Self Portrait XVI

College Schedule for Spring 2009

Fundamental Studio: 2d
Fundamental Studio: 3d
Italian 150
Ancient to Medieval Art History
Chocolate: Food of the Gods (topics course)

Self Portrait XV and Dark Manner Charcoal Drawings

Reworking of XIV:

Self Portrait XIV, Digital Painting, 2008

Did some dark manner charcoal drawings for my drawing class. Subjects were to be harshly lit. Had never done dark manner before and really enjoyed the process. It is nice to do charcoal and not have to worry about creating unwanted smudges.

Click to view these larger:

Self Portrait XIV

Self Portrait XIV: Confidence in Ugly Body Image, Digital Painting, 2008


Halloween lyrics special:

Shadows upon shadows passing
It is now 1831,
And as always I am absorbed with a delicate thought
It is how poetry has indefinite sensations
To which end,
music
is an essential
Since the comprehension of sweet sound
is our most indefinite conception
Music when combined with a pleasurable idea
is poetry
Music without the idea
is simply
music
Without music
or an intriguing idea
Color,
becomes pallor
Man,
becomes carcass
Home,
becomes catacomb
And the dead,
are but for a moment,
motionless.

From Alan Parson's Project's Fall of the House of Usher, composed of the writings of Edgar Allen Poe

MOSSSSSSHHHH

Here's a laughable take on colorful take on a mosh pit from 1994 as a mural for some music store:

To me it just looks like they're all just dancing in place but my friend Grey informs me that the women on the far left is clearly throwing her windmill back and the guy to the right of her is definitely two-stepping.

And here are two much more admirable, accurate, and good versions from Dan Witz:

Mosh Pit 2001. Oil on Canvas. 48x46.

Big Mosh Pit 2007. Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas. 46x70.

Self Portrait XIII

"Self Portrait XIII: Denial of Self", Digital Painting, 2008

Ok so I'm pretty busy with college classes but I managed to get this semi interesting self portrait done anyway. Drawing class is going well but it's mostly basics to the extreme so I don't have any real work to show from that right now.

Blue Scholars

Digging the lyrics of Seattle Hip-Hop Group Blue Scholars:

"While the people sleep
I'ma speak till they wake.

Beats. Rhymes and life.
Each time I write
the fire ignites
I light the sky
There's an infinite inkwell
high above the city
Dip the pen steadily
Sing the melody."
-from The Inkwell

"Fifty-thousand deep
And it sounds like thunder
When our feet pound streets
...
They call this a riot?
I call it an uprising."
-from 50k Deep

"And my people building monuments to weather the flood
I'ma leave how I came, screaming covered in blood
Died once, born twice
Both times we knuckled up, alongside our people
We gonna struggle with love
Struggle with love
Struggle with love"
-from Opening Salvo

"I spark a fire for the cold in the dark
Peace and war both pumping soul in my heart
And though they can't keep what they stole from the art
And they love to see beef because it throws us apart

More fire for the people
More jobs for the people
And more music for the people
More books for the people
More schools for the people
More love for the people
More love for the people
More love for the people"
-from Fire for the People

Also starting Drawing 100 and I'm loving it! I'm expected some great work to come out of this and my skills to improve drastically.

Self Portrait XI

Fauve + Francesco Clementeish =

"Self Portrait XI", Digital Painting, 2008

NYC Photo

Was looking through my NYC photos and found these two which I thought would look really interesting cropped and juxtaposed like so (right click view image for full size):

"Hotel Room: A Study in Light and Wallpaper", Photography, 2008

Painting is one day from finished. Will have photos up soon. Currently digging and checking out the work of Umberto Boccioni and Alberto Burri.

National Geographic Picture

I've been working on a new painting for the last week or so. The progress has been excellent. Although the last session sorta ruined my recent good mood with the piece's morose mood. Been listening to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album and am highly impressed.

Here is a National Geographic photo of the day by my favorite nature photographer:


Joel Sartore "Snarling Wolf, Ely Minnesota", 1998

Although it was taken with a remote controlled camera, I find it highly well composed. Carcass's blood, organs, fur, and bones nearly become an amazing sort of abstract landscape with the wolf's head perfectly balancing the composition.

Being Quite Productive Lately...

Went back in and actually made my latest portrait into how I intended it to be:

"Self Portrait X: Tissue"
Then I worked with some old stock photos I had of a particularly interesting basement as well as a photo I took while flying to NY:

"Flight Deck"
Then I took some inspiration from those medical diagrams you always see and made a "dark" version. Nice way to flex my design skills but still use some painterly elements, feels strongly like an illustration:

"Asphyxia"
Right click view image any of these for full resolutions.

Lately I've been listening to some pretty great music too. Couple of live shows of Sonorous, a post rock/indie/ambient band from right here in fort wayne. Also downloaded a free amazing indie concept album by the very talented Dan Warren called The Scientist. Go download it now!

Self Portrait X

Started using Corel Painter and I love it:

Mirror referenced.

Back from NYC

Unfortunately was very sick during my visit to MoMa (and wasn't able to appreciate much of what I saw although I was ecstatic to see Picasso's Boy Leading a Horse, one of my favorite paintings by him). Then I got better and we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they had a special exhibition retrospective on JW Turner, my favorite seascape/landscape painter. However, I was largely unaware of his groundbreaking 1840s work late in his life which blew me off my feet. Armed with an insane obsession with color and inspiration from the early color theory of Goethe's writing, Turner flirted with impressionism and abstraction in the 1840s decades before the movements would begin. These canvases hit me as perfect examples of emotive hard hitting art and blew my mind:

"Shade and Darkness - The Evening before the Deluge", 1843

"Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) - The Morning after the Deluge - Moses Writing the Book of Genesis", 1843

I overheard numerous people complaining with lines such as "see, now, I can't tell what that is" at the exhibit... if there are still people that can't appreciate this as art today, imagine how controversial and risky it must have been in the 1840s?

I also saw a few other favorite works at the Met such as Sargent's "Madame X" and two Warhols I actually liked (!?!?).

Later we visited the Guggenheim where they had a retrospective on a Louise Burgeois which gave me a great introduction to her work which I had only stumbled on occasionally previously.

Still Life

Had this outdoors still life done quite a while... just now getting around to posting because of broken camera (right click view image for full size):


Progress Animation (right click view if not play):


Flying to NYC tomorrow!!! Be back in town the 22nd.

Rebecca Peters

Digging the collage work of Rebecca Peters


Rebecca Peters - "Making Butterflies"

Rebecca Peters - "Worms for the Babies"

The vivid colors, intense texturality, and pseudo surrealism appeal to me on a similar level as Max Ernst's paintings:


Max Ernst - "The Eye of Silence"

Monday my Dad and I hop on a plane and fly to NYC. Where I will be staying for a week and hitting up MoMA and Guggenheim multiple types. Extremely excited to experience probably the largest and best collection of modern art I will ever see in my life. Other activities include the usual NY site seeing and a viewing of Spamalot on broadway.

Fall College Schedule

Elementary Italian I: should help if i ever go on an art trip through italy
Intro to Philosophy: always good to contemplate existence as an artist
Fundamental Studio: Drawing I: taking this one for obvious reasons
Art History: Renaissance through Modern Art (honors) : pumped i got into the honors class for this, fairly excited to take it
Topics in History: Ataturk: Turkey's Secular Revolution (honors seminar): one of the few honors topics course left available but I also know a bit about ataturk and how he single handily altered the fate of his country so I figured this could be extremely interesting

Unfortunately couldn't fit in the Intro to Programming class I wanted to take but other than that I'm extremely excited/happy with this schedule. I'm sure it will be thoroughly interesting. I'm saving the fundamental studio: 2d and 3d courses for the spring semester.

Andrew Loomis

Finished a new still life painting but I can't take any photos because my camera is broken. The warranty covered what happened so I should have it replaced or repaired by the end of the month.

Recently stumbled upon the amazingly helpful series of books by the now deceased Andrew Loomis. Each covers a different subject in art beautifully and since the copyrights have expired have become public domain. They are all six available for download in pdf format here.

I have particularly been studying from "Figure Drawing for all It's Worth" to get my anatomy skills up to par. However I've skimmed through "Drawing the Head and Hands" and it too appears highly valuable. I definitely am planning on downloading all six books.

Gustave Courbet

Read an article on Courbet today... really digging the sincerity of his highly emotive portraits:

The Desperate Man, Gustave Courbet, 1844-45
Wounded Man, Gustave Courbet

"Self Portrait with Pipe", Gustave Courbet

A Young Neil Young

A referenced digital painting of my favorite singer-songwriter of all time. Not so sure about the background and guitar sharing the same color will have to study into that and see how that effects the composition later. Does it poke holes in the image? Create confusion with positive and negative space? Or does it simply emphasize mr. young's body over the guitar's body? Ugh.

Some quick lyrics to go with the pic:

Old man lying by the side of the road
With the lorries rolling by,
Blue moon sinking from the weight of the load
And the buildings scrape the sky,
Cold wind ripping down the alley at dawn
And the morning paper flies,
Dead man lying by the side of the road
With the daylight in his eyes.

Dont let it bring you down
Its only castles burning,
Find someone whos turning
And you will come around.

Blind man running through the light of the night
With an answer in his hand,
Come on down to the river of sight
And you can really understand,
Red lights flashing through the window in the rain,
Can you hear the sirens moan?
White cane lying in a gutter in the lane,
If youre walking home alone.

Dont let it bring you down
Its only castles burning,
Just find someone whos turning
And you will come around.

Neil Young's "Don't Let It Bring You Down" off of the album "After the Goldrush"

Senior Art Show

The senior art show has been installed at snider. Featuring works developed over the course of a semester by fellow seniors Anna Lepsch, Zakk Roberts, Danielle Humbert, and Ethan Wolfe as well as myself:

My piece (what I've been working on for a good month now), shortly after being installed:

"Family Photo 2005", Mixed Media on Paper, 2008

Self Portrait VII

Anecdote

A very interesting story I read on an art forum posted by Nathan Christie (I've taken the liberty to clean up the internet speak into proper grammar so this is not his actual words but rather the same general sentiment of the anecdote):

So my wallet got stolen April 9th, and i couldn't replace anything for a while (finally got access to my bank account today) because I had no documents. I was thinking about how everyone was good to me and gave me food and shit over the last month, so I decided to get this homeless guy a coffee. We sat down and got to talking on the sidewalk on 14th and Starbucks.

This girl comes by... and... starts to take the homeless man's picture and he asks, "What the heck are you doing?" So she says, "Oh, is it alright if i take your picture?" And he tells her, "No that's fine. But, not like that..." And he starts giving her all this shit about the way she's got the camera setup and asking what she's shooting on and whether she's checked the light and if her film speed was blah blah and everything. And so it turns out he's a photo journalist that lost his house because his wife died and he couldn't pay the rent which sent his credit to hell. Then, the girl got scared and just sorta left.

And he says "What's sad is that she probably doesn't realize that the moment there, where two people realize they have something in common, is actually more beautiful than any of those boring old shots of homeless people that everyone takes."

Sunshine

Took this photo out of Zac's sunroof... I like it quite lots.

Always Look on The Brighter Side of Life

I was feeling royally bummed and rather depressed today (probably a result of listening to too much grunge yesterday) when I stumbled across a video of the end of Monty Python's "Life of Brian" which cheered me up instantly:



I am currently considering going to a show at FWMoA that Metavari is playing Wednesday at 9. They are an amazing post rock electronic band (http://www.myspace.com/metavari) There's another group headlining from Austin and it's 6 bucks to get it.

Listener Project

A rough digitally painted self portrait... I kind of dig it:

Earlier this month I saw an amazing band live called "Listener Project". Their music is based around incredible poetry. They're lyrics aren't available online so I decided to transcribe one of my favorite songs by them so I could reflect on it a bit more. It is called "It's Time for Drastic Measures" and you can listen along as you read the lyrics here:

And when the music stops
All we have are words merely
So listen up
They're not taking you seriously

And I'd write the words
If I only knew what you needed
Touch you in the heart
Try and stop the bleeding

All I want is for you to be ok
I'll do anything for you
Just say the word
and I'll write the words

And tell everyone our story
Try and find their hearts
Hope that I'll nick an artery

All I want is for us to be ok
Give my life for you
Just say the word
And I'll say the words

It's what I do
It's not my choice
They touch me in my heart
And I try to give them all a voice

And hey

I don't want it if it's easy
I can't have it until I've really worked freely
Cuz all you'll have is this singing

But I'll write the words
And if you'll give me five minutes
I might break your heart
But we're just beginning

All I want is for you to be ok
I'll do anything for you
Just say the word
And I'll spread the word.

As far as this body can reach
Try to find their hearts
No matter how deep
and I'll die for you

I'll love you all with all I am
I'll do anything for you just say the words

Hey...

When I stop believing
I hope you'll pick up all these pieces that I'm leaving
Cuz you don't want me
If i'm cutting all these corners
These corners

And when the music stops
All we have are words merely
So listen up
They're not taking you seriously

They don't respect you
It might be your managing style
And they neglect you
You might try not being kind

But no one likes you
It's time to start docking the pay
But if they hurt you
You might try filing a complaint

But remember
Sticks and stones
And stick those stones
Where you can use them again
Make them bruise where you send them
That they'll lose in the end
When they feel your revenge

But, right nows the time and it's got to be drastic
Trying to hold it all together
with a prayer and some plastic
ties
No matter what the size
I try and try
and die
A little death every time I close my eyes
And ressurect and pass right by
Another day another chance another window

But they're not taking you seriously
But, hey,
we're downsizing your accounts
We're all hoping things will bounce
We gotta do what's right for the economy
We have to let you go because we have no more money

They're not taking you seriously
You're oblivious and can't feel shame
It must be how you carry yourself
You're the only one to blame

So listen up
Well, listen up

When I stop believing
I hope you'll pick up all these pieces that I'm leaving
Cuz you don't want me
If i'm cutting all these corners
I've been cutting all these corners
these corners

Listener Project, "It's Time For Drastic Measures"

Song of Myself Finished

I finally got around to finishing Song of Myself. It is an amazing poem and definitely worth the long read. The last bits were excellent.

There is that in me - I do not know what it is - but I know it is in
me.

Wrench'd and sweaty - calm and cool then my body becomes,
I sleep - I sleep long.

I do not know it - it is without name - it is a word unsaid,
It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.

Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.

Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and
sisters.

Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
It is not chaos or death - it is form, union, plan - it is eternal
life - it is Happiness.

Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" Section 50

Colliding Galaxies

Pictures of colliding galaxies taken by the Hubble Telescope. I find these inspiring both visually and conceptually, in their beauty and the reminding of just how minuscule I am in this universe:
SciAM Article

Female Face Studies

Yeah so I decided my new goal for the next couple of months is to hone my skills at drawing the female face which means doing study after study after study after study. Direct photo reference:

First one I struggled hard core with the makeup and my colors were very dirty. Second was a little better but the skin far too rough. Third and fourth I feel I got to the proper intensity and fixed a lot of problems so I decided to do a no reference version to solidify what I had learned:
Left is purely no reference. Right is a revision after sitting on it for a bit and comparing it to my references (mostly just punched up some more dark tones)

Even More Whitman...

Art activities kind of getting put off a bit while working on my senior paper this month:

Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,
Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,
My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly
different from myself,
On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs,
Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,
Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,
Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,
Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist,
Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and
pasture-fields,
Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,
They bribed to swap off with touch and go and graze at the edges of
me,
No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger,
Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while,
Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me.

The sentries desert every other part of me,
They have left me helpless to a red marauder,
They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me.

I am given up by traitors,
I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the
greatest traitor,
I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me there.

You villain touch! what are you doing? my breath is tight in its
throat,
Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me.

Walt Whitman - "Song of Myself" (Part 28)

More Whitman

Still trucking into Walt Whitman's epically long poem "Song of Myself":

" This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,
It is for the wicked just same as the righteous, I make appointments
with all,
I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of
hair,
This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,
This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.

Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the
side of a rock has.

Do you take it I would astonish?
Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering
through the woods?
Do I astonish more than they?

This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you."

-Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" Section 19

Need to go down to Kinko's to see if getting prints of my larger digital works is worth the cost but I haven't gotten around to it. Senior show is looming as well as FWMoA members show...

Inspiration Resolution

I really enjoy reading Nathan Abel's art blog (http://nathanabels.blogspot.com/) because he manages to post profusely about his inspirations and you can really see how they relate to his own work which is endlessly interesting. So, I'm going to start trying to do that more often myself.

I stumbled upon and begun reading Walt Whitman's 52 section poem: "Song of Myself". It contains a lot of transcendentalism as well as inspiring bits and pieces all relating to his own feeling of his place in this universe and his body's oneness with nature. Although there are many lines each and every one of them are immensely powerful. I've read up to part 12 and will continue to try to do at least 10 each day. Here's a bit of my favorite (2):

"Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,"

-Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

Toledo/Detroit Road Trip

Took a much needed road trip to Toledo and Detroit over spring break with my pops. On the first day, we stopped at Toledo's Museum of Art that had an amazing collection for being free. After leaving there spent hours going back and forth along the Maumee taking in it's and the city's incredible beauty. I highly recommend visiting sometime. I spent some time getting some great photography such as:

Every shot was better than any I had ever taken before.

Stayed in a hotel that night then headed up to detroit which had a larger and much more impressive collection than Toledo but was costed 8 bucks to get in. I got to take many photos of the exhibit and will post up particularly inspiring works when I get a chance. Right now I'm working on digitally altering all these stock photos I took in Toledo into some hopefully impressive new works.

When I get back to school on monday I'm going to jump into my "senior project". It's going to be pretty massive and will take the rest of the semester. I'll keep you guys updated.

Some Photography Based Stuff

Some simple photographic images edited digitally. Click for full size. Took a day off school to visit IUPUI's Herron School of Art for an open house. Saw some cool stuff but overall still feel like I made the right choice in going to IU.

Photography, Radial Digital

Oh boy... I've done a ton of stuff since my last post... (!!click to see full size!!).
Um... first I did some photography on a beautiful morning when the sky turned red:


I took about 20 photos and filled up my stock for digital stuff quite nicely. I also took some photos the next night when the sky became incredibly foggy and got this as a result:

Before getting around to creating the awesome digital collages that were to be created from these photos and also got around to doing some mixed media (acrylic, paper bag, and sepia india ink):

Also a humorous mini installation entitled "It's a Trap"... this is the fourth photo from the series:

And finally the digital collages from the photographs (along with their full rez detail shots):

The actual full sizes for all of these have dimensions in the upper 40s and 50s of inches! Massive overwhelming images of light and color!