Updates on life (a rant) and painting

 It has been a few years since I've messed with this, and just like everything else in life, I put it down and circle back around. 

 

Untitled (Three Fates), me, 2026

  I'm medicated, and numb-ish. Living in the worst timeline for the good ol' United States of Amrikay. Waking up to a new horror every day, and tired of it. The final nails are being driven in to the Experiment's coffin as we have slow walked over the line to fascism quite a while ago and we all feel helpless to do anything about it. We check in on our friends, build networks of community, grind our teeth, and try to be compassionate, decent human beings while we watch our government pretend to be the shittiest C action movie/beer commercial on the planet. I'm going to quit this while I'm ahead. I'm furious, and anxious, and feel impotent against an overwhelming deluge of hateful bullshit and cruelty. 

 Short of doing something useless, or something illegal, my acts of rebellion are to create, to learn, to leave a space better than when I found it. To educate myself more, and not just to inoculate myself  against bullshit, but just to enjoy learning again. Sending these words out into the noise as an attempt to make sense of things and hoping anyone appreciates coming along on the journey. 

The title arrows to the sun implies futility. The arrow will always fall short (and apparently according to aerospace engineers and science, it's quite hard to launch something into the sun in the first place). 

I do it anyway.  Audience or not, much like the work itself, it is a record of thought process at the time I make/write it. The work is evidence of art happening, evidence that I was here. Read it as my "Notice me Senpai!" to humanity, or a merely I am here, and I exist, and I cry out for connection, and to quote Vonnegut, "I am very real." 

Getting paid for work would be nice, though. It won't stop me from working, from creating, but it would help for when things get tighter than they have always been. 

 

 

Study for a Scottish King, me, 2026 in progress

 

  

On to art. I'm reminding myself to loosen up and be intentional with my application of paint. Alla prima or wet on/in wet. Each brush stroke must serve a purpose and how I apply paint needs careful consideration so that it either mixes with, or lays on top of the wet paint underneath. On a side note, I'm not a big fan of how I rendered the chair behind him, so I need to paint that back out. I am unsure if it is MacBeth or Duncan, but by the time I finish it will still be open to interpretation. I'm a sucker for theater (and not in the way I just ranted about based on our fucking terrible government officials and their performative, insecure, overcompensating bullshit), and how overacting it can sell it, while still removing enough context from it to leave it open to relate approach (at least how I try and depict it). 

 

I missed the deadline for a show dealing with my favorite subject matter: Skulls. I also don't like acrylics, although science has definitely made them approach an oil like quality more so with all the additives you can mix it. Here is a skull done as a demo for students. 

 

Skull, me, acrylics, 2023

 

And here is a piece being done in oils still in progress:

 

  

 Oracle, me, oil, in progress

 

Still in the "dead color" phase. I also need to take my time and look at how the old masters painted gold. As I understand it, they would use an increase in intensity with at least a two value jump a to depict the high contrast of gold. So I'm going to have to push my shadows more. I hope to finish this soon, if grading and the second American Civil War (moving out of its "cold" phase) don't wreck me first. 

 

Keep fighting the good fight, vote like hell, and thanks for stopping in.  

 

 

I'm a knife, I'm a knife- cut cut cuttin' around.

Hey, I made a wood cut.

It's a small one but I like it. It is featured in an online magazine as well as some older work. I've relocated back to Texas and my work space has gotten smaller. Like, it consists of my kitchen table and that's about it. It makes the scale of my work much smaller.

The act of creating something new was at once terrifying and like slipping on old, comfortable gloves. I've said I wrestle with depression, I've changed meds, and I'm liking the change. It makes me less lethargic and a bit more energetic.

It started out a little different as what it ended up as. My work is born from frustration. Lots of timidity on approach, continuing until my brain is shouting at me to just DO it. I was thinking of graffiti paste ups and the impact of graphics. I wanted to make something to echo that kind of immediate effect. An image that you see while rolling by in your car, bam. Just for an instant, there's an image and you're left with all the wonder and "what was that?" because you noticed it, but don't have time to spend with it. I can't throw it past your face at 75+ miles an hour, but I wanted to leave a little of that ambiguity. Remnants of Santa Muerta iconography and Käthe Kollwitz funeral procession woodcuts. We don't know if the image is in prayer or being set for a funeral. At least I don't. I'm open to interpretation. 

I was sad. I'm still sad. I might see light- an intermission.

Does anyone use these anymore? We're lonely, and this stuff makes us lonelier. It's supposed to be a tool for connecting-- yet it's all trying to sell something. Branding, marketing, networking, blugh. I'm a curmudgeon this way. I want people to see what I've made, possibly consider what I have to say (if any of it is worth considering) and myself to avoid the limelight. I've always been this way, preferring to go unnoticed but let my work speak for me.

I'm struggling though, because no one looks at work. They look at me, at all the sound and little hiccoughs of fury. I don't want to market, I don't want to be a brand. It's the reason art doesn't pay bills for me. It's the reason I work construction and grind my body down prematurely.

But all these reasons are bullshit.

It's because I'm afraid (and healthily so). I'm a type 1 diabetic. I live in the USA. Health insurance and drug prices are a tragedy. That whole "do what you love and follow your dreams" sentiment is for the privileged, or those more capable with their money. Those that have a safety net (or will never need one). I'm not trying to get in a pissing contest about suffering. Everyone suffers uniquely.

I'm complaining and I'm not happy about it. The good news is, things are picking up. I'm excited to work on things again and I'm coming out of a very long battle with very severe depression. I was taken to a print festival- It Came From the Bayou!!!, which was fantastic. I forgot how exciting it was to be amongst people who were working, and passionately at what they do. It was fun to talk techniques and ideas. It kinda rekindled some embers which I hope I'm in turn encouraging into flame. Now I just have to balance that with relationship, children, sleep and money paying labor intensive work.

Updates will be irregular (as usual) but will exist again. 

Apologies for the silence.

Volley XVIII: Back to work, jerk.

I've been in a slump. For a long time. Barely producing, and never finishing. I moved from Des Moines to Houston, to a much smaller space with many more distractions. Free time (and the internet) is your enemy when trying to work. Now that I've set up my drafting table and a flat file to store some of my junk, it's time to start cleaning things out and unpacking. And organizing. I'm working as a crate builder now, so I have access to lots of fancy cabinet plywood scraps. I'm getting some fancy knives in the mail to start working on woodcuts. The only problem is, I don't really have space to print, or access to places to print anymore.

Recently there was a figure drawing session at a gallery in Midtown. I attended, dragging many things in tow to scribble for a few hours. Here are some of  the results. Everything was done very quickly. With the longest poses being around ten minutes. But most averaging between three and eight minutes.

I really like this one. Something about the marks and the look of her hair reminds me of those sixties style graphic ads.

Drawing two people at the same time was interesting. I really wish they interacted more, as in twined limbs or some kind of embrace. Regardless it was fun to draw. They liked my drawings so much I gave them one. I didn't really get a picture of it, but the layout reminded me of a Mignola cover for Hellboy.

I'm glad I jumped back in to drawing. It's been at least a year since I've done any figure drawing from the model. For the amount of time allotted, there should be a lot more information here, and it should be done with a lot more confidence.You can tell. Well, maybe you can't but I can. It looks like I'm out of practice. I need to go outside and draw people.

Also, late new year's resolution. Update at least once a month.

Volley XVII: Tapes!

I got hired to do some album art by a friend of mine who owns a record label. I spent a night or two working on a few drawings to try to make something to fit the theme of the album. I haven't drawn daily for a long time. As such, it takes me longer to get started and my head gets in my way. The album is based on the film "Vampyr." The film itself is very atmospheric and ethereal. The sound is like a toned down Delìrium Còrdia. Granted, the original score long predates the Fantômas album by decades. I had seen the movie previously and found it creepy and surreal, but could not remember a lot specifically from it. Google image search wasn't super helpful either. There is however the iconic scythe.

So why not start there? It had to happen quickly, so I whipped something out in pen and ink. And started buzzing from fumes. Don't use ink designed for graffiti in a tiny apartment kids, protip.

Starting to look very metal, no? I sent it to Paul going "Ohmygudpleasehelp," because I'm an insecure bastard. In a typical Paul fashion-- that being very direct, but coated with a generous helping of unsparing humor, he responded.

He's right, by the way. And we went back and fourth for a bit about approach and planning an image. It's an interesting drawing, but what does it do? This guy's some goon with a scythe just standing there. There's no interaction or engagement with anything. Graphically it works, but it can be better.

At Paul's suggestion, I gave myself an hour (double the time it should have taken me), to hash out some thumbails and complete a new drawing. I was listening to things to put me in the mood, like Velnias. This is done in gesso and charcoal and was as far as I got in that time. The hands are derpy, but I like the textures that are happening, and the hazy quality of it. I was thinking of the vampire either coming from, or dissolving into the smoky background. That's not clear enough though (ha.) and I think I was just fixated on repeating that brush stroke. 

Finished product. Hands are less derpy and the girl actually has legs now. There are some really cool things going on, but still it's a constant reminder that I need to be drawing more. Unfortunately, this image wasn't used. The band had their own artist, but truthfully, she made a much more delicate and haunting picture than I, and that works much better for the sound of the band.

I did get to use an (older) picture on the back though, which works well to offset the delicacy.

The album is out now, so please go buy it. He's a good dude, and the sound is haunting.

Volley XVI: The Male Gaze

Recently, I sat in on a figure drawing class. I also had the time to shoot a bunch of them in between scratching my head to fix this. I'll be out of town for a bit, but you probably won't notice any less irregularity in updates. All of these were done in under half an hour, forty five minutes max. With charcoal and white chalk. 

 They all begin the same way, with a gesture/drawing of the skeleton in vine charcoal, and then I start building. My drawings don't feel very solid, or rather the figures don't feel very grounded, but they themselves do a good job of having mass. Like they're being sculpted. Which is weird to me because I focus on line and movement of it a lot. Or at least I think I do. 

Volley XV: I look at myself way too much.

Actually, I don't. It's a real problem. I have body image issues, in that I'm pretty fuckin' ugly. I used to give the description "bridge troll like," when people asked about my appearance, but for the sake of maintaining a type of chaotic good/chaotic neutral, Paul gave the descriptor "Taco Dwarf." Which fits perfectly.

Regardless, as money is tight and I haven't gotten out much to draw others, I had a friend come over and photograph me. And a deer skull. I was remembering Hamlet, or rather the grave digger and Yorick in particular. I want to make a picture that is whimsical (for me, in that no one is screaming) and has elements that are in conversation with eachother. I also like the idea of ritual, and the me in the painting is not holding the skull in a manner of study, but rather one of contemplation, or as if he were engaged in conversation with it.

Now based on these images, you might be pondering "what skull, you dope? All I see is a weird looking chubby dude doing an Errol Flynn (and failing) impersonation?" Well fear not viewers. It is said that Sargent, in his attempts to capture Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, he composed multiple watercolor studies. This may have been due to the fact that he was struggling to get her skin tone correct and she kept hiding it behind (as was customary for the time amongst celebrities) piles of leaded white makeup and unnatural coloring. So here's study number one. More to come soon.