Whim

I like the idea of a whim. How does it come to you? What piques someone to follow the whim further? I would guess instinct. Can instinct be wrong? Sometimes. I think, on a large enough scale, enough whims will have continuity.

I can say I experience "inspiration"--in that stereotypical lightning bolt kind of way. Chuck Close says, "Inspiration is for amateurs." I think a good result happens when you trust your instinct and follow the idea through to the end, which takes discipline. You've directed yourself, and maybe you've even obtained some mastery. For me, my doubts always come with the purpose, with why I have decided to do something. This is kind of absurd; if there is tons of art about [insert subject matter here--your brain knows where to go], surely it's fine to do what I do. I like absurdity but it's not terribly practical. Maybe that's ok. I think about balancing usefulness in my everyday life, relieving excess practicality in the world around me.

So-- trust, doubt, a path, many paths, obstruction, questions. I have heard, "paint what you want to paint and the rest will follow." I want to make that leap. An old professor of mine, Clifford Wun, said, "Painting* is an act of courage." I believe him.

There are a lot of ideas out there, things distract. How can I channel the rush from sudden inspiration and preserve it through the making of a work? I suspect the answer is to just make more.

Twombly, Coronation of Sesostris 7, 2000

Ingres, Paganini, 1819

Some food for thought:
The Science of Motivation - a video explanation of money and motivation
IQ84 by Haruki Murakami
Art and Fear by Orland and Bales


*can be applied to any method of making art

universal truth, man

the bf:  Is art one size fit all? Is there a universal truth about what art should be?

me:  haha

well... I want to say yes, but if there is, it's so broad that it encompasses all of it, in fact, validating everything ever created.

me: I would also say "i would rename it 'human truth' because that is limited, we cannot know all space and time, so the 'universal truth' we can understand is very narrow in scope..." so... human subjective truth

me:  then i want to mention "non objective painting" (ie, jackson pollock drip paintings) though it isn't "supposed to be anything" i think it is impossible to be non-objective, it goes against human existence -- but in a universal sense maybe everything is non-objective so he really is telling the truth

me:  so.... among humans, is there an objective truth to be held on that level..... I want to say because our experience is so limited, a finite number of principles can in fact define our objective universal truth........ BUT, you could also say that BECAUSE our experiences are so limited, we cannot ever hope to have objective truth

me:  so in turn personal truths are created which are only fragments of fragments so we can all stay afloat even in our limited pool of existence

So long story short, it depends how you think about it... i think you can gather what I think of human existence.

me:  great question

the bf:  Did you get that from Wayne's World?

AKIRA i

A take on Kaneda, I wanted to make him look younger (I mean he really is like 15), and he usually wants to take everything head on, but I wanted to draw him angrily hesitating.

Trees

(title still undecided)
8x10", oil on panel

At the framer!! These are some trees nearby.

Photos and details

This painting is 16x16", oil on panel, 2011.


... and I might add, IMPOSSIBLE TO PHOTOGRAPH!!!!!!1

YES

Some framed paintings!

Here are a couple of photos of my paintings, framed! Off to the gallery with them this Saturday!

Belgian Endive

8x10
Oil on panel

Belgian Endive. Took about 5 hours over 2 days. Cheers! ...to a vegetable...

Walter

This is Jonathan Hardesty's bird, Walter, a yellow sided conure. This is the image for the second week of his project Worldwide Painting. The idea is to do a two hour painting once a week. This took me almost 14 hours.... it was very challenging, especially Walter's tummy. It's going to Gallery CNY this Saturday!

I really want to continue participating in Worldwide Painting. It's like participating in a remote classroom. I really enjoy seeing how other people handle passages of these pictures. I am becoming pretty busy, so I don't know if I can do this week's (March 20th). But I will definitely keep following this project, best to Jonathan Hardesty for getting these ambitious projects together!

Eggplant

7 "x 14"
Oil on Panel

Yoho yo, an eggplant! A little hilarious, a little scary. It took around 5-6 hours over a couple days.

Frank

Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito)

I had some ideas for this one-- Frank the Rapper, Frank the Dandy.. but I just put him in a zoot style suit.

Without glasses for your viewing pleasure.

Dennis

Megalomaniac Dennis as Julius Caesar

I guess this is Dennis as he wishes he were. Hehehe...

I had a few ideas of how to do this.... first it was Pedobear Dennis (sticking his head in a painted cutout like at a carnvival, not knowing what pedobear was), and then Dennis the Tengu, but Caesar it was.

I finished it in one 4-5 hour sitting. So now I need to chop off an hour or two and I'll be at my target timing for this. The majority of time was spent trying to get his face drawn right. Next time I want to use fewer lines to get where I want. It's kinda heavy handed... I want it to look congruous to the first and the next... I'm sure they'll all have their own flare.... urrr... the steps taken to do this one are similar to Dee's.

Dee

St Paulie....à la Dee.

Sweet Dee from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

The Gang needs to make more money at the bar. What better way than try to attract new clientele? How? Advertising. Got no money....they have... Dee...... Dee is the new "Bar Girl". The gang also wants to update their image, misinterpreting the phrase "keeping it real" by attracting truckers and blue collar workers. Not very sexy, but after Mack and and Charlie provoke Dennis ("You're livin' in a world all your own, girls don't go for that!" Dennis: "I can attract anyone I want!"), everyone's in except Dee (Frank: "The chance to act, if you think you could.."). So Dee's dressed up as the Gang's perception of blue collar to bait new customers.

1. 1st drawing 2. 2nd drawing 3. shadows

On a technical note, this went significantly faster (maybe only 3.5 hr over two sittings) a lot of time spent tweaking.. next picture will be even faster! It was tempting to do more... but it's gotta stay simple, loose. Stay tuned... more to come!

Lulu

In my free time I like to (cough) exercise and play video games. The ps2 is, unfortunately, my most up to date console... So I decided to do my favorite character from Final Fantasy X, the game I'm currently playing.

Lulu and Cactuar doll

I think I want to stick with something flatter from now on..I didn't want to commit to rendering all out exactly, but I was afraid to make it flat and more cartoony. So I ended up rendering... and having weird flatness. Ergh. One or the other next time!! Especially since I don't have more than 3 hours a day to spend on this (I went overtime... this was done for better parts of three workdays in the studio).... I really have to pick up the pace. Every time I thought I was done I knew there was just one more thing left.... argh! Next time I won't arrange it so that there are so many things!

Oh yeah, just for fun, here's the alternate before I went hog wild on the lighting... I thought about Ingres for composition, Falcoon and Vanilla 82 for how to break it down. Not happy with what I've got yet but definitely a good start for the next pictures.

1000 needles!!! halp!