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 ...?

Old Works #5

This is a really old book project, but it's been my fondest.
One day I would really like to clean it up a little-- it's a little rough.

(Clam shell box)

You & Me is a pair of books whose contents can only be read when the two parts are combined as a whole.

the two books slide together, like so ^

Each page from one book corresponds to a page in the other.  A simple paper attachment that connects the pages revealing a message...

Old Works #4: The Black Sox Card series

Another baseball card related project.
Book project: 59 cards retelling the events of Game 8 of the 1919 World Series.

Old Works #3: "If You're Not Cheating, You're Not Trying!"

Around this time I developed an interest in baseball cards.  It's something about the collecting of cards, the bits of information stamping a moment in history... 

I don't so much care for the current standard: in action photographed cards on coated cardstock.  I do prefer the original cigarette box cut-out variety.  Of course I'll never get my hands on those...  But in those cards, there was more art and design involved.  Now-a-days, card companies are into sticking whatever kind of memorabilia into a 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" "card"...

I'm rambling.

"If You're Not Cheating, You're Not Trying!" is a mini-series of cards (2 3/4" x 1 3/4") 12 in total of 11 players notorious (or "well speculated") for doctoring the ball.

Cards were printed using a "faux"-to etch method (see what I did there?).  At the time, there wasn't the equipment/supplies/teacher to teach the proper photo-etching process...  But I heard of some other techniques to produce a photo-like image onto an etching plate.  This one I screenprinted drawing fluid onto the copper plate, covered it in hardground, and then washed off the drawing fluid as if it were sugarlift (it works the same way).

 

I wanted to make the cards presentable, so I tested out relief printing on shiney/reflective mylar to mimick foil-wrappers.

 

Old Work #2: Selected Printed Works

I previously mentioned in a post (a really depressing post) that I spent last year (2011-Summer 2012) working on my minor (printmaking).

I haven't scanned/photographed everything...  And I somehow lost a couple prints.  So, that's always great...

I haven't actually pulled prints off this.  It's a 4' x 3' woodcut, I'd be spending a fortune on paper trying to pull suckers off this.  I actually called this a painting, with exploration on use of materials (i.e. exposing the raw wood by gouging.).

test linocut from non-toxic printmaking class.  I'm just a dork who really wanted to draw a Robin.

Originally I wanted to do a reduction print this image, but I was having trouble with the inks (water soluble!), and registering.  It wasn't worth all the trouble it was causing me.

They were also hand burnished with a barren.  That really wasn't fun.

"Finding Comfort in Your Defenses".  Summer 2011.

Detail #1

Detail #2

Another from my Non-Toxic class.

"We Have the Technology"

 The assignment, if I recall, was looking at combining Natural and Un-natural/man-made.  I think I just really wanted to draw Lee Majors/the Bionic Man.