clouds bleagh

Clouds are so fussy. I keep thinking that in time they'll get easier...but its been years and they're still tough.

my latest mailer.

landscape 3

again, I can't take credit for the composition. I was thinking about it...and legally can I even put my signerature on it? So I didn't. This is just for practicing.

more

so here's today's landscape


And I decided to start doing heads again, mostly because I found this one with crazy lighting and I wanted to try it out. I'll probs never do that to myself again.




Also, a business identity for a client.

art!

I know I haven't been updating any art at all lately--in fact it looks like I haven't been doing anything. Thats because...I haven't!

The great thing about graduating during a recession and then being unemployed without any ability to get any work anywhere (even in retail and food handling), is that it gives you a lot of time to figure out what you want to do versus what you're doing. This is because there could be nothing else in your life to possibly distract you.

So anyways, I looked at all of the career options available, and I knew that some things were going to happen because I can't stop doing them (like writing my little stories) but other things would involve some more effort and would require a lot of time (like a career in a company).

So I made a pro's and con's list for every career I've been interested in, and I think I should say for anyone who's going through the same exact thing, is that when I looked at it from far away I realized that every creative career, let it be in Film, Video Games, Books, Graphic Design, Architecture--they all had the same problems with the same types of people except we give them different names. Projects will always take 2-12 years to finish. Accountants will always get in the way whether they work for a book marketing company or the City Commitee. Creative things will always be watered down to Hollywood soup cuz it sells.

So I may as well fess up to reality and do what I'm good at, because being unemployed, while it is nice for self reflection, is quite depressing.

So I'm going into a type of artistic deep-cleaning. An art DeTox. I need to get back in business and draw every day. Get it so I can draw on a professional level. So ya, I'll update on this blog again.

PS Don't take a class on CAD. Its illustrator but stupidly ugly. Not even they-didn't-know-any-better ugly. Its just ugly. So ugly. Like they tried really hard to make the ugliest program make some of the most beautiful things. I hate CAD. But I'm learning it because 1.) apparently I might need it one day if I'm reaaaaally in a bind and 2.) apparently non-art people respect a CAD professional when they want to hire you as a designer. Sure. and 3.) this class is mindlessly easy and I like to draw everyone else in the class in my sketchbook.

Ps, want to see my sketchbook?



this whole page sucked and then I got a hand, and I was so happy that I felt like only posting the hand



more hands.



no one can read my handwriting. The great thing is it doesn't matter what personal things I write in my sketchbook. No one will ever know. If you can read this you get a prize.






boy on the left posed like that for me. He's my old Yoga buddy.



I always draw fat cats and girls that are super pissed about something.

So I've been looking at the Avalanche Artist's blog, and I found a fun excercise where you take a drawing you found on the internet and then take only an hour to take it from start to finish. I think I'm going to start doing one every day. Here's today. I ran out of time to finish the trees and its overall bleah but one day...one day I can do these conceptual landscape thingies. Make em glow. One day.

back to art

You know what? I have too many hobbies. I also have Actionscript coming out of my ears and I still can't pull together the website I have in my head. What I realized is that there is no simple quick way to do it, no simple way to copy paste code anymore, you actually have to get your hands dirty or it just won't work.

So now this blog is back to a normal blog again instead of a flashblog because that was just frustrating. Will this blog ever have a steady purpose?

On a positive note, here's something for my next mailer, school themed. Kid with a dragon/alligator in his desk. Hopefully it'll come out cute. Cute was what I was going for.




I've also decided to take some classes at the college near me to see if I like architecture, and also because it only takes one year and a half (maybe) to get an Associate Degree and then go on to get a Masters (this is my Plan B). Its a bit more school...but its something to do as I wait for illustration to kick off. I'll be honest, if my Plan A deos work out, then I'll drop my Plan B.

But it takes years to write a book, and years to get it published--which I am down for--but I don't necessarily want to do all of that at my parent's house. Things are good though, there's a lot to be said for homegrown tomatoes, and I get a lot of homegrown tomatoes.

liszt and Chopin dream sequence

So I decided to make a picture dedicated to Liszt and Chopin and in the end got something that, after I looked at it for a while, could be a really nerdy tattoo.



To explain the picture, Liszt (on top) was an extravagant performer in Paris, and at the same time was Chopin (bottom), a hermitish composer. They're two pianists that are opposites of eachother but were freinds during their lifetimes. Apparently at every one of Liszts performances, women threw their gloves and their flowers at him. He'd throw off his glove from a balcony and they'd freak out. He was pretty much the first rock star. But a rock star playing Rachmoninoff.
Chopin got really sickly and had a lot of failed relationships and went down in history as the boy that dated George Sands. George Sands decided to break up with him because she's unromantic like that.

Shakespeare

So today I realized, as I was cutting dozens of little copper wire peices for a Ham Radio order (my part-part-time job) that I've been really tired lately. I wasn't sure what to make of it. I'm not sick, I'm definately not working myself too hard--what is it?

And then I realized what it is--my body is trying to hybernate through the recession. Like a bear. Instinctually, every time I hear something about the economy I have to take a nap. It's the weirdest thing, and it's getting worse; Every time I hear Obama's voice I start yawning and gorging on cheese and berries and tearing apart cars with my bare hands and eating their packs of oreos and marshmallows.

So here's something I've worked on. I thought maybe I should do a series of historical portraits in Black and White, and I don't like this because it looks too much like Shakespeares portrait.


that and I've never been able to get down his last name. My next portriat will be better, more original. It's going to be Lizst and Chopin. Because I'm obsessed with piano, hopefully I'm not the only one that will get the reference.