Using Imagination to Create

            Nothingness. All white. My mind is blank. I start to think of something, something really beautiful that could fill the empty space. Then lose myself in the process of planning. The canvas looks so white, with the little dots that cave in all over it. The smell. It smells so paint-like. So fresh. I feel so desperate for an image to appear in my head. And I can almost imagine the worlds that I, as an artist can create. People just like me: artists, writers, and others who use their imagination to create new worlds, they call themselves the creators but the worlds we create aren’t our own. We can’t take credit. We merely copy them from the one creator that created us all. It is him that we owe our gift of imagination and many other talents that we obtain.  

            Again I start thinking of all the other beautiful pictures I came across in the painting gallery. Horses. Beautiful houses and beautiful trees. Then a thought comes across my mind. "I know!" I gasp really loud, "I know what I want!" Trying really hard not to loose the image that I created in my head I take the brush. It feels so light in my hands; in fact, my hands start to shake a little when I start to sketch the image onto the canvas with light colors trying hard not to mess up. But it happens all the time. Messing up, its one of those moments a person can not foretell in the process of creating. Sometimes I need to mess up in order to accomplish something even greater. A beautiful tree is starting to reemerge. The twigs are so twisted and dark. The paint is starting to clog up on my brush so I wash the brush with a stinky liquid that makes the paint dissolve. The liquid almost makes me puke, the smells of the chemicals aren’t attracting at all. At least not to me. Then as some time passes and the oil based paint is beginning to dry, I start adding little details. Fruits. Leaves. When time passes I add on little lines on the leaves that would make them seam real almost touchable. Every little megapixel on the canvas is full of color; nothing is just pure white anymore. Everything is full of ideas. Finally. Finally my tree is complete. I feel happiness when I start to sign the painting. “VALPRO”, just like always, and then the date. The white canvas is not so white anymore. I created the tree and named it the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Then I put my paint away, wash my brush and leave the room. I leave the room because I have to change my perspective on my own creation to see the flaws if there is any, and then fix them. Of course there are people out there that are always better at creating something beautiful but using my imagination and skills makes my mind evolve and that is a gift.

Byron's Club Blog

            Byron's Club is a parallel blog to our own blog that was created by a lovely group of students Athena Proctor, Austin Bell, Bailey Copeland, and Alejandra Garcia. The theme of the blog is Lord Byron, just like our own. What I like about their blog is the formatting. Their background fits in with the theme and with the place where Lord Byron grew up. The colors that are used on the blog are: light green, light blue, white, gray, and orange. The use of numerous colors makes the blog stand out and attract attention. The other visible characteristics I like about the blog are that at the bottom of the page the group has combined three images, Lord Byron, London, and Scotland. The images are totally appropriate to the theme of the blog because Lord Byron is the main subject, who was born in Scotland and then lived in London.

            Now, as for the content I found a lot of valuable information that was interesting. The facts about Lord Byron’s life totally had my attention. The poem Don Juan by Lord Byron is really one of his greatest works if not the greatest. The posting, “Byron’s Masterpiece- Don Juan”, by Bailey Copeland really pulled my attention because of the big sized font. I wanted to write something about Don Juan in my blog but I couldn’t really think of what format I should write it in. The other thing that really pulled my attention is the drawing of Lord Byron by Lydia Burris. It can mean a lot of different things for people who look at it but my interpretation of the drawing is that Lord Byron is the root of the Romantic Movement or at least one of the main characters. The other interpretation that kind of makes sense to me is Lord Byron’s thoughts were strong as the roots of the tree that hold the whole tree.

            This blog is great for someone who doesn’t know anything about Lord Byron and his works because the blog includes Byron’s biography and a lot of details that are needed to shape the opinion of a reader on what the author’s message was and what the author was as a person. Great blog! 

Byron's Self-Consciousness and Gothic Side

            The portrait below shows Lord Byron when he was young. It was painted by the famous artist Richard Westall in 1813.  It is the most famous portrait of Byron and it is displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

            Lord Byron was a really self conscious individual and why he became very self conscious is because he was born with a defect called the clubfoot. This defect describes a person with one or both feet turned inward at the ankle. His childhood was not so much effected by the defect or at least it didn't say so in my research. Just imagine though, having a weird looking foot and being made fun of. (Previous sentence is my guess not a fact.)  

            All the portraits and drawings of Lord Byron were changed a little because Byron wanted only perfect pictures even if it meant that the pictures will not look 100% like real him. Historians describe him as a beautiful young man who had the looks. From my point of view he was a total player. Byron had a lot of young women who wanted his attention and sex.

            He made himself a legend. When he wrote his works, some of them were not published, actually a big amount of his works were burned. It is unknown exactly why, but the burning of his works made people use there imagination and try to guess what exactly was in the pages he burned.

            In the research I have found out that Byron had a dark side to him, a gothic side. The research states that he had a mansion and he was throwing a lot of parties there. Inviting a lot of young women and men made it possible for him to bring the word out. Costume parties were one of the personal favorites for Lord Byron. His favorite costume was monk costume. At the parties there was everything, alcohol, drugs, and sex.

            In the picture below you can see a whine container. This wine container was one of the favorite things Lord Byron liked to use. It complimented his monk look.  

Citations:

http://englishhistory.net/byron/images.html 

http://ssad.bowdoin.edu:9780/snipsnap/eng242-s05/space/Lord+Byron

Lord Byron Biography

                                                                           Part One 

Part Two 

Part Three 

Part Four 

Part Five 

Lord Byron's Biography

The English poet Lord Byron was one of the most important figures of the Romantic Movement; a period when English literature was full of  new styles of writing and themes of love, sex, drugs. Because of his writings, active life, and looks he came to be considered the perfect image of the romantic poet-hero. Lord Byron was born January 22, 1788. His family was noble, his father was Captain "Mad Jack" Byron and his mother was Catherine Gordon. Lord Byron was born with a defect known as clubfoot. Despite the awkward way he walked Lord Byron’s childhood was full of play and adventures. Lord Byron’s name changed throughout his life. He was christened George Gordon Byron in London. “Gordon” was his baptismal name, not a surname. Then his father changed his own name to claim his wife’s estate and took on an additional surname “Gordon”. After the change Lord Byron called himself George Byron Gordon. When some time passed Byron’s mother-in-law has died, and in order for Byron to inherit half of her estate he had to change his name again. When he changed his name he signed himself Noel Byron because his mother-in-law’s name was Judith Noel.

            Lord Byron was a celebrity so he traveled the world and visited numerous countries. He had a lot of debts; his mother called it “reckless disregard for money." From 1809 to 1811 Byron went on a Grand Tour to get noticed. He had to avoid most of Europe because of the Napoleonic Wars and instead turned to the Mediterranean. He also traveled to Spain and then Albania.

            George Byron was a famous persona and that is why he had attracted a lot of young women. He had a great handsome physical appearance and that was one of the big factors that made his so attractive for females. Being a celebrity meant having easy asses to almost everything that anyone can desire. Lord Byron had a lot of affairs. He had a rather open affair with Lady Caroline Lamb while she was married, this shocked the British public. Seeing that the public was not happy Byron broke up the relationship with Lady Caroline and swiftly moved on to Jane Elizabeth Scott, nicknamed “Lady Oxford.” Afterwards Lord Byron had more affairs which were complicated.

            Lord Byron has written many works but his longest was Don Juan. He also wrote all these works that are listed below and more:

• Hours of Idleness (1807)
  
  
• English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)
  
  
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Cantos I & II (1812)
  
  
• The Giaour (1813)
  
  
• The Bride of Abydos (1813)
  
  
• The Corsair (1814)
  
  
• Lara, A Tale (1814)
  
  
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
  
  
• Don Juan (1819–1824; incomplete on Byron's death in 1824)
  
  
• Marino Faliero (1820)
  
  
• Cain (1821)
  
  
• The Deformed Transformed (1822)

Lord Byron's Biography