Sunday, May 1, 2011

Nothing strange

So as I said, I went to the park last night. Nothing really strange happened. Didn't find anything, see anything, feel anything, etc. Still have two more to check out though.

Oh and by the way, the reason I was asking about 'Him' wearing a hat...I had a weird dream the other night. There was this man standing and staring at me. It was dark and he I couldn't make out any details but he was tall and wearing a big gaucho hat and what looked like a duster of sorts. Nothing really happened, he just kinda stood there, but it freaked me out and I thought it might have been 'Him'. But it would appear that this was just a weird dream. I didn't really do too much research on 'Him' because one of the first things I read was that the more you know about 'Him', the more likely you are to become a victim. So maybe it was just my subconscious making up an image of him since I don't really know what he looks like. I don't know...I'm writing it off as just a dream.

I'm gonna go throw up now because my stomach has been giving me a hard time since I woke up. Blech. I'll tell you when I hit up the next park.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Going to the first park tonight

So I'm going to the one of the parks tonight after i get off work tonight. Shanes coming and so is another friend of mine. As far as they know it's just to hang out. I'm taking my video camera just so if anything weird happens I'll have some proof. I'll update later tonight or tomorrow to let y'all know how it went.

Wish me luck.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Possible lead

My sister's been in and out of the hospital the last couple weeks with gallstones so I haven't had much of a chance to sit with the journal until the other day. I read through it, several times, and the only thing that really caught my attention was a mention of the park. Right when things start going wonky in her journal, she mentions seeing 'Him' at the park.

Now I haven't researched this 'Him' too heavily, because one of the first things I found out about him was that the more you know, the more likely it is that he'll find you. And I'd rather that didn't happen.

But anyways, she didn't say which park, just 'the park'. There are three parks in town that I know we'd been too, so I'm gonna try and hit them up sometime in the next couple weeks. Wish I had my camera to take pictures if anything weird popped up.

I realize I haven't been using my Twitter much for those of you following me, but I'll try and get more active on it so you guys don't have to go so long without hearing from me. So yeah, I'll let you know when I hit up the parks.

Oh and by the way...the 'Him' you guys know about....he doesn't wear a hat does he?

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Apology and Update

Alright sorry it's taken me so long to update, Shane's got a busy schedule and I've been trying to go about things as usual to avoid being sent to the loony bin. Anyways, I was finally able to sit down with him the other day and talk. I recorded it on my phone but for some reason when I uploaded it onto my computer it was all garbled and fucked up, so I'm just gonna have to transcribe it (it still works on my phone for some reason)

I decided not to tell Shane exactly everything that's been happening. At least not the bit about me having dated Jenna, and how nobody else remembered her. I didn't want him to think I was crazy and leave, I needed his opinion of the journal. I told him that this journal came from a friend of a friend. I believe I've prefaced this well enough, so here it is:

I: So what do you think?
S: Well...with things like this, it's hard to say. When it comes to saying whether or not something has some kind of...other-worldly influence, there isn't ever any definitive answer. But being a believer in this kind of stuff means you have to be a skeptic too. There's a lot of scams, a lot of bullshit, and a lot of stupid people who see shit that isn't there. (sits back) But...there is something strange about all this.
I: Ya, tell me something I don't know.
S: Alright. Have you seen this symbol before? (points to a circle with an X drawn through it. this symbol pops up a lot and is on every page at least twice near the end of the journal)
I: No, not really.
S: There are a lot of theories about this symbol. It started as a variation of the Theta symbol, an archaic form of it. In Athens, they used it as a symbol for death, think of it sort of like the skull and crossbones of ancient times. Prisoners awaiting execution would be branded with it...so some more...shady sects adopted it as a symbol of their own.
I: But...why would she be drawing this then?
S: Well there's another school of thought about it. In Egypt the symbol was used to represent the soul. Some believed drawing or repeatedly using the symbol could strengthen your resolve against evil spirits. A ward of sorts.
I: So which is it?
S: How the hell am I supposed to know? At the end of the day, it's just a circle with an X through it. We're the ones that assign meaning to it.
(pause)
I: So what do you think it means in this context?
S: It's hard to say. She was obviously afraid of someone, and she obviously believed that he was very powerful. Whether or not that's an indicator of something...paranormal or something more explainable, like cult activity...well I'd have to meet with her to discuss that.

We both just sat there for a minute, then decided to end the conversation. There wasn't really much else to cover really. But he stayed over for a while, we caught up and had some food. We were eating, and I remembered those blogs Daniel had linked to me, so I asked Shane if he'd ever heard of this Slender Man. I didn't record this conversation, but the way he reacted I wish I had. He got really quiet and asked me how I'd heard about it. I told him I'd just been dicking around online and found it. He said it was a dumb urban legend and that I have better things to do with my time than read fairy tales. Then alllllllll of a sudden he had to leave. But as he was walking out, he turned around and said to me:

"Try and know what you're getting into, man".

Then he left.

Ya. So that freaked me out. I think all I can really do is comb the journal some more to see if I missed any clues about where she might have gone.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Paranormal Activity 3: This Time It's Happening to Me

So after looking through Jenna's journal, doing some research online, and trying to come to terms with the fact that all memory of her exsistence has vanished off the face of the goddamn Earth, I've realized that if I want to figure out what's going on, I need to make a plan.

Now clearly this isn't some normal runaway or kidnapping. This is quite obviously something more. This is something...strange.

My good friend Shane is majoring in Paranormal Studies, so he's going to sit down with me sometime this week and we're going look over Jenna's journal and see if he thinks there's anything out of the ordinary. I mean, obviously there is, but he'll be able to give more insight than I can.

So yeah. Stay tuned for that.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Explanation

Ok sorry for leaving you guys hanging for so long I'm still trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. No one can remember Jenna.

So last Friday, as I told you guys, Jenna's mom filed a missing person report with the police because she hadn't been home in a couple of days. I went to her house later that night to talk with her mom. I went up to her room and I grabbed her diary. She hid it up in her ceiling, and I figured if the cops had searched her room they wouldn't have found it. I didn't tell her mom because I didn't really know if there was going to be anything in it, and I didn't want expose her private thoughts or whatever...I just didn't want her mom to have her diary if it wasn't important. I don't know what I was looking for in it....but I wasn't prepared for what I found.

When I got home I looked through it. At the beginning of it, everything was normal, but near the end...for about the last two months, in almost every journal entry she made, Jenna mentioned some man. She never mentions him by name, but she always referred to him as "Him". I think the capitalization there is important, it was always capitalized.  Anyway, as far as I could tell, it sounded like this guy was stalking her. She talks about seeing 'Him' outside of school, outside of her work...she even says she saw 'Him' outside my house when she was over once.

Anyways I figured "Hey! This is pretty serious stuff and I should probably take this to the police!" So the next morning I go to the police station and I tell them I have some evidence for Jenna's case, aaaaaaaaand they told me that there was no such case open. I was in the right place, I had them check with every possible spelling I could think of for her name...nothing. So I went to Jenna's house. And her mom didn't know who I was. And she said she didn't have a daughter.

And I started freaking out.

I talked to my parents. They don't remember her. I talked to all my friends. They don't remember her. I looked on Facebook - her profile page is just fucking gone. Her twitter's gone. Her old blog is gone. It's like every FUCKING trace of her has just disappeared off the goddamned face of the earth.

I've been dating her for four years. I do NOT have schizophrenia, this is NOT a fucking Beautiful Mind, she isn't my imaginary friend, she is REAL. I am not fucking crazy. I am NOT fucking crazy. I have no idea what is going on but I know that Jenna is missing, she's in danger, SOMEONE is following, and I AM going to find her.

I'm not fucking crazy.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Please tell me I'm not crazy.

Ok. This may seem like an odd request, but would everyone out there reading please comment if you can see the stuff about Jenna in the posts or if you at least remember me talking about Jenna before.

I'll explain later, but please, please, even if you don't comment regularly, comment now. I think I'm losing my mind, and I need to know there are people who can still remember Jenna.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Jenna's Missing

Jenna's mom called me earlier today. She hasn't been home since Tuesday and she filed a missing person report with the police today.

I'd go into more details but I'm really kind of in shock right now.  Gonna have to say no lessons for a while.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Lesson Six

Ok so today's lesson is one that is unfortunate to teach, but unfortunately needs to be said. For any of you readers out there who don't follow me on Twitter, today I came out of my sculpture class to discover that my locker had been broken into. They vandalized my sketchbook and stole my $600 camera. Needless to say, I AM FUCKING PISSED OFF.

So today's lesson is: Be safe. Lock your shit up. Get a locker (if your school provides them), a GOOD lock (I know I locked mine, I always make sure especially when my camera's in there, so the lock must have been pretty easy to break. I'd say get a key one if you can, that'd be harder to break than a combination like mine was), and based off my experience, keep expensive stuff such as cameras and computers on your person if you can.

There are a lot of bad people in this world, and some of them are even art students. Some people want expensive shit like my camera, some people want free art supplies, and some people are just DICKS.

Ugh. I had a long day at work, I have no idea how I'm going to pay for a new camera, and I STILL haven't heard from Jenna. I am in a bad fucking mood. I'm going to sleep.

Lesson Five

Hey everybody! Sorry it's taken so long to get this up - I was really tired yesterday and today some friends and I went out to the park because it was super nice out. I wanted Jenna to come, but she's still not been responding to my texts very often (last I heard from her was on Sunday. I'm kinda worried but I don't want to be overbearing) Oh well. To the lesson!


Today's lesson is fairly simple. Last semester, when it came to open ended projects, I noticed a trend. I had a habit of always following up on my first idea. And usually I would get about halfway through, and then think of something else that would have been really cool to do. And then I had to make the decision - do I scrap the current project and try and do the better idea at the risk of not having time to really complete it, or finish the first idea and be unsatisfied with it? It was really frustrating, but it taught me something important.

Your first instinct isn't always the right one.

Sometimes you have to sit and brainstorm. Sketch ideas out, talk to your instructor, bounce ideas off other classmates, hell, maybe even just sit there and do nothing but think. I've done my best to apply this to my sculpture class this semester. We've started on two projects so far, and on each one I've come up with three different ideas and really thought about it before I committed to one. So make sure that the idea you decide to pursue is really the one you want to do!

Oh an hey! Speaking of sculpture, I do believe I promised a picture of my current project!


There it is, in all it's waxy glory! It looks a little different right now, because I've attached the gating system. It's a bunch of really thin red wax that's wrapped all around it like a bunch of tentacles, it looks pretty interesting. I'll post a pic if I get one before I start dipping it to make the mold. For those of you unfamiliar with this process, basically you make your sculpture in wax, attach the gating system (which is a series of funnels and vents to make sure the whole thing gets filled), you dip it in this stuff called slurry, which creates a shell, which after it is thick enough, you stick in the kiln which hardens it and melts out all of the wax, and then you pour molten metal (in my case, aluminum) into the mold. I'm going to mount my finished metal product on a box with a crank on the side so you can turn the whole thing around and it is going to be very neat.

Anywhos, that is that. You shall hear from once again once I think of another lesson! Or I am bored and feel like talking about random stuff! Or if I have something interesting post! Exclamation point!

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Lesson Four

This semester, I enrolled in a sculpture class. As I entered on my first day, I was a bit apprehensive. All throughout my life, my interest in art had been mostly focused on drawing. I'd never really done any work with my hands like sculpture, and I'd never really worked in 3D. So I was nervous. I didn't know if I would be any good at it, I didn't know if I was going to enjoy it at all, I didn't know if I was possibly about to fail spectacularly.

Fast forward to last Wednesday. I had just finished the wax portion of my sculpture (we're making sculptures in wax, then making molds out of them, melting out the wax and then pouring metal into the molds). Over the course of my working on it, I had been told several times, by both fellow students and other random people who wandered into our studio, that my sculpture was impressive and well-crafted. I can't tell you how great it made me feel to have done something like that with little experience.

So today's lesson: Push your limits!! You'll have no idea how it might turn out, but trust me, if you keep trying you'll eventually find something that you're really good at and you really like. This is also how I found my real passion: film. I took a video production class my senior year of high school on a whim, and I loved it. I knew that it was the medium I was supposed to be working in. So play around! Take a chance!


Quick Jenna update: She said she'd ask the doctor about that whooping cough thing. I asked her about the dreams too, but she said she didn't really remember them.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Quick Update

Hey y'all, I got a twitter if anybody wants to follow me. http://twitter.com/Art4Amateurs @Art4Amateurs

I'll follow you if you follow me, if you know what I mean ;)

Seriously though I'll just follow you. Nothing weird.

That still sounded creepy.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

My shtuff

Heyo! So I woke up at 3 PM yesterday and had to rush to class so I didn't have time to post those pictures I promised. But today is a new day and I shall deliver on my promises!


All of these are from my drawing class. I have a few from my design classes I wanted to post but they're Adobe Illustrator files and I don't have Illustrator on this computer so I'm gonna have to convert them at school and then post 'em. ANYWAYS HERE WE GO!







That last one is a self portrait if anyone's curious. I've cut my hair since then though. 

Anyways that is that! I shall post a new lesson when I think of one! 




P.S - Has anyone heard of any kind of bad bug going around? My aforementioned girlfriend (her name's Jenna by the way) not only has insomnia now, but has a pretty bad cough and has been having wicked fever dreams whenever she does manage to fall asleep. If anyone knows of any such thing and of any cures please let me know!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Lesson Three

Let me tell y'all a little story. Last semester I took a Design Color class, dealing with color in graphic design (in case you couldn't get that from the course title). I was doing fairly well, then came a project where we had to use paints. And paints are far more expensive than they have any right to be. And I was broke. But instead of asking my parents for money, or talking to my professor about my financial troubles, I just didn't do the project. This set me back pretty far and took a good toll on my grade.
On another note, I can't tell you how many times I walked in to my design courses or my drawing course missing some material or tool I needed, be it an exacto-knife, mounting board, pens, a certain of paper, or what. And every time I did this, it made life just a little more difficult. Sometimes I could borrow the materials I needed from classmates, but a lot of the time it ended up being a day wasted.

So today's lesson is this: Know what you need to have to get by, and make sure you have it. If you have all the correct materials, then it will make all the difference. It's a lot easier to get your ideas out of your head and onto the paper if you have all the materials necessary.


Now go forth and create! And tune in tomorrow (or the day after depending on how lazy I feel tomorrow) for a special sneak peek into the life of...ME! I'll post some drawings and photos I've done over the last year for y'all to see.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Lesson Two

I see that you have returned! Obviously it is so that you may have my vast amounts of wisdom imparted unto you. Well then, let's cut to the chase!

Lesson Numero Dos - Communicate.

Something you may have noticed about art classes is that there are in fact other people in there with you! I know, it's hard to believe, but it's true. And a lot of them, if not all, are in the same boat as you, especially if you're taking all the preliminary art classes. So here's the thing - it's easy to be the quiet mysterious stranger who guards his work like a hawk until it's completion, but frankly that's no fun. One of the best parts of a school environment is the social aspect, and it's no different when you're in an art class. Let other people see your work, talk to them about your ideas and process, and let them know what you think of their work (just don't be mean). Talking about your concepts and listening to the input of others will really help flesh out your painting, drawing, design, etc. I took a Design Color class last semester, and while it was fun and it was a nice group of people, no one really talked about their designs with anyone else. Whenever we finished our projects and had group critique, I would always get comments on my work (and I'm sure other people felt this way) that made me think "Man, I wish I'd heard that while I was still working on it". On the other end of the spectrum, this semester I'm taking a sculpture class, and so far, everyone is constantly eager to share their opinions on other work, as well as receive comments on their own. We've only begun work on our first project so far (it's a semester-length project though) and already I've received some great ideas from others on my project, as well as given a few to others that I've seen them put to use. Sharing ideas and talking really makes the whole class feel like a community, and in the end, you're gonna have a lot more fun.

So don't forget! Communication is key.


On a personal side note, if any of you vast amount of readers out there know of any cures for insomnia, please let me know through email or the comments, my girlfriend's been having it pretty bad lately and we've tried everything we can think of.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Obligitory Introductory Post

'ello there!

So my name is Ian Johnson. And I am an art student.

And it is NOT all fun and games.

Art classes are demanding, expensive, time-consuming, expensive, frustrating, expensive, grueling, and did I mention it's fucking expensive? If you think that art is what you really want to do, you need to be prepared for that, and that's why I'm here. To warn you of the trials ahead, and hopefully make 'em a little easier on ya. If you're just taking an art class because you think it's an easy A, well...maybe take a Communications class or something.

So that's lesson one, I suppose.

Know what you're getting into.





That sounded delightfully ominous! Come back tomorrow for Lesson Two!!