atleastfourfeet.tumblr.com

SWITCHING UP THE ART BLOG.  I'm on tumblr way more than I probably should be....  SO! Updates will continue there instead!

I will never stop sucking updating my blogger...

Work update

I always draw sad looking people.  I should just change my Thesis from "transforming the human body into a monsterous being" to "I draw sad people".

I stole the face from a magazine.  Shh!

The thought that my Thesis work is due in two weeks is making me feel sick.
and it probably doesn't help that I probably am getting sick...

fingertips

Too much washing.  Too much pressing, pulling, pushing.  Calluses everywhere.  My fingertips are blackened and stained with charcoal and ink.  There is a weird feeling of pleasure of it, I feel like I’ve been working, and working feels good.  But I really can’t feel my fingertips, the skin’s so rough and dry and the calluses are so hard they press into the softer flesh.

I could use a break, a couple days, but I know I have to press on if I want to feel accomplished by the end of this first semester—it seems ridiculous that we must have work done when really Thesis spans the entire year.

Performance, or just a nut?

[originally posted Thursday, November 1st, 2012]
 
This happens all the time.  Well, not specifically this…

I was walking through Grange Park toward Queen Street to get onto a streetcar—my thesis class was going gallery hopping.  On my way there were two girls walking in my opposite direction.  One was short, wore glasses, and was wearing pants and a hoodie, the other was taller (though she was wearing white, plastic, platform shoes), heavy makeup, a sweater and a schoolgirl skirt.  I glimpsed them, and I thought they were arguing, they certainly were talking loudly.

Suddenly, the taller one broke away.  She looked angry and she stomped off towards my direction.  As she did so, she tore away her skirt.  She was naked underneath her skirt.  It took me a minute to register that.  I think I naturally assumed that she was wearing skin-coloured tights, I didn’t realised that I was looking at her pubic hair/bare crotch until I saw a little old Asian woman from the other side point and yell out something to the effect of “what are you doing”, “what the hell??” in whatever language, and her friend shouting after her to stop.

I was stunned, and I tried not to look directly at her as she walked passed me.  I lowered my head and I tried to stifle a giggle into my coffee cup.

I looked ahead and her friend was still at the site where the checkered skirt lay on the wet floor, trying to come up with words.  The old woman drew closer to her, trying to figure out what happened.  A group of boys also passing by stopped and craned their necks to see the girl’s naked rear as she continued on through the park.  I wanted to look back, but a part of me didn’t want to register what just happened as an actual occurrence.

This happened around noon, and I’m still trying to figure out what was happening…  A part of me thinks it could have been a performance.  I’m never really sure what is reality and what is an act of reality around the OCAD area.

post-mid term blues

ahhh...  Mid-term has come and gone, and I did alright.  I really could have done better, but heck!  I waited 5 hours for my advisor to show up, and all my thoughts pooped out on me.  It's only mid-term...  ho-hum.

But since then, the evolution of the rat-peeps: 

I seem to like where this (above) is going...  Was working on it today.  Mainly charcoal (layers of willow + fix, and charcoal powder) on sections of paper mended together.

Aside from Thesis, I've just been trying to keep my hands busy.  At some point, I really am going to have to sell some work for small bucks.  And well heck, I've gotta brush up my skills, keep 'em fresh.

I don't know if it's because I have retained what I've learned, and learned from my mistakes, or it's because I'm not pressured with deadlines and gradings, but I have never felt so comfortable and at ease just painting and printing...

 

There are some things you have to accept, before you can move on...

I wish I could compile a guide for aspiring artists, tell them everything they need to know before they have to deal with it.  Of course that would ruin the surprise.  And I wouldn't be able to enjoy them squirm in their agony. 

There are some things you have to learn to accept, and failure is one of them.  Sometimes an idea doesn't pan out.  Sometimes no matter how hard you try, it never will.  Failure is part of the process of learning.  It helps you avoid certain things, ideas, habits even.  Failure will help you understand and theorise better ways of approaching your ideas--reworking them, questioning what could be done better.

Failure is not the same as never trying (go to class, do your goddamn work!).  Failure is trying, experimenting, but finding an unsatisfactory result.  But be satisfied that you can accept failure; accept it, do not dwell on it, move on.

I can paint, I can totally paint....

That's all.

exploring my options

I really haven't worked with pencil crayons since..  Since probably high school.  Still not crazy about them, just because usually with dry media colours you tend to have to work with a wide variety of colours, and I'm more for colour theory & colour mixing.  Not that you can't do that with dry media, but the colours tend to muddy up when you do...

also, kinda expensive.

I've been watching Due South all evening.  If there was one reason to work at home, it's for the good internet connection + watch whatever the heck I want as loud as I want.

Work in process...

I feel like... I need to find a rat skull... Where do I even find rat skulls...

 

(rat skull study w/ charcoal)

The face (from this post) erased to reveal a rat's skull.
Can't decide how much I like it (or don't).  I like the concept, I'd like to work the concept up a little more...  may need to work out the imagery better... 

feeling a little lazy...  Just want a day to myself.

Made up faces

 

(marking my territory!)

 

Right, anyway...  Worked on this (above) on Friday.  I just really needed to work on something, and something BIG.  (Yeah it's pretty big...  50" x 36"?)    I'm a little disappointed with how sloppy it is...  I'm considering reworking/redoing the image.  The rough brushstrokes I don't mind, but it's the water dripping--when the surface tension broke, and a stream of diluted ink rolled down the nice clean white of the page...  I died a little inside.  Less on the dramatic side-- I'm trying to decide how much a graphic quality I want; should I try to render it more to a realistic form (with more washes)?  should I make it more stark in contrast?

 Some doodly business on my wall...

Hm...  It's crooked....

Clearly a much different aesthetic from the graphic quality of Mr. Rat-Man...  But I'm trying to work out another idea.  Will be erasing into the face later, very much literally speaking to the erasure of human identity in posthuman ideology. 

I'm a literal person, sue me!

Bad quality photos? Yes please!

My rat/human babies (;u;)
 

It is surprisingly hard to find a book on rodent anatomy...

I honestly feel like I have a better grasp on THIS than I did with the abstract stuff...  I draw people, that's what I do.  Can't get around it.  In time maybe I'll explore abstraction, but I don't want my last year (hopefully last) forcing myself to try and figure everything out.

Side note, final work is not going to look like that big ol' face...  I just needed to get the energy out. 

If my face had a face I'd punch it.

I feel like flip-flopping again.  I'm having a hard time reconciling this abstract stuff...  Maybe it's best if I stick to what I know?  I spent the last 3 years taking figurative classes, maybe I should just...  do figurative art.

[edit:] yup, yup.  I hate myself.  Going back to the first idea.  I'm sorry abstract art, I'm just not ready yet.

Trying new things...

Yeah... I'm definitely working a new thing now.

This is a maaaaaaaajor upheaval of my entire art practice.  I was a figure painter/drawer, now... I'm a whaaa?

Where does this come from??  Well, it was something I had in mind for a while...  maybe not this specifically...  But it was an idea from last year during my Book as Art class.  I was thinking about making a book with my own made language, or code.  Maybe take a series of stories and translate them in that language/code, or translate an entire story phonetically.

There's something about language that's intriguing. 

So today...  I took 26 random sunflower seeds, randomly assigned them to a letter of the modern English alphabet (A-Z), and drew them out black and white.

I had been staring at the idividual boxes for so long today, I wasn't even sure if I was confident with how this would entirely turn out. When I got home I scanned it into Photoshop, and ta-da! Not so bad looking...

Why sunflower seeds?  WELL...  They were at hand?  I wanted something mundane?  Sunflower seeds are incredibly simple objects with such complexity in design and pattern...  There are various reasons...

Where am I taking this?  I foresee a large sheet.  A bunch of encoded words.  And a world of backaching pain.

Suddenly really glad that my proposal isn't due for another week...

Slept on it, and I think I'm going to take a chance with the non-objective, non-figurative road.
It's all this guy's fault!:  

 

Drawing a Hypothesis: Figures of Thought  by Nikolaus Gansterer

I thought I knew what I was doing, but then I picked up this book, and it changed my world.  How dare you change my world!

I also want to take a chance on it, because maybe this can help me get off the surface of the page and into space...  Maybe?

Okay I know what I do, but kinda don't.

Lately I've been struggling with myself, determining what I kind of artist I want to be.

One side of me, which as been the most dominate... is a figure artist.  I draw people.  I draw faces.  I draw bodies.  I have done that most of my known art practice.

But lately, a new side of me has been craving for a more non-objective pursuit in my art practice.  Perhaps this is normal, I have been running in one direction for so long, maybe it's just time for a change.

Part of the problem I'm having is why and for what reason I like non-objective art.

Currently my studio space...

I kinda have an idea for where I want to go with my thesis work...  but I just need to get reaquainted with drawing.  ...also trying to scavange for source material.

Recent Work: "Growing Thoughts". Summer 2012.

Paper Sculptural Installation: Hemp + Abaca, Flax + Abaca, and pigment.

I still have the artist statement for this one!!

"With this project, I utilise the properties of high-shrinkage pulps to explore the theme of growth and maturation of ideas.

In creating my piece, I tried to minimize my use of materials—mainly hemp+abaca and flax+abaca pulps, and a bit of pigmented pulp--, and broke it down to simple structures—free-formed cylinders.

The suggestion of maturity comes in the contrasts between the air-dried structures, and the pressed sheet structures.  The “mature” structures are hardened, opaque, and ragged, whereas the structures that have been pressed (representing “immaturity”), are translucent, clean cut, and flexible.  There is a literal interpretation to be taken in the description of materials to describe these metaphorical ideas—i.e. immature thoughts are open to flexibility, fresh and clean, where as matured thoughts are more condensed, well crafted, and have developed given time."

I wanted to mimic the look of mold, or other surface spreading organisms (others have mention sea anemone and plants, etc.) because it suits the idea of growth, and potentially the installation can grow and mass in numbers and area.

I tried considering other presentations of this work.  This one is in a corner and by a window...

Old Works #8: Drawing stuff.

Self-portrait.  2011.

Self-portrait as a Gorgon. 2010.

Portrait. 2010 (sorry for bad photo)

Portrait. 2010. (again, another bad photo)

Figure.  2011.

Sketch in Queen's Park. 2011.

Sketch in Queen's Park, Looking East (?).  2011.

Old Works #7

PAPER!

Whirl (Variation).  Relief printed.

"Mounted Bear".  Screenprinted.

"Do's for the fashionable Gorgon".  Intaglio printed.

Old Works #6: More book projects

There's More to be Scared of Than the Bears: The Lumberjack's Pocket Guide to Fearsome Critters

Images: Intaglio printed + watercolours
Text: Screenprinted
Cover Title: Relief printed
Bounded by yours truly.

 

Good Fortune Book

The interor consisted of fortune cookie fortunes.

Good Luck knot ties the binding.

These were the prototypes for an artist book project for my Books as Art class.  The final pieces + its box currently reside in the Toronto Reference Library.  I unfortunately didn't have the sense to take pictures of it before I submitted it.  But I do believe you can check it out (if you're in Toronto of course...  and have a valid TPL library card).

 The book project consisted of 6 beds each with an excerpt from To Die Well: Your Right to Comfort, Calm, and Choice in the Last Days of Life by Sidney Wanzer M.D. and Joseph Glenmullen M.D.

Beds are completely made from paper.  The final pieces had the text inkjet printed on gampi (I believe the paper shown above was a longer fibre paper..).  The box was formerly a first aid kit box which I modified.

I actually can't remember what I retitled the book.  I believe it was something like Finding Comfort Beyond the Bed ...?