More figure drawings and a portrait

Here is more stuff as the last post! I have yet to decipher how to prevent the pictures on blogspot from being tiny and having assy quality. I apologize for the quality, for sure.

Figure drawings from recently

Here are figure drawings done on Saturdays at the Hartford Art School. Exciting project coming up. I mean, hopefully. Those sorts of things are best as anticipation, but anyways. I'll post stuff for that later.

Bavaria!

(2011) Bavaria!!! *Chrysanthemum* ¡Argentum! ¡Offers! Aesthethethetic AH!

Acerbic Commeuppance

This is a new series I'm working on. The pieces are done with ink, and so far the ones I've made have been made 'on-the-spot,' meaning that I don't plan with sketches or thumbnails before I create them. I've also become really interested with the use of words to recontextualize the piece, and create layers of meaning. I've become very interested in poetry in literature this last year.

The words are meant to carry 3 values: first, a conceptual one. Each word has a denotation and a connotation, like in poetry, and that gives a meaning, like a story. Second, each word has a sound, and I look to create nice sounds with the words-- rhymes, consonances, assonances, euphonic combinations. The word spoken out loud gives each one a rythm and emphasis that transcends simply the drawn word on the paper. Finally, each word has a visual style, which is expressed in different font types, capitalizations, and symbols.


I try as much as I can to keep the intention of the painting fairly ambiguous, and the idea is that any sort of analysis is encouraged- ideally, any interpretation is taken to be valid, and so the meaning of the drawing extends beyond the surface of the drawing itself, and becomes a unique experience each time and for each person. I have my own interpretations, and my own placed symbolism, including a purely visual and formalistic aspect that really is as deep as the paper-- in other words, the drawing has meaning, but it also 'looks nice' and sometimes choices are made to place visual considerations ahead of conceptual ones. I hope that as I continue the series, I solidify an exigence or purpose to serve as a guiding thread for the series.

More figures

Figure drawings

Here are figure drawings I've been doing in ink. More to come

My summer

In my last post, I professed that great things were ahead in the summer. Though I wish I had updated throughout the summer, there is a certain narrative poetry in framing the summer with two sentiments: looking forward and looking back. This summer I interned at XVIVO, a medical animation company in Rocky Hill, CT. I got the position because Michael Astrachan, the founder of the company, had seen my work at a local exhibition. Because his roots are as a classically trained painter, there was a sort of kinship in both our interests for the realist painting tradition. The internship was very interesting. Although I was not able to actually have a hand in any of the projects (which is guess is ideally the objective), I spent a good amount of time learning a lot about 3D modeling, texturing, and lighting. I also met some great people, and started Hackey-Sacking, which is really good if you like to be outside but aren't really athletic. I am excited to keep working in 3D, because it's a tool that has so many possibilities, and I'm glad I was able to see the studio-environment, even if it was from my relatively isolated position.
Although the internship took up a lot of my creative time and energy, I did start a few personal projects. One of them was a short comic story. Right now, it's in the coloring process, and though it will take a while to finish, I'm sure it'll be a good portfolio piece.

Another project I started was with Mr. Astrachan himself. He's been working on writing a children's story for a very long time, and asked me if I wanted to illustrate it. For now I've been making a lot of sketches for the story.

I've been writing on my sketchbook a lot. Though it's very refreshing and spontaneous (and more importantly, cathartic, therapeutic, and self-indulgent), there is a certain impatience and lack of polish that comes with my stream of consciousness writing and drawing. I have not made a nice, polished oil painting in a long time. I have barely worked with color all summer. This year I have to start applying to colleges. I'm sure it'll be a very stressful process, and so I'm bracing myself for it. The schools I'm most likely going to apply to are RISD, MICA, Pratt, and possibly the Academy of Art University in San Franscisco, although I have yet to visit it. We also visited CalArts over the summer, for the second time this year. I might do a longer post about it later, but I'm not sure that CalArts is where I want to go.

I feel uncertainty. I feel uncertainty about everything, because that's the price of discovering new things. Some days I feel extremely secure about what I want to do, my future, my work, the person I want to be, but somedays it feels like I'm stepping onto nothing. Nobody can tell me where I have to go, and that's exciting but sometimes it also feels like I have a choice over things that have too heavy a consequence on my life, and that makes me afraid. I'm trying to be more relaxed about things, be more adventurous, be more open, and live in the moment. I'm trying to live by trying to make my life good now, and not waiting around for things to happen later. I'm trying to live like I try to improv: not looking into the future, but responding to my immediate surroundings

Art exhibition invitation

I hate it when I follow a blog and they never post things. More importantly, I resent my own unproductivity. I've been very busy with exams at school and things. Summer is coming though, and there are awesome things ahead. Yes! Here is an invitiation for my school art show that I made. The middle has text, but I decided to leave it empty for posting on here

Art!

Sketchbook pages

There is nothing I like more than doodling and writing in my sketchbook, except maybe really fullfilling human interaction. These sketches are fun because I just draw a line and then I fill it as a person, with all of the bumps, even if it doesn't totally make sense as a person. Knowing about anatomy and perspective really helps to do these

Some words of wisdom: Insecurity doesn't pay in the arts, nor any other activity for that matter. If you want to do something, do it even if you think you're doing it wrong. If you do it enough, you'll start to do it righy

working on something

I started on this yesterday. Not sure where it's going, but I can tell that all the Phil Hale paintings I've been looking at inspired it. Here's a little tryptich that I finished a little bit ago. The picture quality isn't so great, but meh. I'll upload em nicer later.

Life is tasty!

Pafoosi

Just a little personal thing I've been working on on and off for a couple of months. I guess every piece of art I do is personal, so that statement is redundant. Trying t figure out how to make these pictures clickable thumbnails. Here you go.

Procrastination-Lairs

Been procrastinating a lot. Here are some bad guy lairs.

Some knowledge:

The Ashcan school of American painters sought to perpetuate an art style that was realistic, poignant, and uniquely American in content and execution. This was in response to both the European Academism prevalent in their time, as well as the rise of modern art. The painters were led by teacher and painter Robert Henri.

Wow!

More more more sketches!

Painting coming. Until then, here's a few sketchbook pages with a ton of writing. A little bit of knowledge:

The Prix du Rome was considered by the 19th century French Academy to be the greatest accomplishment in art. It combined one's skills as a draughtsman, painter, and designer, with knowledge of classical and Biblical history.

!!!

sketch

sketch

Painting in progress

This is a painting I've been working on. I think I'm going to continue working on it for a little bit

Sketches

Here's a skech of my mom giving me a ride one morning. Woking on a painting, will post soon.

Sketches

Here's a sketch

Gold Key at scholastic

Got a Gold Key award from Scholastic for this painting. Pretty happy about it. More to come

Need to update

My New Year's resolution is to start updating again. The first one is supposed to be animated, but Blogger sucks and it's possible it won'tbe animated.