Inktober #3

Another reason to love October...costumed figure drawing classes!  I still struggle with figure drawing, but I made it through.  It's especially hard at Dreamworks surrounded by such amazingly talented artists, but also very inspiring.

#Inktober 1

Here is my first #Inktober painting, which means every day in October I will do one painting of some type.  I left my Apple Pencil at work so I took the opportunity to practice finger painting and a bit of abstraction.  This was a giant shelf containing jars of honey in various states.  It was really cool to see.  Enjoy the image and the speed paint!

Finger Painting 2/24/16

2/21/16

2/15/16

2/17/16

Nothing like some finger painting on the iPhone to pass the time.  Boy was my hand cramping at the end though!

Final Projects in My MFA Series

Some people may have seen my recent works in progress posted to Facebook and thought that I had gone a bit mad, just splashing seemingly random and muddy swashes of paint all over a giant canvas.  I know that most people have the reaction of "anyone can do this, when they see the giant mess I'm making.  But, I promise you, there is a method to my madness, and I'll do my best to describe my method and process to you.

Short summary of previous works:

My first series is based on capturing the physical imprints of my body upon a surface.  The images consist of my physical body in addition to marks and imprints that were unforeseen as a result of my working in the dark.  What this reveals is the underlying psychological process associated with the memories I have based the images off of, or more simply, the memory of my body unintentionally making itself known on the surface that speaks a clearer truth than my preconceived ideas.

My second series utilizes the methods I discovered in the first in that I use the intuition of my carnal memory to produce an image.  These paintings are different from the photograms in that the method is more deliberate than the unintentional recordings resulting from working in the darkroom.  In fact, I used my iPad to record a quick memory/intuition fueled sketch, that I then referenced as a intuitive compass as I worked in a much slower larger scale.

My final series will be two large scale paintings composed of multiple layers of tinted blacks.  For these pieces I am actually drawing inspiration from another artist's methods concerning a specific set of works: Mark Rothko's Rothko Chapel paintings.  These paintings are composed of many layers of uneven black washes that are different tints.  When you first look at them, you don't see much but black.  However, as your eyes adjust, you begin to see the layers of subtle colors that pull you into an infinite depth.  As Rothko put it, 

"bright colors sort of stop your vision at the canvas, where dark colors go beyond. And definitely you're looking at the beyond. You're looking at the infinite."

My works take the concept of creating a limitless space upon the canvas, but instead of applying the concepts of universality and infinity I fuel my expressions with intensely personal carnal mnemonic responses.  I perform each wash with an intuitive anchor, like the iPad sketches, only this time the anchor is musical.  I have been performing musically from as far back as I can remember.  Indeed my earliest childhood memories are performing singing and dance numbers on a stage for an audience.  That being so, music has embedded itself deep within my psyche, and nothing can recall the physical chemical responses associated with the memories of a period of my life like music can.  As soon as a song plays it's as if I step into a portal and relive those most potent memories of my life.  With this technique, each pass of color on the canvas becomes a physical marker of the memory within my body, building a map that displays not the response to an isolated moment or time period, but a window through which you can perceive a lifetime of experiences of joy, sorrow, love, hatred, envy, and every other hue of the emotional spectrum that paints my identity as a human being.

Finally getting back to my roots

This last semester has taken me far, far, away from my comfortable home of artistic expression into the confounding, frustrating, practical world of technical artistry.  While the grueling and sometimes painful learning curves have taken me further in my understanding of the 3D animation pipeline and helped me grow as a technical artist, I've been badly yearning for some time to just relax and let the flow of expression once again paint itself on canvas.  Event though this technical canvas was my iPad, this last weekend at Lake Livingston was exactly what I needed to remind myself that even though I feel like I'm out of stamina in a marathon of programming out at the Viz Lab in A&M, I can still come home in the end to the warm and welcoming arms of the more expressive arts.

Summer Drawings

Went to Gavin's family's lake house up at Lake Livingston yesterday to
chill and get some relaxation in. One of the things I love most about
summers is the chance to just relax and do some sketching without any
pressure. Lakes and oceans are a common subject for me, since I've
lived by water for most of my life, and my I suppose maybe it's
because I'm a water sign, but I've always been drawn to water. In any
case, it gave me a reason to practice using procreate, this time
trying to get a nice India ink feel.

Manica Depressiva

Sketch of a drag performer, one Miss Manica Deppresiva, at the Houston
Lambda Centers Miss Lambda fundraiser. These events are amazing for
character inspiration and never fail to leave your brain overloaded
with so much sensory information you won't be able to help yourself
but whip out your sketch pad and scribble something down. Once again,
this was drawn in my Procreate app with a pogo stylus. Fantastic
stuff!!

Starburst iPad painting

So the painting app I use on the iPad 2, procreate, recently had an
update which made it even more the best painting app for the iPad in
my opinion. It now has the ability to utilize "wet" brushes, which
will smear and pick up pigments of color that the brush stroke
crosses, much like Corel paint. They even added new sections to the
brush editing menu that allow you to change the load and amount of
wetness the brush will have. Also, much to my utter joy and
amazement..... You can use blending modes in your layers!!!! (I may
have peed a bit in my pants on this one...shhhh!!!!).
It's limited to multiply, screen, add, lighten, and exclusion at the
moment, but it's a huge step in the right direction :D. All these
improvements plus a fantastic redesign to their GUI and menus and an increase to hd resolution to their already phenomenal resolution make this definitely the number one art app to
have for any iPad user with an interest in art. Now we just need to
figure out some way of convincing Jobs to put in the software for
pressure sensitivity...come on baby!!!

Recent Dream

I recently had an extremely vivid dream. Unfortunately, like most dreams, much of it faded away when I woke up. There was this one
image that remained, though. I remember walking outside in my
backyard in the early morning. Just after some kind of fierce summer
storm. The entire world was painted blood red with the light of the
rising sun. I caught a glimmer of color across the lake in the sky
and saw a piece of rainbow that was so bright it appeared to be
metallic, and left spots in my vision from where lighted glinted off
of it. I reached out to grab my camera to capture this phenomenon,
and as I was looking through the viewfinder, I centered on this
magnificent tree. Just as that happened the sun came up directly
behind it, backlighting the scene with a magnificent halo. I just
remembered being absolutely stunned by the awesome beauty of these
events coming together so suddenly and so perfectly. So of course, I
had to grab my ipad and sketch it immediately! I wonder what it
means.....?