mmm bod.

alright. this summer i took drawing iii. these are a few figure studies i did of the lovely miss lily. alright.

development of yogi piece

in contemplating my practice on the mat (and off the mat) i have found myself coming back time and again to the concept of honoring my teachers. there really aren't words to accurately discribe what i want to say about this. mostly it's, well hmm...simply and humbly, i give thanks for the people in my life who have directly impacted me allowing thier life's experiences to wash over me. i want to say that this is the material which binds the separate parts of me into one semi-wholeness. in this drawing, i have explored this concept, attempting to address even the teachers whose impact has been passed on, aging and growing more sacred as it contributes to the greater wealth of knowledge.
so, i drew 8 or so of these faces, some yogi's and some not. they were darling little things each drawn in blue ball point pen on tracing paper. the materials used in this drawing are important as they are meant to reinforce this sense of humility in the face of the greater source.. and, one night at late o'clock i got playing with materials in the first production of this piece and at the time it represented my feelings towards all this, but the next morning i got a look at it and it was something so different to me. so we struggled together. how do i illustrate a relationship i have with something that i dont even fullly understand? something that i was reminded of with this drawing was that much like the relationships in our lives, sometimes the dynamic we have with our work is effortless and sometimes it takes a great deal of attention and purposeful care. i rode that line with this drawing. anyhow. after that night i sat with it and played with different options and all i could do was sort of tear it up break it into managable portions, there's not a picture of it here but i needed it to be more quiet and lighter. so i made this little tactile juicy drawing below to clear my head and then i started over from a new angle. multiples. multiples. then i came to an understanding and i knew where it needed to go. check it out.

materials- watercolor, oil pastel, chalk pastel, xeroxes, grafite, wax, wood
size wise its about 2 ' by 4'
the inclass critique- didn't get a whole lot of feed back on this piece although we all sort of agreed that there needs to be another layer of information behind the back drawing maybe another layer of wood.

final for drawing...these are my father.

this drawing was the final for my drawing 2 class with tim ford. we were supposed to do a redo of another project we had done from earlier in the semester. contrary to the previous drawing i had done of my father, i wanted to really develop the image purely as apart from any sort of loaded meaning. i wanted it to be playful and yet i wanted it to still seem related to the other peices i have made this semester in this class. unfortunately what you can't tell form this image is that there is some bee's wax which coats the central image, sort of setting it apart from the rest of the piece. i am really satisfied with how it came out; its dreamy, just the way i like.

...this is my father.

after the human condition project, which i worked on earlier this semester my professor assigned us to do a contrast peice. the most logical contrast to me, since the previous project was regarding my relationship with my step dad, was to do one focusing on my relationship with my father. in this image i have me in the bottom poriton of the page represented as the same sparrow as in the human condition peice, and in the upper portion of the peice is my father (cute pic of him from grade school, looking pretty awesome i might add) the basic concept here is that dad can be highly analytical and is a very linear thinker, where as i am not. the marks are meant to convey and contrast of these mindsets and yet there he is on this sort of pedistle. i think of him in the highest regards for reasons which are both logical as well as purely instinctual and nonlinear.

Figure Studies

so i want you to know my process of developing an image. first i start with a gesture, which is meant to capture the movement of a pose. then i move on to develop these initial gestures building flesh to the frame work of the pose. i start mapping out points which relate to one another trying to maintain a critical eye because this is the point at which i am adjusting the the shapes which collectively make up the greater form as well as attempt to most accurately display each of the parts of the body to one another so that they seem to relate and work together to create a sense of unity and realistic weight on the page.

i've been trying to play with color lately to help ground the figure. this will be something i explore more, as well as color as value once i begin painting II in the fall; it's another figure study class.

this final peice is one that i completed in my painting class for the final. i used a figure study from my drawing class to reference for the pose. i am happy with how it turned out though i wish it still felt as gestural as the original.

been makin these little bites of cute.

so i've been making a lot of these the passed couple of days, pretty excited about them. 

just put 7th track from the playall books album and it spits these out of my head

the human condition as far as im concerned it's repitition

so the question is: what is the human condition? and my answer is, as are so many things in life, based on the convoluted expansion of a single concept which i will quickly walk you through, because this is how i came to find this image as the grand solution (in it's semi complete form). imediately the answer comes to me to be repitition. we live our lives along a path which is relatively congruent to the days before; eating, sleeping, interpersonal interactions, images which spark a thought dialogue we've likely explored in the past on some level, etc. this is a force which guides us all and of which many of us wish to escape. from here i think of the positive and negative associations to repitition which leads me to my step dad Steve who struggled with addiction- the particular repitition which lead him down a destructive path, away from the positive, normative associations to repitition...which in my eyes, in this situation comes down to family and the rituals therein. anyhow, here it is, this image is about me and steve and our relationship with one another as the condition has drenched us in a familial dynamic unique from any other in my life.
the process i followed was influenced by a process used by artist alex asher daniel. first i lay down the color allowing my sentiment towards steve to guide me (my first several preliminary drawings had colors different from the one above, they were less restful, the strokes more choatic and disjointed). the color is a combination of media including acrylic, watercolor, oil pastel, and a gel medium charcoal mixture. i would then follow with a grafite sketch which i tried to complete relatively quickly. the process is intintionally brief so as to maintain an honest quality, which isn't overthought, because that's a lot like how relationships work, sometimes they are just what they are no matter how hard you try. that just about sums it up except i want to say lastly that i know that there is a lot that is wrong with this image technically, but i love it because within the process of working i moved from a space anger to one of contentment.
the end.