Aquarium Visit #1

Watercolor fish sketches in an aquarium. It sounds like a good idea. Until you figure out that the halls are dimly lit so that the children can scream "I SEE NEMO!" because they have a better chance of seeing fish with the tank being lit.

So when all the colors look like they're mud, I was working with basically no light.

Fish and some abstract... underwater.... coral? rock? background?

   

some arts

it's about time I got some art up here. These are still lifes with flowers and patterns, based on Matisse. Nice-quality watercolor set, but the purples were difficult. The top one is better, but the idea behind the second is more interesting- a silhouetted bouquet against the sunlight outside.

watercolor, i miss you

I finally got my hands on a water-bush- a synthetic brush with a little water compartment in the handle. Osmosis doesn't work quite as fast as I thought it might, so I'm consistently misjudging the amount of water that comes out.
     The pigments are actually really nice and condensed (besides lacking purple). 12- black, white, lemon yellow, golden yellow, ochre, crimson, vermilion (blood-orange), light red (?), yellow-green, viridian green, cobalt blue, and prussian blue (darker, less intense). all in a little box.
     It also comes with a sponge, which is crap and will be replaced by paper towel or jeans leg quite shortly.

Technique:
I have a habit of picking up excess color/water with a dry brush. Because your brush is also the source of water, you can't have a dry brush. In my brother's words, Roar.

Too. Much. Water.

Well, I'll keep going. Pics edited in later.

Projects and Drawings.

I have to do a 22.5 hour project. It cannot be cooking, and I have to learn something from it. I'll have weekly reports, and I'll have a presentation at the finale of the hours.
     I'm trying to find more limitations for the project.
     Or I can do something animation-related.
     How do i get the pages onto a computer and sequenced in 1/24ths of a second?


Some drawings from a while ago. I don't know if these have been up yet.
1.  Businessman, colored with really nasty oil pastels.
2. Stereotype of an evil villain. This is Dr. Locker, Davy. He's so evil, he has a skull and two secondary colors. I like marine-themed villain. Life is better that way.

costume designs.

Some slightly rushed costume designs. At this point of the children's show, these are probably not correct anymore, since the script is being edited again. The presentation and discussion today was amazing, and the resulting changes in the show will probably make Caged Bird pretty damn decent.

What's being changed:

VIVIAN: she's not really poor anymore, which leaves me at a loss because it's so open. Maybe something more bird-like? The colors also remind me too much of the flag. late 30's fashion is something to look up. The clock-belt stays. Although the big-headed picture was second, I think the layered skirt looked nicer in the normal-headed picture.

COMMISSIONER: He has a straight, long coat (like Gormogon), because he isn't really out on the streets. He can look a little swankified. The mustache is gonna be good.

GORMOGON: got this one straight-on. The buttons have to be red. Has to be purple. Secondary colors are EVIL. I like the 'he knows things. He's an information guy' aspect. He really is a damn good villain.

JAMES: after hearing his part and looking at it again, the shorts have to go. He's not a child, and no one really treats

him like one. The vest stays. The pot-hat must go. Maybe. I like the vest, and the shirt is just about finding something white and dying it yellow with tie-dye colors.

After Halloween will be a good time for costume shopping. Then, I can get the mustache and silly hats. I also need to figure out costumes for Fiveheads, the minion, and Fabio the makeover man.

what about

I feel like ignoring responsibilities and watching pixar movies all night. But I need to paint some primal costume designs and come up with a list of set design limitations.

I feel like my standards are so high I can't reach them and only DaVinci and Schiele can touch them. I feel like I can do anything, so why am I doing this? It can always be better. Do not blame the world for boredom. Blame yourself. For you are not poet enough to call forth it's riches. Rilke.

In response to molly and niki: I don't have it, it's never been part of my world, but I'm surrounded by it.

Amelia, it was just a false alarm.

between rollercoaster and railroad tycoon, and school, i haven't been wasting time doing nothing on computers. Not a lot of time.

I like her shapes so much:

She is of course based on Ganes's famous mannequin (+ head). I personally hate it, because no female looks like that. No one is that thin, no one can physically bend to the side that way, and no one has boobs that defy gravity. It's not extremely feminine, but still, it's there so that students can learn the body, and it's wrong. I understand that having real people casted and made into mannequins would be scary and asymmetrical.

I added the T on the face originally to just figure out which way it's turning. I sorta like it now. It both represents the face and is totally not real at all. And it's totally unbalanced. imbalance. Spellcheck isn't helping.

Joni Mitchell's Amelia is stuck in my head. Oh no oh no oh no.

Giants and God-er-pillars.

Some paintings. I don't usually paint, but last week I found out just how much canvasboard I have. These weren't planned out, but I sorta like the foot. They're pretty surreal. Watercolor, the PRANG sets from school and some 'real' tube colors. Pancreatic clouds and god-faces. The foot is, technically 'still life'. I got to model for that one. I was going to go into the city for figure drawing, but it was gonna rain, so I painted.

Part of what I'm looking for is what I do. Everyone has a specific handwriting, line quality, mode of speech. What am I like with painting?

I got a lesson from the Food Network on how to properly cut a whole chicken from the supermarket. I can't say it doesn't interest me. Some part of my anatomy learnings are waiting for the chance to understand how my meat is cut. It's not sick or disgusting- it's what happens. If I'm gonna eat meat, I want to make sure I'm not shy about it. Except for the killing part.

Movie to look up: The Thief and the Cobbler. Or the Princess and the Cobbler. There are so many different versions of the film. Hand-animated, by Richard Williams (Who Framed Roger Rabbit animator), and it has some killer backgrounds.

This is one version, and this is another. And another with Broderick doing the voiceover.

Running on a stage blindfolded is one of my greatest hells. I've been on that stage in the dark before, but this is having someone else lead you. And then having to run. And listening to everyone else running around you. Holy Shit. I'm an artist- without my eyes life gets a lot harder. I don't always trust the people around me. No offense, but everyone makes mistakes. And then I get lead through the halls, and I try not to remember where I am and let Taoism* take it's toll. I felt like I had more fun leading blind Ashley around, and I connected more with my other senses that way. I had to think of things to explore without my eyes. What's interesting? What can I smell and feel and hear? I liked the leading when we were running, too.

Romanticism is in the works.

*Taoism: The present is beautiful and fun. Read some of the Tao of Pooh.

falling asleep, but it's too cold.

I realized today, after an exhaustingly traumatic shopping experience, that I don't want to stay home for college.

I set out all my watercolors today. I took apart art sets for these. I also have a lot of canvas board. I hope creative things will happen.

I went to the Pearl store to find the mythical green crayon for my pointillist piece. The guy went through boxes set for restocking the crayons, and they still weren't there.

Driver's Ed. First day. Didn't kill anybody or anything.

Art Dump.

This is from the last few days of art and back-to-school-night art. Some watercolor, some just drawing. The witch was drawn in 2 lines, the tree in 1, and the purple-haired girl is loosely based on Delirium from Sandman. The forest god is one of my favorite ideas.

Listening to the beauty of Lothlorien. Lord of the Rings the musical doesn't work, but the music is mythic.

It's just been a crap of a week.

colors kill

I left art at school. I'll bring it home for tomorrow, because I drew interesting things and painted some things.

I was reading Interaction of Color, by Josef Albers, and I didn't know what what happening. Then the book covered the idea that we see the opposite color every time we see the actual color, and that was a property we learned today. And I read some other things that I don't remember, because I'm just not up to it. Things are flying over my head and I just need more picture examples.

Color theory is a topic I only started on last year, and I would like to come back to the book in a few months when I've had more practice.

I spent last summer at two very different art classes, with different kids. FIT was full of fashion people, and Art League was full of kids who could really do art. But both groups started every conversation with 'did you draw that? it's amazing' and similar compliments. I personally don't trust compliments unless they're coming from someone who knows what they're doing, and even that has to come with a sense of critique.

Rilke said that you shouldn't care if your art is 'good' or not, but that it comes from you and speaks with your voice. Where did we go wrong, that we learned art should be about being better than other people, more accurately copying predecessors, or that a number can be assigned to these skills? Can we blame this on the 50s too?

And why am I in AP Art? I think I want the challenge of it. I need a test and I need to learn everything I can for it.

RED and VEST and a human St. George.

Listening to Peter Paul and Mary. Mary Travers died from Leukemia on Sept. 16th. I've been to their concerts every year, and in New York all the kids would bring her sunflowers before Puff the Magic Dragon. After a whole day of repeated music, I feel like crying and joining an anti-war march at the same time.

Tomorrow I'm going into the city to join an open-studio figure drawing session. I'm a little scared. I've gone to the city alone, and I've done figure drawing before, but some of these people will have had 20+ years of experience more than me.

I am not a poet. I think I've had to read too many bad poems in grade school. It's not something I read normally, and not something I particularly care to work on. Nothing against poets. It's just not for me.

This is based on the poem "Little Tear-Vase".

I've started reading a color-theory book that's above my head. I was trying to take notes with watercolor, but things didn't work out. I started doing more Klee-impersonations. Red and Vest ('Blue' was not an option. What if we were taught that this color was called Vest?). They are full 11 x 8in usually.

I also had the feeling of a painting. a Drawing. Art that you need to look at but cannot because of an emotion that is private. I started writing out my limitations, which make ideas flow better: Big Emotion, Colors, The whole thing should be made of simple shapes, simple colors.

I wanted this to be a knight. Knights kill dragons (St. George), and I thought about it, and what happens if there's a baby dragon? He'd really feel like crap. And the little dragon won't really know what's going on and start following him around. I'm trying to use color and simple shapes here. Tried spacial awareness. It's mostly about the feeling from the colors.

inglourius basterds midnight showing tonight whoooo

some drawings.

i've been keeping a 18 x 24 newsprint book on the couch by the tv, just in case, and these are some of the characters.

I have an ipod. i dont know wht to name it. 'Hummeln', german for bumblebee (or so the internet says) was my first choice but ill still think about it.

They are in the order i drew/painted them.

i don't know they're names, but I know that the woman without descriptive shoes was a dragon-hunter, and now breeds war horses. The girl's dress is a variation of 'sundress'. The left drawing's face is prefered.

Venus in Furs

listening to: Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground and Nico.

some big zoo drawings at the end.

today in class we drew from a skeleton, then a model, without looking at the paper. This is aggrivating. Professor said 'it's not supposed to be proportional. Actually, the more you don't look at the paper, the more accurate the drawing will be. it's more of a representation of what you see.'

this bothered me. Then i was scared more whenever he stood behind me and said that i should work slower, a millimeter at a time. it was aggrivating, but I really do notice a lot more when im staring intently.

i finished an outline of the model's right side, from crown to toes, and he said "yeah. yasee these lines?" the lumps on the 'blind drawing' were parts of the thigh above and below the knee. I don't believe thighs are "pipes", they have so many more curves and the model was normal-sized, decently curvy. No one else seemed to notice, though. it just looked like a failure of a straight line.

i felt like someone hearing voices when they are sure no one else is. Professor: "Nice noticing. Those are actually supposed to be there."--- He hears the voices too. I didn't realize how comforting this was until the train home.

a note about trains: don't sit in the front car. It's considerably more noisy than anywhere else.

i really really wanna do an hour of quick-fire poses, just for the adrenaline rush. 1-min, 45sec, 30sec, i wanna draw more poses. we've just been doing 20-min ones, cept for a 5-min end of class thing.

War on Terror, the boardgame.

the book problem in my room has increased since ive taken home a lot of stuff from school.

tomorrow's the last day. wow.

im ready to have a summer doing independent art studies. i like having my own rules than following other peoples rules. i dont ever want to apologize about that.

STACnight. parents came. my nails ache from all the biting. i think i was more worried about people not asking about my work than people having opinions about it. im okay with someone going 'i dont like it'. i just want them to have a reason. the final mural is 4' x 16', took me and a group of people some weeks to paint, and no one really asked about it. i could have said 'oh, well, the white circle at the beginning is the seed. then the colors flow and branch and eventually die back into the black tiles, which have white circles in them. thats all death and rebirth'.

theme from Up

listening to: youtube clips containing the Up soundtrack. this is when everyone in my theater cried.

started watching Dexter episodes online. Dexter, the serial killer, not Dexter's lab, but that's next. i dont want to watch it at night >.<, but i like it a lot. its like another step up from CSI.

spent the afternoon painting in the backyard for the mural. 71 empty spaces on the wall. its not as much as it sounds, because if i have 15 people working, they just need 4 or 5 each to finish things off. i dont think i'll have 15 people.

still cleaning out accumulated art material from the year.

reference illustration, from National Geographic (?)

lips and a face from doodles. some facial characteristics of the people around me, some sorta heart-like squiggle, and my hair is shorter now for the summer.

rapunzel. i guess this is #100 of the published ones.

now, rapunzel. these are meant for cutouts someday in the next 2 weeks.

and its thumbnail:

And the coloring thumbnail:

Yet more. These are some designs for the princes that will be killlllled. stupid asymmetrical, drawn at an assembly

 about the dangers of drunk and reckless driving. HAIRY is from a Boy's Life magazine illustration. theres even a little tower.