the birth, the sex, and the death of ... something?

So here's what.

I'm bored of my self portrait. It's going well but I'm bored. I'm looking for some sort of weird inspiration and start flipping through some Tiepolo and the ideas start coming. I've had this weird pressure from the outside low brow types to keep painting these graphic characters and at the same time this pressure from the figurative side and academic side to go more serious. I started sketching some stuff out, initially I was thinking of myself as The Creator, which I am for these little characters, and then of them reproducing inside the painting without my intervention. Then I thought of it as being the death of my cartoons ... then of maybe a birth of a new fusion of styles. In class I've been bombarded lately with images of the reclining nude ... endless talk of Titian's Venus of Urbino. So much shit swirling in my brain. essentially my head is a toilet in mid-flush.

I'm still figuring out what roles all of these elements and old parts of my life are going to play in my future work. Regardless of if this thread carries on, I learned the hell out of some new stuff on Saturday painting this for 8 hours. I CAN fit these made up characters into a real space. I CAN figure out how the light is supposed to fall. I CAN (more or less) maintain the character of these characters and the general line quality as I continue to give them volume. These were all concerns I've had in the past ... putting flat cartoons into real space ... so the solution is to learn to paint well enough that they don't have to be flat.

I think after critique the next step is to throw a ton of paint on there, obscure all the likeness and see what the fuck happens. But for now I'll have to go with the basement level motto "It's done when it's due". All I am certain of is that when Jean Pierre Roy told us "paint a self portrait with some sort of context" this is not what he was expecting.










notice the guy giving me chinky eyes?
At least it's not boring anymore.

cub scout

Here's my final self portrait after day 1 and day 2. I have another 2 weeks until due. It's coming quite fluidly, which is always unnerving. I have this idea to spend alternate days messing it up (drawing/painting whatever is in my head on the top layer) then the following day pulling the likeness back out so it's some balance of impulse/expression and reality. I enjoy the fight. Who knows if that'll work. A classmate mentioned that it looks like I'm a cub scout inside my little treehouse cabin, and she's 100% right on that - I'm thinking of fully embracing that and turning it into some regressive childhood thing.








and yes, I was a cubscout.

self portrait somewhat in the style of ...

An interesting exercise in painting class today: use the drawing from a black and white photo and paint in the color information using another artist's portrait as reference.

I referenced Ann Gale, off a 400 pixel image, and it was quite a mind-bending exercise holding the color in one part of the brain and the drawing in another, then combining the two ... a bit like an IQ test. I usually fall back on painting high chroma all the time and avoid green at all costs but here tried to embrace the mud, green, and muddy greens, then use the reds and cool lights to pull certain features forward.

Chromatically, it's very different from anything else I've done, and I'll definitely be pulling some of the new painting info into my arsenal.

studio business

The self portraits are becoming easy to whip out now. This was a couple hours while eating a sandwich. It's going to serve as an underpainting for painting class Thursday. We're using monochrome underpaintings and b&w reference photos, and copying the color treatment from an image of an admired artist. I'm trying to go with Ann Gale, but not sure if it's going to work out for me due to a dearth of good images of her paintings. I just sloppily slathered some shellac over the drawing and learned a couple great ways NOT to shellac a drawing. Did you know that shellac is a resin secreted by the Lac bug in Africa to build coccoons? So this shiny stuff is bug secretion suspended in alcohol. I love it.





Ribcage Charlie. This guy is fantastic. I've worked with him quite a lot lately, 9 hours on this pose, and 4 straight weeks in anatomy/sculpture. This was my first completely nice experience with linen and a sort of weirdly luminous lighting setup coming from below.




This model is never very inspiring to me at first, but everybody's drawings seem to turn out nicely.

more mini self portraits

I finished the series of 14 but will just post a few more. These all had weird self-imposed limitations and the colors turned out a bit muddy in the photos. The hardest was the all cool palette. Our of alizarin crimson, cad lemon, and pthalo blue it's really easy to make fluorescent greens and purples, but much harder to approach flesh tones. Basically just have to make it as muddy as possible and work into it with chroma from there. Learned a lot and nearly killed myself. I'm going to continue on as a side project though.



limitation: all warms (cad red deep, cad yellow deep, ultramarine)


limitation: all cools (alizarin crimson, cad lemon, pthalo)


limitation: use just liner brush


limitation: speed and simplicity


limitation: as few strokes as possible

30, Reset.

It just doesn't quite feel right to be working on this thing until I move as everything just feels like old news at this point. There's just nothing too exciting going on in Seattle at the moment or for the last 20 years, but I'm brimming with excitement over the move to NY. The situation has changed a bit as Jessi and I split after 3.5 years, with her going to SF now, but it's certainly the right move for the both of us at this point. That's as "Dear Livejournal" as I'll get, promise.

July 5 - 11, check out apartments in Greenpoint, Bushwick, Williamsburg areas. I'm now moving solo so probably just looking for a room. Hook me up if you know a good place with a bit of workspace perhaps under $1100.

August 1, the big move. Won't be as big as anticipated since I'm just taking a big suitcase, shipping books and art supplies and computer gear and bike. Fresh start.

Sept 9, first day of school at NYAA. Oh, what to wear.

I just turned 30 and I feel good. Everything is ahead of plan and there are spreadsheets if you need proof. I figured I should paint myself before whatever milestone this is, so last week I painted my first self portrait and had to turn it in wet and prematurely, but on Friday it took first place at the Best of Gage show.