justin owens

I’m starting to feel a lot more comfortable at work. I get nervous working up front at the register, I end up feeling more pressure when helping customers. I’m slow and worry about getting their order wrong or making their espresso drinks poorly, but it’s getting easier.

I spent most of the day yesterday in the back helping to prepare foods for today. I’m slow with a knife, but everyone has been really helpful in showing me tips. They all seem to understand that I’m coming in with no experience in that department and have been very patient with me.

My big story from yesterday was from dicing onions. The first few had me crying, but after a while I couldn’t feel it anymore…although I did feel a bit dizzy! I made sure to take breaks and drink water. ^_^ I felt sorry for the gentleman working next to me though. When Kimi came back to visit me, she said she felt the wave of onion from five feet away. She kept her visit short!

I started a new job today at The Bread Workshop. Kimi has been working there since the end of June, I’ll be working there on a temporary basis. That works for me, since school will be starting September 4th.

Today I was learning the basics of opening and how to use the registers. I was also making espresso drinks, which was a bit stressful. I really didn’t want to mess up anyone’s drink! They make all their own breads and pastries fresh each day, I hope to get in on that. I’ve always wanted to work in a bakery ^_^

I’m really looking forward to getting back to school. I’m excited by most of my classes, I’ll be taking advanced animation two in which I believe we’ll be focusing on facial animation. I also have an intro to 2d animation class, that should be interesting. I hope to get a lot of drawing practice from it. I’ll have a intermediate figuring drawing class, I hope to make it to more workshops this semester. Finally I’ll be taking a class called gestures and emotions in art. Kind-of an acting class for animators.

I got a new plastic overlay for my graphics tablet, the last one had gotten quite scratched. The tablet is working better, but that unfortunately didn’t entirely fix it. Compared to Kimi’s tablet, it just isn’t as responsive or sensitive. It’s frustrating when it doesn’t work right, but with the new overlay, it’s at least better.

I’ve noticed an improvement in my digital painting recently which has inspired me to finish some older works. I want to finish my three point perspective illustration from last semester. I had been a bit daunted by the image, but I feel prepared to get back into again. I’ll start on that tomorrow after I get some web work done.

Some experimentation.

I’m in the computer lab at school right now. I haven’t had much time this week for updates. I’ve done a little drawing here and there, but nothing to post yet.

I’m working on my next animation assignment right now, a little ballman jumping between roofs. It’s fun to be doing an action piece, it’s a nice change of pace.