broken jpegs

I changed the way I access this blog and it broke all the images in my older posts. I'll try to fix some of the newer ones once I have time but I'm back to class now so time is now a precious commodity that I have very little of.

Sometimes you just really hate a painting.

Research Day

I've had a cold that has really put a halt on my work for about 3 days. I felt much better day though so I decided to go to the local library and do some research. I've been narrowing in on the artists and things that influence me the most. I've tried to think in terms of both contemporary influences and influences that have already made their mark in art history. Artist's such as Meggs, Greg Gossel, Shepard Fairey and the collective FAILE have really been shaping my ideas about the kind of art I want to create. All of these artist have come to prominence  in the computer age and are all still working. As such, they have been fairly easy to follow on the internet threw their websites, art&culture magazine blogs, flickr and even the news sometimes.

  Looking back into the height of pop art for influences however, I realized nothing was going to beat a good book with lots of commentary and high quality prints of the artists work. I set out today hoping to find a book on Robert Rauschenburg, I was hoping that knowing more about his 'combines' would help me with the layers of collage, paint, marker, tea stains and pencil that I've been building up as the base for my most recent pieces. I also wanted to find a book on Cy Twombly who's graffiti style scrawling across canvas might also shed some insight on the calligraphic aspects I'm incorporating. Of course the library didn't have books on either, so I went with what was available and read a book on Jasper Jones and another on Andy Warhol while I was there. I checked out Superman Vol. 1 and The Spirit Vol. 1 before leaving. So all in all I think it was a productive day of researching.

I have some questions I'm working through in my art, if you have an opinion I'd love to hear it:

What do you think of destruction as a form of creation?

What do you think of public art?

How far should public art go?

Is our society overloaded with imagery/messages?

Can we collectively have a conversation with the imagery we face every day or is it a strictly one way conversation?

Can you and I have individual conversations with the imagery we face every day or is it a strictly one way conversation?

How do you feel about appropriating images?

Is it better for your art to be specific to your particular views, beliefs, feels, experiences or just things a broad audience will appreciate?

Professor Crossman

Professor, 

I've tried e-mail but I think I'm more likely to get ahold of you this way. I wanted to know if it would be possible to join your contemporary painting techniques class, the list says the class is closes so I thought I should contact you before e-mailing records.

Also, do you know of anywhere I could get good deals on linocut linoleum or screen printing screens?

Portraits and appropriation

Untitled 7x7 each Mixed medium

Brant 11x14 Mixed Medium

Aaron 16x20 Mixed Medium

Detail

Detail

I've been appropriating a lot of imagery from comic books, book pages and odds and ends that get used in collage. People I know have also been subject matter as in two of these paintings. I've been using a lot of stencils but I'm also interested in printmaking techniques like screen printing and linocut, I just haven't had the money to invest in the equipment yet. If you want to see one of my influences toward printmaking check out Greg Gosel.

Narrowing in on my influences

Deatil

Detail

Detail

I have another like this that I wont have pictures for until tomorrow after I retrieve it from the county fair. For now however I hope you enjoy the second mixed media piece I've done and a vain of paintings that I feel are really narrowing in on my influences.  It's 24x36 and I don't have a title for it yet but I'm thinking about calling it The Beheading of All.

Tour influencing studio work

After I got back from tour I wanted to redo some of the concepts I used for performance paintings. The finished studio piece above and the performance paintings below. Tour really helped me hash out some concepts and experiment with composition, since I've gotten back however I've had the time to develop some of those ideas and incorporate other painting methods. I've become very interested in stencils and have begun using them in most of the pieces I'm working on. This is largely influenced my street artists. The street artists Meggs is likely my new favorite artist.

Updated photo quality

I had my friend at Bob at Sunset Studios (link in sidebar) shoot my paintings again so I could give you some better pictures. These are all from tour again, I know it's been over a month now but two are previously unposted. The thumbnails are a little desaturated so click to enlarge and see a better picture.

Schedule update and images.

Hey we've added a show to the tour in my hometown of Chillicothe Ohio tomorrow, tuesday June 16th, at Cardos Pizza 27 W 2nd St! So if you're in the area you should definitely come, It'll be awesome!

It's been awhile since the last update so I've got lots of fun new performance paintings for everyone. There are a few I want to discuss in depth, but I'm writing this at the Cincinnati show so that'll have to wait until later.

Schedule updates and thoughts on performance painting.

The Kansas City show has been canceled but we will likely try to find a place to play in the area anyway. Also, Tulsa might be on the map now, I'll try to post if I find out for certain.

Wow, crazy couple of days, played Mansfield and Chicago and now we're hanging out in Des Moines before the show at Mars Cafe. I've made two paintings since my last post but I haven't had an opportunity to photograph them yet, so no images. The five paintings I've done and seven days I've been on the road has given me plenty to think about. I've noticed I'm pulling heavily upon my pop art influences. As a rule I don't plan any of the paintings out, I'll work on a concept earlier that day and possibly practice drawing some of the elements in it in my sketchbook, no marks on the canvas and no thumbnails. Most of the shows so far have been 30 minutes, I'm becoming more comfortable with paintings under a time limit and I've found it helps to work as dry as I can. I'm constantly running into things that didn't translate from my mind to the canvas the way I expected. Having to live with the mistake or completely change the painting is a decision I'm constantly faced with because of my time constraints, but it's good practice. Practice is really the thing I want the most out of this experience but I'v developed a few paintings too.

I'm also wrestling with weather I will further alter any of these paintings. Part of me feels like having some sort of record of the performace is the point and the paintings should be left as is, but another part of me sees lines, shapes and values that I want to alter. So I guess the question I'm asking is which is more importance: the finished product or the concept?

Performance Paintings

It's been a crazy four days and I have three performance paintings from it. The first is 30 minutes the second is 20 and the third is 30. There's another show tonight and then a much needed day off before Chicago. I'll likely have more to say about process and style and questions I'm working through about performance paintings once I'm rested tomorrow.

Sleepin' in a van.

Road trips are supposed to be fun but this one is going to be work. If you want to watch me performance paint while my friends The La De Les rock out then come to one of these shows!

Jun 4 2009 8:00P	The Whiskey	Grand Rapids, Michigan
Jun 5 2009 9:30P	The Corner Bar	Kalamazoo, Michigan
Jun 6 2009 8:00P	The White Cottage	Berne, Indiana
Jun 7 2009 8:00P	CD Jungle	Mansfield, Ohio
Jun 9 2009 8:00P	TBA	Chicago, Illinois
Jun 10 2009 8:00P	Mars Cafe	Des Moines, Iowa
Jun 11 2009 8:00P	Caffeine Dreams	Omaha, Nebraska
Jun 12 2009 8:00P	Mainstreet Cafe	Kansas City, Missouri
Jun 13 2009 8:00P	Cafe Coco	Nashville, Tennessee
Jun 15 2009 8:00P	Covenant Church	Cincinatti, Ohio
Jun 17 2009 8:00P	Carabar	Columbus, Ohio
Jun 18 2009 8:00P	The Vineyard	Kent, Ohio

I'll be painting strictly in acrylic during the tour, painting is a very different experience when you only have 20 to 45 minutes, depending on the show, to make a finished piece. I'll try to update with images when I can but internet access and time constrains might make that difficult.  The La De Les will also be performing with Sing for Company and Jonathan Hape at all these show. So it's going to be awesome and you should be there. 

Self-portrait and problems with a method

Incomplete

I attempted a self-portrait using Lichtenstein's method with a few of my own stylistic touches. I ran into some problems though. Lichtenstein used magna acrylic to fill in his solid colors and lines then stenciled his dots over top with oil to "give the dots the same weight" as the other shapes. I thought that was brilliant and wanted to attempt it. I ran into a problem though, I didn't have magna acrylic and the only acrylics that I see craft stores carrying are water-based. I decided to attempt the process with water based acrylic anyway as the oil would only be layered over and not under. The oil reacted with the acrylic in an undesirable way making it partially transparent and revealing perviously covered marks. I also think I should have used a stencil with wider spacing, the revealed white space was not enough to tone down the value of the red paint like I'd hoped, leaving my face looking, well, red. So problem solving that media issue and finding a dot stencil somewhere between my really big on and my really small one is now on my list of things to do.

Detail

The grey-ish spot above the eyebrow is what I meant by perviously covered marks showing through :(

Commission

Had to put my plans for the Lichtenstein inspired work on hold for a commission. Money isn't everything but when you have three dollars in your wallet you don't turn down a comission. The client wanted a burly Elijah slaying the prophets of Baal. He was happy with the piece but I'm not sure if I'll be doing more work for him yet. Once I return to more personal work it will likely be more serene than this.

Acrylic and charcoal

20 x 30

The painting was photographed by my good friend Bob Detty who you can find here or at the Sunset Studios link under Friends.

I've become quite the fan of Roy Lichtenstein.

So I'm reading up on Roy Lichtenstein. I've become quite the fan of his work and that combined with my newfound interest in comic books inspired this painting.

"Whoops"

27 x 9 oil on illustration board

My little camera didn't really capture the true color in the painting and photography never captures brushstrokes but I wanted to take the comic panel I was working from and do the content in a very loose gestured style. I considered replicating the blocked color and outlines but thought it would be more interesting to alter it.

Running with the same idea of altering quoted content I'm going to attempt to paint Caravaggio's "Saint Mathew and the Angel"  in the block outlined Lichtenstein style. My first attempt to start the paintings was not very successful however. My book on Lichtenstein said that he was frustrated by his early paintings because his screens for the dots would clog and run together, I've run into the same problem.

Summer study.

So semesters over and I'm looking for a job, which I'm not excited about but I've started an oil painting and I've checked out books from the library on Lichtenstein and De Kooning, which I am excited about. I'll have more on all that later, but I thought I should say something to let everyone know I'm still updating through the summer.

Doves and bandanas

Did this one over break, I used sketchbook paper so it didn't take the watercolor the way I wanted it to but I really like the things I'm working with in this one. The last couple pieces I've done and the things that are starting to fill my journals and sketchbooks are these kind of archaic symbols of the Holy Spirit and the words "a message". I'm also a big fan of bandanas and decided to incorporate some of the floral print from my favorite bandana in this. There's a lot I like about where I feel this is taking me. As for the composition with this one I wish I had made the proportion of the water color to the proportion of the dove pattern more dissimilar, I think it might be a little to balanced as is. Otherwise, I think it works and I'm going to keep doing some variations of these concepts.  

Paint, Comics, Easter.

Back on Campus, I went home this weekend which was good, very relaxing. I got a little work done too, I sent a piece of mail art out and did another painting, I've had some success with starting my comic collection too.

I finally went to the comic shop in my home town, it was going out of business and I was a little disappointing in their stock. It hardly had any trade paperbacks and I didn't want to buy disconnected issues. I ordered a trade paperback of the Uncanny X-Men Dark Phenix Saga offline however and a friend directed me to http://www.comicspriceguide.com/. The thing I'm most excited about however is an uncle of mine dropped off some old comics from the 60's and one of them was uncanny x-men #23! Which I probably would have had to drop about 50 or 60 buck if I wanted to buy it. 

Church was good on Easter morning too and it gave me some inspiration for a piece that's still floating around in my head. I don't know if anyone reading this has the same thing happened to them with their holy book, but I'll frequently hear or read scripture that I'm familiar with, can almost recite verbatim, but somewhere in the middle of this scripture that I've heard or read a thousand times there will be a line that I had no idea was there. That happened to me at church this Easter, the speaker was reciting from Revelation about the saints and living creatures surrounding the lamb who was slain and and the seal that could not be broken except for the lion of Judah, etc. etc. ... I was very familiar with all of this and nothing struck me as new or unexpected, until they read that the lamb had seven horns and seven eyes representing the seven spirits of the Lord sent out to the earth. I had never heard that before, well, I had, but for some reason it had never stuck. Anyway, I think that those lines could lend themselves to some really interesting visual imagery so I'm going to attempt a few paintings based upon it.

Line

Just started experimenting with lines, if you know anyone who draws like this I would like to know so I can study them. All the lines were with a .13 pen which was painstaking, I really need a .5

I also did a mail art piece today and I'm going home this weekend so I'll mail it to you then prof.

Winsor McCay Study

Heres a study I did of a few Little Nemo panels. I really enjoyed doing this and I'm going to look for some comic books when I go home next weekend. I'm trying to find trade paperback of the uncanny X-men, I've found out that I can get used TPB's of uncanny X-men online for pretty cheap, 1-6 dollars plus shipping, starting at issue 129, but if I want a book of compiled issues before 129 then their only available in hardcover and cost a lot more; 25 dollars upward plus shipping for about ten issues.

Performance painting

Went to Michigan again this weekend. Yesterday was a very long day of shows, but it was good, I got to performance paint for The La De Les again. They were limited to 20 minutes for the set compared to their usual 30 to 40 minutes so I really had to crank the painting out fast, but it was god practice and I've got another painting to post. Until I get it photographed check out Audrey Kawasaki . I'm becoming very interested artists who use line as descriptive force the same way comic books or art nouveau does.

Little Nemo

Borrowed a book of Little Nemo in Slumberland comic strips from a friend. Little Nemo was written and illustrated by Winsor McCay who had an excellent sense of design. I'm going to do some studies soon. Watchmen really turned me on to the American Comic style and I'm dying to find a comic dealer so I can get some trade paper backs of the more classic comic heroes. Problem is there isn't any comic dealers, at least not like what I'm after, in the area. There's one in my hometown but I won't be back there until Easter. 

I admit I feel a little nerdy, there's probably a bunch of comic nerds out there that started drawing by copying comics and then changed their style once they got into the classroom. I started drawing in the classroom and now I'm looking backward and going "OOOoooooo comic books!"

Wow! new update.

Ok, long Story short: One week spring break + one week with killer cold + one weekend on the road = no updates for almost a month, finding yourself behind in most classes and lots of self-loathing.

Good news: I'm 95% over the cold, its warm outside again and I just read Watchmen.

Did a lot of sketches from watchmen of the character Rorschach who I liked a lot. I also practiced some figure drawing and did some studies of Mark Ryden. I like how well Ryden can juxtapose seemingly unrelated objects and I'm interested by the odd creatures he comes up with. I wanted to study him mostly for his creatures though, I have a concept for an oil painting that I think his work could help inform.

I also recommend watchmen (the graphic novel, haven't seen the movie yet). It really turned me on the the comic style of basic inked figures colored in with watercolor, I'm going to try and borrow a book of Little Nemo in Slumberland comics from a friend to study it more.