous he's not going to like it. But... I'm still going to share this and the portrait with him and hopefully he'll like it and not think I'm bat-shit crazy (which I am but that's a whole other story we aren't going to get into... maybe one day). Anyways hope y'all enjoyed this :) 

Vidcon Blog # 1- Meeting Corey Vidal of Apprentice A

So recently this last weekend, I was in Anaheim California for a little convention thing called Vidcon. It's something I've been wanting to do for a few years now and I was finally able to do it and I'm so happy I did. Now I have three different blog posts about VidCon. One of them is an general overview of my week and how it went and what I did and will include photos of the people I met while there. Then there are two special blogs that I wanted to write and dedicate to two very amazing people that I was able to meet this weekend. The reason why these particular two gentlemen get their own blog posts is because they are the two people that I've been wanting to meet more than anyone else I follow on youtube and it's really a blog post for each of them talking about meeting them and my feelings and anything I didn't say to them in person or their letters that I feel like I need to say (and hopefully they read them). So I'm starting with these two specific blogs before doing a general blog post.

One of the two people I really desperately wanted to meet this weekend was a fine gentleman from Canada named Corey Vidal. If you do not know who he is, he is a youtuber from Toronto, Ontario, Canada who went viral in 2008 with a video called Star Wars (John Williams is the Man) (link right here if you haven't seen the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk5_OSsawz4) Now I've been following Corey ever since this video but in 2011, when I was a junior in high school, he started vlogging. At first they were weekly vlogs but then they became daily vlogs and I was hooked. Somewhere in those weeks of watching his vlogs, I became more and more interested in him and the people he worked with and lived with and I was so hooked.

Now at this time, I was having severe panic attacks and was severely depressed. I was required to go to the counseling department for my school, at minimum, twice a week to talk to someone for an hour or so, so that they could make sure I was alive and not about to kill myself. And it was a really rough time because I really didn't have friends or anyone to really talk to. I started watching his vlogs when they started and it got to the point where I realized that every single day I woke up, I was waking up because I really wanted to see what crazy thing that Corey and his friends did, or what cool thing they got involved in or whatever it was. I don't know what hit me but I started wanting to wake up and see his vlogs. Yes I wanted to watch Charles Trippy's vlogs and eventually the Shaytards vlogs too but Corey was someone I really wanted to see every single day and I started ticking off the days that I was still alive and breathing by watching the vlogs, and before I knew it... it had been a whole year. It had been a year and I was down to a visit to the counseling department at school once every two to three weeks (if that). And I was still so hooked on their vlogs.

Fast forward to this last weekend. I finally met Corey. I actually met Corey Vidal!

It was the craziest, most surreal moment of my life. I had been looking for him as I walked the expo hall and visited panels and what not, kind of not expecting to see him because of how many people were at VidCon. But my friend and I were standing outside the Hilton, trying to figure out where we were going to meet our other friends for dinner when I looked up from my phone and all I see is him and the rest of Apprentice A. Immediately I stepped into the street and got his attention. From there it was all a blur, an out of body experience for me. The two things that I do remember very very clearly is that A) he has an amazing smile and brilliantly blue-green (in this photo his eyes look very green but I've seen his eyes blue before) eyes and B) he gave me some of the best hugs that I have EVER gotten in my entire life!

I had been wanting to meet Corey for four years now, since I woke up that one morning in July (yes it took me from January when he started vlogging to July) and realized that I was waking up each and every single morning so I could mark another day of living by watching this man's vlogs. His story is not mine to tell but his videos are available for you to view as he has told us the story himself, but in a way we've had similar experiences (although also very different life experiences at the same time). I love him from the bottom of my heart and I know I'll always be supporting him in whatever he does because, although he didn't know it at the time, he is one of the reasons why I'm still alive today and was able to go to VidCon this year and meet him. I'll never be able to thank him enough for it. 

I guess this is my big "coming out" story

So... I'm almost 21. Two months to go. IDK what to say because the title of this post says it all. I guess this is going to be my big "coming out" thing.

See the thing is, I was never in the closet. I never understood why I had to make a big deal about being bisexual and why I had to "come out of the closet". I still don't understand it. But that's how society is. We as a society are so divided on this topic that anytime someone has a coming out story/moment, it's a big deal. Why can't we just have it so that love is love and coming out doesn't have to be a thing? Why can't society let people just be them and love freely without having the feel scared to let the world know that they love boys or girls or both and everyone in between?

Anyways, yes. I like boys and I like girls. Don't like it? Don't be in my life. I am who I am. I love who I love. Deal with it. I was never in the closet because I never felt the need to hide it. My policy was "if you are curious, ask and I'll be honest with you. Until then... well you'd find out the first time I introduced you to my girlfriend after having had a string of boyfriends."

Another thing: yes. I dated boys and only boys up until now. But I know I'm bisexual because I had my very first kiss with a girl. And the feeling it gave me scared me, but mostly because I was 12 years old and didn't understand feelings at that time. But I had my second kiss ever when I was 14 and it was a boy and I realized I liked it just as much as the kiss with the girl (although, to this day I think I enjoyed the kiss with the girl just a bit more than the boy). And a few more years passed before I totally confirmed what I already knew. I had kissed a few more boys in the years between my first two kiss and the present day. But I totally, 100% confirmed something I already knew when I shared my second kiss with a girl. And it was amazing! I don't know when I'll have my first girlfriend because I'm still looking but I'll know when I meet HER

So, this is my coming out story. Take me or leave me (as to quote my favorite musical, RENT) because I'm never going to change.

P.S: don't tell me to pick one side or another. It'll never happen. You can't sit there and tell me I can only like boys or only like girls. I like who I like and I know this for a fact.

Who Am I?

Who am I

but a girl struggling

do I like just boys

or just girls

or both

I tell everyone that asks both for now

but what if I just like girls? 

none of the boyfriends have worked at

and I look at girls a lot more than I use to 

my first kiss was with a girl

my second was with a boy

and one of my last kisses was with a girl

who am I? 

who do I like?