git er done

random dude from hunting magazine, pen, 10 min

Saturday Life Drawing 10/25/08

pen, 5 min

pen, 10 min

pen, 30 min

pen, 30 min

More life drawing. Thanks for coming by.

sketch

pencil sketch

Jeez I suck. Oh well, just trying to get back to a drawing a day.

Saturday Life Drawing is Back

Dave, 5 min, colored pencil

Dave, 10 min, colored pencil

Dave, 45 min-ish, watercolor and ink

Thanks to Wes for getting the free Saturday life drawing sessions going again. There was a really good turnout. These drawings are pretty bad...this is the first life drawing session I've been to in over 2 years I think...maybe more.

me and my oily mouth

mouth study, oil on linen, 8x10, work in progress

Q: Joey, wass this?
A: This is another anatomy study, a mouth, this time in oil.

Q: How come?
A: Well, a couple of weeks ago I started experimenting with oils, and I thought some anatomy studies would be good practice. This is my second attempt at painting with oils. Like, ever.

Q: Is it finished?
A: No. This is after two 30-60ish minute sittings. In the way that I've been working, you basically do a drawing with the paintbrush in the first sitting: laying out the forms and shadows in a mid-dark value. Then you let the paint set up- for a day, a week, whatever. Then with each additional setting you come back and lay in more detail, more values, etc. It's actually pretty nice, because you are more or less forced to take things one step at a time, and it's hard to make mistakes due to getting ahead of one's self (a big problem with me). I say "usually," meaning, based on my experience of doing it that way twice. Anyway, yeah, it's a work in progress.

Q: You crazy.
A: I must apologize for the poor picture quality. This is, obviously, a cell phone picture. And not a picture from a nice cell phone like Keeler's where you can watch porn educational videos in high definition, but my old cell phone that doesn't even have teledildonics a qwerty keyboard. I plan on buying a decent digital camera soon to better document stuff like this. Also, this is small enough that I can scan it, but I can't do that until I'm done and I let the paint dry for a few weeks. Check back soon for more updates.

Q: What are you doing in the meantime?
A: Other than working 45-50 hours a week?

Q: Uh, yeah.
Well, honestly...at the moment I'm trying to feel some kind of empathy for that yuppie guy that killed his family in California.

Q: Really?
Yeah. I mean, everyone knows that I can't stand yuppies, that I feel that they proudly represent everything that is standing in the way of peace and progress and happiness on earth. But still, I am determined to stand upon some base level of humanity, in order to feel the pain of this tragedy. It's easy to say that this man only got what was coming to him (by that I mean his personal financial issues, not his death). That anyone involved in rampant, material speculation should rationally expect the pendulum to swing the other way sometimes. That business, by nature, is a process in which one's great gains are only made possible through great losses elsewhere in the system. It would also be easy to point out that this man's future, after "losing everything," would certainly be no worse than the situation that I, my friends, family, and practically everyone I have ever known have been in their entire lives. I've never known the kind of wealth that this man took for granted- took as a matter of life and death apparently. However, he was a human being, breathing the same air that we breath, warmed by the same sun, driven by the same kind of anxieties and fears. I'm certain that when he was first smitten with young love, it probably felt pretty much the same as when such a thing happens to you or I. In that light, it is a bit more difficult to judge, and easier to feel empathy.

Q: Do you think that this 'yuppie' would have granted you these assumptions?
A: No.

Q: Why, then, do you come to these conclusions?
A: "I suppose it has something to do with being able to look oneself in the mirror." - Noam Chomsky