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.