This is something I actually made towards the end of last year, but I feel like it fits this week’s Illustration Friday very well. The working title had been “Rise Above It,” but the idea of course is to be open to the sun in the face of the rain, to face the rewards of being open-minded. To not simply focus on the immediate and the dreary, but to the bigger picture.
To do:
1. I need a beefy portfolio. Let’s work all year on this. All dabbles need to turn into strong pieces for a portfolio. Eventually I’d like an online version of this, since that’s the cool thing to do, so I’ll also need to figure out, uh, how to do that. I am thinking at least begin with static pages here, but I’d like my own site and all that. Money though. Don’t really have money.
2. I need some sort of “corporate identity” for myself. Even if I’m just rubber stamping envelopes, I need something to make all my stuff mine.
3. Do more research into agents.
4. Get a big master list of all my favorite people and track down
a.) what they’ve been doing
b.) who’s published them
c.) any background on how they got started.
Consider writing letters to this effect. Hi I’m new how do you get started.
5. Do more more more. More art. More. More, more more.
Well, things may actually be okay as far as that art class goes. Basically, I will still catch wind of the assignments and I have been invited to meet with all of the other design kids to share some ideas. My attendance policy is basically “show up whenever you can or want,” since I do have a class shortly after they meet, and uh, I’m not actually signed up for the class. It’s almost better this way I guess — all the perks and none of the penalty — though of course getting the credit and actually finishing my minor would be nice. Ah well.
Here is more work being done on the dancing people and the coffee cup:
I don’t like the dark purple-blue in the background. I want to keep this more vibrant and warm, but first I needed to darken the background so I could start working on how the little globe lights look. They looked great until I remembered the background, so I need to warm that back up and bring the lights back in so I can use them as a proper light source here.
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This is something I started not too long ago to use up extra paint on my pallet. I like where it’s headed. I also think the grey water is kind of compelling, so when I start actually doing ripples (following the surface lines I made) I may go with the whole white&grey thing I’ve got going.
A file folder I actually use at work. It’s colored pencil, “laminated” with packing tape so it wouldn’t smudge. Note the “window” that lets me know if something’s in there or not. If the folder is empty then the picture is seen as a unbroken thing, as I colored the inside in that spot to continue the picture.
This scene is a tip of the hat to how I spent a lot of my time senior year of high school — sitting on a big wall of the coffee shop downtown. I’m working on another folder that is a lot more purple and less lonely.
Ah, finally this idea
makes it to canvas. I always feel like the sketches are far more compelling with these things than the finished product, but I’m stuck on how to capture that.
Yes, I’m still here.
Yesterday was rather emotional as it marked the second time I have been told in so many words “funny that you tried, but get out of here, scum” by the art department at this school. There’s a lot more to be said about it, but I just don’t have the energy. Yesterday I spent a lot of the afternoon in a blind rage.
I still plan on doing the five projects I proposed to for the class, instead I will do them on my own. The guy who was going to do the class with me said he’d be okay with meeting a few times over the semester for feedback and critiquing, and I became dramatic yesterday and was telling people why bother but I’m kidding myself — the whole point of my wanting the class in the first place was to GET HELPFUL FEEDBACK on stuff, rather than just showing the silent web.
This is what I was working on, in fact what was sitting still wet in the easel upstairs
when I got the initial email about not being able to take illustration.
If we set aside the talent question, which is subjective and something I don’t want to touch with a 10 foot pole, let’s just look at some duration. Let’s look at the endless doodles all over my spelling worksheets and math assignments in elementary school. Lets look at the art classes I took and eventually helped teach from 6th grade through about sophomore year of high school. Let’s look at the art teacher who essentially made up a new Honors Painting 5 for me so I could get some solid portfolio work done. Let’s, University of Northern Colorado, look at the fact that every day I come hope from work and dig from my pockets the numerous scraps of paper — receipts, envelopes and little torn pieces of paper — and spend several hours working them out in my sketch book, or transferring them onto canvas, or slowly, slowly chipping away at that image I thought of when I heard that piece of music or saw that color, because there is nothing else on this earth I’d rather be doing. If you are unwilling to sanction that time spent even with one measly “directed study” than you, Sir, do not grasp basic time management.
This week I am going to be scarce as it is project switch everything from old system to new system week at work. Overtime approved. I am facing up to seven 11 hour days at work, plus I still need to have meetings about classes for school. when I’m not doing these other things, I will probably be sitting very still at home.
In addition to this I start school the following week, which means I will go back to living three lives (artist, student, desk-job-holding-adult). I sat down and tried to configure a schedule, and figured I can promise myself about 20 hours from each responsibility each week:
- 20 hours at work because it is required of me,
- 20 hours of school work, which is including classes but is also including a huge block of time to sit and get all my work done, which I hope is effective, and,
- 20 hours of art time, which can be pushed to two 10 hour days on the weekend if I simply have no time during the week.
This may seem extreme, but really this is only 4 hours per weekday of each activity. 4+4+4= 12. There are 16 hours of awake time in a day, which still leaves 8 hours for sleeping. And I do want to set aside a LOT of time for school, and I have some ambitious projects looming in the distance and I need to be spending actual time with them. So there you are.
Here is a great project I will be doing whenever I have a chance.
Catch you later.
Anthony and I went on a photo shoot for the five things I have on sale. His part was mostly to stand in a big vacant lot and mine was to push the button.
Tell your friends and enemies that there are some prime originals on sale. Originals, people. Not prints, not little paper cut-outs to tack on your cork board, I’m talking about high quality paint-on-canvas stuff here. I am particularly fond of Emergency. It is the newest thing I have painted besides the thing for my brother, and I’m sort of a crazy head for selling it. But, it was originally a venting piece, and now that it’s out of my system it should probably be REALLY out of my system.
So when a friend of mine went to Guatemala a few years back, she came back with a plethora of pictures, as one does. A few in particular stood out. This was one of them.
When I was still living in the dorms, I got out a giant canvas one day and decided to paint this, finally, or something based on it, anyway. I had been meaning to — it had been sitting in a special folder on my desktop for precisely this reason — but I hadn’t yet for whatever reason. I got out my biggest filberts and painted the brunt of this in about 1.5 hours, and did the details on the bird later when everything dried.
This is now hanging right above my dining room table, and can be seen from outside through the window.
Emergency, 2007
Despite all the madness in our lives, despite all the human drama and confusing situations, I maintain a sunrise or sunset is of the utmost, urgent importance.
This will be on sale at my little shop after the 15th. This piece also marks my first entry to Illustration Friday, which makes me happy. I’ve been meaning to submit something for a while now, and this seemed to fit the bill nicely.
I have been toying with this for a long time. This is that style again, here examining the idea of how impossible it is to communicate things like “love”. And how one person’s idea of love may not be on par with someone else’s, and yet how important is it to be able to talk about the same exact things when talking about something so important as love?
This grew out of my irritation with people using the word love to each other in high school, but also with it’s liberal use in general. I think people tend to use the word love as a crutch where some kindness would have gone further, as a quick fix-it when long term surgery and therapy would have been more appropriate, as a flat and dusty verbal validation when actually showing it and living it would have been far more meaningful and beneficial.
It also grew from two exploding dog cartoons. This image has been rattling around in my head for a long time, and has shown up on many sketch books and day planners since I first saw it. This other one was also a huge catalyst for the idea. This positioning is actually used in one of the scenes I picked because it’s so heartbreakingly perfect.
I’ve narrowed it down to about four scenes at this point, and while I may tackle them individually for more depth later on, the initial approach is going to be a four-panel thing
THIS IS HOW I MADE A CLOTH GROCERY BAG
I get in modes where I want to do everything I can for Earth. And really, I’m doing okay compared most people my age I think. But I could always do MORE.
Cloth grocery bags, if you don’t get them from Whole Foods when they’re giving them out for free on Earth Day, are kind of expensive. That’s lame. So I decided to try and make one.
The size I wanted was about the size of this paper bag. I looked at how the thing was made.
Then, I looked at what I had in my fabric stash. I was going to go buy more fabric, but where’s the sport in that? I had some leftover flannel from all my quilting projects. They were in weird strips and irregular bits.
I lined them up next to my model. Oddly, each piece was almost exactly what I needed in terms of length.
I used the following pieces:
- A piece for the skinny sides, that included both sides and the bottom.
- A piece for both fat sides, also including the bottom
- Two straps
- Two strap enforcers
- Some cotton to reinforce everything, since flannel is not all that strong and could stretch out.
Then I sewed it together. Then I blanket stitched the outside a little, and the side seems to make it more boxy.
And now I have a cloth grocery bag to forget at home. So far the only place I reliably use it is the farmer’s market, but I guess that’s appropriate.
