New site

I redid my site: http://www.fluidbeauty.com

Tongue tied

This week's painting

In a hurry. Crazy week. Went to San Francisco and Portland.

Here's this week's painting. More words soon.

They're back

Well, whaddya know? It’s sunny out and I recently acquired a back yard, so I took some pictures of some paintings.

Thus: My first weekly painting is up.



If you’re on Facebook, you’ve seen it in progress.

I’ll put a page together with the scketches and the painting in progress and the final picture soon. I’ve got a wedding in MD this weekend, so I won’t have much time to get to it.

BTW, man, I love May and Memorial Day weekend and the Spring. I’m going to go outside.

It has begun

Finished the painting last night.

The cell phone pic I took of it (up on my Facebook page) is so distorted that I'm going to skip posting it here. I'll have a nice photo up on Thurs.

Here's the sketch I did before the painting:

T-Minus 3 days

Looks like the painting I worked on a couple of Saturdays ago is going to be my first weekly painting.

I still have a bunch of things that aren't worked out, like how I'm going to take pictures of these things and post them regularly. Also, last year when I started weekly paintings, I had a lot better idea of what I was going to paint.

But, never mind all that, I'm diving in.

Here's the latest progress on the painting. While it's going well and I'm achieving what I wanted, there's a problem with the current painting that makes the mouth look crooked. Also, I'm being a little tentative, I might push the contrast in part of the shadow on the face. And potentially ruin it ... Should I play it safe and guarantee a painting to start the weekly painting project, or go for it?

Find out on Thurs.

Meanwhile, I have to drive to Valhalla NY on Wed costing me a day. Oh, and next week will see me in Pittsburgh and San Francisco. Stay tuned.

Tonight

Still recovering from a trip to NYC. For work.

Well, recovered, but now my stomach’s a little wack.

Drew last night. Painting tomorrow.

Have many people to get back to on the internets. Didn’t have much internets access last week.

Hey, take a look at philly.com. Let me know what you think. I had a lot to do with it.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of making a couple of my upcoming projects plenty collaborative after a combo of being inspired by a presentation i saw last week by Sir George Martin about the creation of Sgt. Pepper and how it reminded my of things I did (on a much smaller scale with much smaller success) to be creative in the past. I’ll have more info here if I move forward with it.

If you want to participate, tell me the name of your favorite Greek Myth.

More tomorrow.

Saturday Night

Somehow I managed to have the most productive night ever on Saturday. Above the cut, a painting in progress. Below the cut, me congratulating myself. Also, Amanda Kimmel deserved to win Survivor. Just saying. And, why do the Flyers lose defensemen every time they get to the Conference finals? Thanks for the loss on my birthday in '04, if you can find a way to win three more, you can lose on my birthday this year, too!!





Between 7PM and 2:10AM
I watched parts of The Fountainhead, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and The Man Who Fell to Earth
Ate a Schwartzie from Primo's
I move all the furniture from the master bedroom into the other bedroom so we can paint
Set up the gym in my basement (after the 3rd waterheater was put in)
Did a set of crunches on the abs machine in the basement
Cleared and cleaned of my painting table (because of the installation of the 3rd waterheater)
Took out the recycling
Watched the Stars vs. Redwings
Sketched out part of the unfinished Halloween colorforms project
Caught up on some LiveJournal and Facebook
Read a little of Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd
Sketched the column and worked on the painting above

I was dreaming when I wrote this forgive me ZZZZZZ

Took a nap. Had a dream.

In the dream Stephanie Seymour and her husband Peter Brandt where walking through our house before going out to dinner with my wife and myself.

They noticed the paintings I had up and both nodded. Before we entered the elevator (in my house? remember it's a dream) I asked them what they were thinking.

Peter said, "They're beautiful. I like the cheeky, beautiful ones more than the boring beautiful ones."
I said, "which ones are the cheeky ones? I have cheeky art ideas, but didn't think they ever made it to my paintings."

He pointed to two. On was like this
But was mostly warm colors, not cool and had little versions of the model, one on each of her shoulders. On the left it said BEFORE on the right it said AFTER.

The other was warm colors again, and had three images floating each above the other in vertical alignment. At the top was a woman's face, in the middle was a full figure of a man and I don't remember the bottom image.

For years I've been having recurring dreams where I meet Stephanie Seymour and I spend most of the dream searching for my business card.

A few weeks ago I had a dream where I handed her the business card shortly after meeting her.

- - - - - - - -
I woke up to my iPod playing Opiate by Tool, then Third Eye.

It's the version of Third Eye with the Timothy Leary quotes, not the Bill Hicks quotes.

Here's what I heard:

"Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities — the political, the religious, the educational authorities — who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing — forming in our minds — their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself."

A quick search to find that quote when writing this entry put in front of this Leary quote first:


"...chaos is basically good. Relax. Surf the waves of chaos and learn how to redesign your own realities. Sit back. Flow. Open your eyes. Turn off your minds. Unfocus, and let the waves of chaos roll over your brain. Float. Drift, Zoom. Design. Create new order, your order, your style from chaos.

Yes. Yes. Chaos. Yes, yes, chaos . . ."

Some people don't use watercolor because they find it to hard to control. That's exactly why i like it. It's about more than me. I'm only responsible/can-take-credit-for part of the results. But it's also a dance/agreement between order and chaos. Between what I can and can't control. The brush I use and the physics of water and pigment and cotton and gravity and humidity and atmosphere, driven by my/our consciousness.

My opinion is that these things don't come through in my paintings much. But I don't think it's a big deal.

I think what does come across is a blend of colors and emotions. My goal is to capture sentiment that is hard to express any other way.

I have been recently considering the upside/downside of using oils. These thoughts today point in the direction of sticking with watercolors ...

running out of steam.

more later

Oh and: it would make sense to paint now. I have a bachelor party to go to. I will sketch on the train ride over to Philly. I do plan to paint tomorrow. Tune in to find out how that goes ...

you are jealous

I am going here tonight:
http://www.chillertheatre.com/gt/gtc4.htm

i plan to paint some time tomorrow or sunday. however, i have a bachelor party tomorrow and trish comes back from boston on sun. still don't have that weekly deadline for another few weeks.

here's the next image i'm painting:

Finished

Here are two horrible pictures (courtesy of my LG V 9800) of the painting I finished on Monday night. It feel so good to be painting again.

I'll be working on the next one some time this weekend. I'm not starting the weekly officially, yet.

I'll take a nice photo in the next couple of days and write about what I was trying to do and what went right.

Here she is:

phew

you are reading a journal of a man who painted yesterday. It's been 8 months, which could be the longest I've gone without painting in about 10 years. That's weird in that it never felt that long and it was certainly not intentional.

I've got to do day job stuff, but I'll post about why it took so long, how I got back into it and what's next.

For now, here's the work in progress:

Style

Artistic style is what’s left when you take away everything that you can take away.

Pensool

I've been sketching like a good boy and yesterday and today I used a pencil for the first time in a couple of years. Yes I know that's weird.

Also, in the shower today where all ideas are born, I realized that I should draw what I see and paint what I feel.

Here's a pencil sketch of Stoya:



I'm going to a one day conference dealy tomorrow. No replies until Friday.

Professionalism

Thanks "August Rush" for contacting me to work together, setting up a shoot, reading my multiple requests for a confirmation and never responding, in effect canceling our shoot together. That's awesomely professional. I look forward to seeing your cell phone photos for years to come.

I'm done shooting with models I've never met.

Also, I'm taking a break form shoots until June to get back to the paintin'

I hope to work on something tomorrow, I'll let you know

A groove

I haven't posted much here about my recent struggles with drawing, until I retro-post, you can see them at: My Live Journal

Here's the most recent post, with the good news that I'm liking my drawings again.

Short version:
So, here's one of the drawings I did yesterday.



Long version:
Drew again last night and had fun. There's a place, a state of mind that I sometimes get to, where I am having fun and for lack of a better phrase am "fucking around." Playing around? Not really sure how to describe it or what to call it, but it's when (first instinct was to say 'where' - future topic) I start embellishing on the photo. I throw some scribbles in, I use abstract marks to represent something realistic and the same idea/image is communicated to the viewer despite the fact that the thing I'm trying to represent and the mark look completely different yet convey the same thing. That's when I'm having fun. That's the result of it. Not so much the goal, because when I try to do it, it doesn't happen. When I don't try to do it, it does happen. And it's not so much working on "not trying to do it" as it is just being in the moment, being in the idea of what the image says, not reproducing an image.

I'm going to let that sink in (for me) and come back to this topic later. And make a note to discuss why reproducing the image isn't very interesting, but representing it is. Another note, so I don't forget what the hell I'm trying to say, is that photographs are a better tool for reproduction, but drawings/paintings, etc are my choice for representation. The result (and guess I'm writing about it now instead of later) is that I can convey what I see when I look at the photograph/subject-in-real-life with the drawing. You look at a photograph and see something, maybe it's what I see, but you look at the painting and if I've done my job, you have a better chance to see what I see. Or more accurately, you start to feel some of what I feel and you see what that feeling evokes in your mind based on your experiences, personality, and aspirations (past, present, future).

Or something like that.

Hey, and the absence of comments means this is interesting or this is boring. I'm gong to keep posting about these thought processes, but I am curious to know if they're interesting.

More Current Events

Continuing the current events series, here's Hillary:

Current Events?

So I had a couple of beers last night and I don't drink and draw, so here's a sketch I did back in january when I was on a current events kick. I did sketches of Barak and Hillary and Bubs from the Wire.
In other news, my replacement ink for my brushpen arrived yesterday, along with a bunch of sketchbooks and 10 pieces of illustration board. I have about 5 already with sketches on them ready to become paintings.

Enjoy your history:

New model

This is the first sketch I've done of a model I worked with a couple of months back. I don't have a great handle on the nuances of what's most interesting about her, but hey, I said I'd put these up everyday whether they're perfect or not, so here it is. I do like the sketch, although I'm not sure how clear the pose is.


Also, I'm going to try and find time today or tomorrow to post about the thinking behind the sketches. I had a really interesting train of though yesterday while walking and I completely lost it. It may or may not have been related to how I'm using the sketches now, but I figure if I start writing it'll come out.

Also, my super special brush pen is running out of ink. Refills are on the way, will they get here in time? Should I go back to using a sharpee? Should I go way back and use a ball point? I haven't done pencil in a while, maybe I'll do a week of the same sketch with different media. What do you say?

Week 2

Hey, so I posted this very early this morning, but didn't have time today to let you know it was up:



It's from an experimental set with Joy, she brought the ideas for make up and wardrobe.

Two fer on the Week Anniversary

Here's Sunday's sketch which went up late:

Stoya

Here's one for Monday:

Lilah

If I have time, I'll edit this post to add some comments about them. Two different styles, each could indicate a style for a series of paintings. I've got to find some time ...
A quick word about the first one. On the left of this sketch
there's an image from the same proposed series.
And this one is from a shoot with Stoya,
but didn't fit in like I wanted, so we reshot and came up with the on I posted on Sunday.

Day 6: Ivy

I always like when march arrives because Spring happens then and that means it’s getting warmer out.

My thumb’s at about 85% and I have a new sketch.

Here’s my friend, Ivy. I did another version of this back in July, still working on it.

Day 5

New sketch is up. Thumb feels better than I thought, but still not drawing yet

wow

i just hurt my thumb on my drawing hand. i will either draw lefty or set up the wacom tablet i got today.

i may have jinxed myself, i was just thinking about how i need good eye site and a good hand to draw. i as thinking that because after about 16 months of trying things out, i finally have the right type of contact lenses. i was thinking “i have a great eye doctor, glad i don’t need a great hand doctor.’ i then proceeded to bend my thumb in a weird way, making a squishing of styrofoam sound in the joint.

i took two advil, and now i’ve got ice on it.

let you know how it feels tomorrow. also, not sure when i’m posting the next sketch, but i’m going to have something. i actually have about a weeks worth of old, non-published sketches, so i’ll keep it going

Day 4

Hey, it's almost a week of posting these. this new one was a little rougher than I would like, but the point of these isn't to make them look finished. Actually, there was a different point to them originally, which I'll write about on Sunday, but right now, they exist to build some momentum and get me back into making art regularly. So, here's today's rough sketch.
It's my first work on a project I conceived last year that will become my favorite project ever. it's been going very slowly, and I tried a couple of shoots without things as clearly defined as I normally would (for example I didn't have specific poses or even a general "story") but I figured, let's just get it going. This is very different for me, as these shots are more for direction for future shoots, instead of final shots that are likely to become paintings. This one is about creating a mood, suggesting a relationship between the two women, and pulling in the viewer as a "participant" in the situation. If you're up for it, tell me what you feel when you see it. It'd be greatly appreciated. That includes all the lurkers out there. This is also from my first shoot with two models, and I'll write about that soon, too. I think it only worked because of how professional, experienced, helpful, and fun the models were. So, thanks Zeropatra and Wandering Bohemian (warning MySpace page with a lot of videos)

Day 3

I’m really proud of this one.

Day 2

I was in meetings from 9 - 6. Then I ate dinner. Otherwise I would have posted that I put up a new sketch early this morning. Here she is.

Day 1

So I got that shiznit all fixed. Here's the first of now daily sketches. This is from a shoot I has a couple of weeks ago. I haven't written about it yet, but I plan to. Anyway, great shoot, very interesting model with many looks.

I'm not sure what to say about the sketch itself. I like it. I do think it's a little close to my image I use as my avatar. but ti does say different things. The face is a little shadowy for a good portrait, but I like it for a painting. I try to do recognizable portraits for my first painting of a new model, then I can relax and make them less recognizable. Do me a favor and let me know what kinds of things you would want to know about these and I'll write about that when I post them. I'm not so good with words when it comes to these things, which I why I'm an artist.