bike mag

saw this photo in a bicycling magazine today. i scanned it and altered the colours. i think it looks cooler now. anyways. this picture kicks ass. i'm thinkin about getting my SLR 35 mm camera out and shootin like i used to, payin money to get film developed.

new scanner

got a printer scanner all-in-one thingy for my birthday. it's fancy. i like. so i scanned some sketches in my notebook / sketchbook. i forgot how much i like cheap lined notebooks. they're great for just scketching out ideas. i'm afraid to test things out with nice paper and nice watercolor skectchbooks. white space is intiminating sometimes. anyways here's some stuff -

UNH library

while waiting for a lousy job "interview" i drew this hangin around campus. It was fun, felt like a student again. also nice to see people with intellect and style. much lacking here at home where nascar or camflauge hats and work boots with shorts are 'cool'.

this pic was of some bushes outside the library. i think they were geraniums. but it's early spring so everything's kind of dead looking...

correction etc

so i guess "impressionists" were really just categorized as artists who deviated from the french classic salon artwork for the bourgeoisie. they rejected all that crap for a better way of painting. good move in my opinion. why they chose what they did i have yet to learn. the other day's pondering was based on a few sentences i found in my old art history text book. while only reading a few pages from a book specifically on the impressionists i learn the above bit of trivia.

random, but i think i may have BDD, body dysmorphic disorder? creepy...

future visions

so here's my thought of the day: i was first thinking about the trend in movies lately. they all seem to be fantasy, super heroish, or straight horror. why? here's my logic. i believe the our society is dealing with the beginning of social and political turmoil and the start of the downfall of a 'great' nation, america. we in response look for a superhero to help of conquer the evil that lurks, we look into the face of extreme horror to lighten, by comparison, our own reality of horror, and of course, my favorite, an escape from reality altogether. We indulge in the fantasy of other worlds or into fairy-tale version of the world we live in and the possibility that we can enter this other world. In terms of the art world, this has happened before. much of the impressionist movement began in such a way. Dealing with changes in world leaders, with warfare and basically a total reshaping of europe, many painters found themselves absorbed with nature and with our experience of it. I wonder if, today as we enter our new 'green-age', we will return to the absorption into nature. An easy escape from political and social turmoil would be to look into the world as the world, simply as nature, as our true environment our true reality rather than some social construction. I think this is why i paint or sketch nature. it's my way of dealing with the world. it's with a sigh and a turn of my cheek that i face nature as man's companion. the ephemeral atmospheric conditions of our day to day holds all the emotions we can experience. apprehension, fear, giddiness, love, joy, sadness can all be found with confrontation and contemplation within nature. it is just as wholesome as life itself and we can witness it all in one day! I hope the future of art lies not in video and film but in the older tradition of painting and hopefully on nature's grace. do you think that the public can be held in awe by just one image alone, rather than all the excitement and changing images of film? i believe they can if the piece is strong enough to express and communicate to people of certain comprehension. I can only hope i'll be involved in the evolution of expression and of art itself, whatever it may be.

things

here's some things i did today. i dont really like them. the road to ascutney one is exactly like a thousand other ones i've already made. ironiclly this one is a real place... the other one of the colonial apartments arcoss the street from me is ok. just seems childish and like a childrens book illustration. i wish i had my oil paints. wish i had access to all the materials and machines back at school. I feel like if i could really paint again then i'd somehow be happier, but i dont think my life is that simple. although i wish it were. the one thing i hate about watercolors is that you have to work quickly and theres no time to rework anything or add anything afterwords. anyways, i dont know why i waste my time doing these things, i suppose it's because i dont know what else to do with the time i've been given to live. i feel cold and lonley today.

road to ascutney

colonial apartments

the road to tarascon

my parents sent a postcard to me a few months ago from the Met in nyc. it was a van gogh drawing titled 'the road to tarascon' completed in pen and graphite. its a little blurry, sorry.

well, i was inspired to draw my own version. so here it is in ink.

I decided to add watercolor to it just to liven it up a bit....so here it is.

I think van gogh would have chosen similar colors. i like it. it now hang framed in my bedroom.

a side note- i drove 30 min today to the art supply store to get some more watercolor paper and some waterproof / watercolor tape only to find that it was closed. i often forget that most stores are closed on sundays. err...frustration.

sleepless night

i couldnt sleep last night so around 2am i wrote this. It's more lyrical than poetic, but whatever.

It's away
It's away
It's away

Think I've lost my mind
Think I've lost my mind
Not quite sure how
But I think I've lost my mind

It's alright I guess it's fine
'cause I dont mind
I dont mind

If you see my brain
Wanderin' through the street
Just let me know
And I'll chase it down
I guess

Not really sure
What to do
It's hard to think
Without a brain

It's away
It's away
It's away

klondike

ray johnson and daniel johnson. two different people. not only different from eachother but different from everybody else. see the movies 'How to draw a bunny' and 'The devil and Daniel Johnson'. interesting stuff. somehow, as an artist, it feels good to know that other people see things similarly. I find it amazing to see people truly real and wholy themselves, not some copycat of someone else, but someone who has their own thoughts and is not afriad to themselves. sometimes i feel like i'd like to wear tight tie-dyed t-shirts and an oversized goofy plaid hat outside becuase it's what what i sometimes like to wear inside the house. Although i feel i'd get beaten up for wearing such bizarre things. i try to restrict myself sometimes. But a true artist i suppose would just do their own things and damn everyone else. right? anyways, check out those movies. cool stuff.

i started making pages for a book presummably titled 'expiermentals'. i had off-handedly set the two completed watercolours aside an old sheet with some words. bingo! an accidental triptic. ok works for me. i thought they looked pleasing together. there seemed to be something conecting them. like mountain tops in the fog.

waterzen.

playing with watercolours. i have this cool old book about the art of zen with watercolours. i'm no master but it sure was fun...watercolours just take alot of practice.

I had dreams of painting this morning so i decided to paint. been having wierd dreams lately...

2/07

February is strange. It makes me nauseous. There is usually a hint of spring and a blizzard to suffocate you. It's filled with love. And hate. It seems its really about suffering and pushing through the last of winters crying. March is more of a surrendering of coldness and a warming of the winds, but February's something else. I cant wait for the change. Ironicaly I seem happy in this picture. I suppose it's my photo-face (you know, the one we all put on for the camera no matter what we feel. Just so who ever looks at the picture years later thinks 'Oh, he seems so happy!').

self

self portait. although i look kinda feminine. i ususally dont draw people very well so i draw them in the distance; something i need to work on.

creative bubble number 1

got some new watercolours and paper. so here's a few dootles.


Reminds me of 'Monk by the Sea' by David Caspar Friedrich...


This one's an ispirations from my conversations with Sean about the super hero Vocabulous who's always at battle with the Dunces. The kid, Vincent, imagines the whole thing. Vocabulous defeats his enemies by confusing them with his large vocabulary. Yeh, this is what we think up at work...maybe Ill illustrate more of a series. This is just what I sketched while at the laundry mat. any suggestions?

envelope writting

snow drifts
through moonlight
over ice pond

wind swirls
and whistles
blowing through hair

small trail
leads yonder
under birch trees

fire pit
burns brightly
warming cold hands

a smile
turns brighter
knowing all's well.

requested items

a guy i work with requested i make some things. he might buy them. yay. say, you can buy things too. just ask. i made these this past week.


This came with a "Poem".
'The winter forest with gorgeous rocks eases the restless mind under the iron moon.' (a alteration of an older poem)



I made a third one in the post previous to this as well.

A walk in the woods.

A walk in the woods down the trail; it's nice to see the world for what it is as we go down the hill.

Ukiyo-e inspired

I really love images from "the floating world" (Ukiyo-e). great japanese wood block prints. anyways. i was inspired and tried to draw one in style. someday i'll start collecting prints. did you know you can buy them on ebay real cheap? (probably cheap fakes)

Summer. What a dream. Seems like so far away. As always I long for the light translucent green leaves to bud and flicker in the warm sun.























Bicycles. mmm, I love 'em. Drew this one for Pops (as he loves all things victorian).

just some rambles on art

Whispers in his ear
Asking why
There’s no voices inside.

Blankly staring at the wall he decides to pour a glass of whiskey. His belief that a gulp of that fine drink, rightfully called "the water of life" in Gaelic, would make his right side brain (the creative / intuitive / spiritual side) simply click ON, didn’t always happen.
An attempt to justify a life of laziness and absurd thoughts he calls himself an artist and makes marks in notebooks. Everyone knows the life of an artist is one of insanity. This does not mean that anyone classified as insane is a bonefide artist. Although some pompous asshole might question that stating that art is about conception. It’s about the thought process, it’s about the idea. The final image is but a detached image of the artist's vision. Imagine the thought process of a completely insane man. If we could visualize his thoughts that would be a work of art. Indeed it’s about seeing things differently from a different perspective.

A swig of whistey from that square-looking glass . He’s decided to start writing again. Like a journal, like a place to just write whatever comes to mind. Its fun, he always has these great thoughts that he never remembers. Sometimes he thinks he’s some kind of prodigy thinking about the sublimity of Caspar David Friedrich’s landscapes or about how most of what makes a good picture is just a lighting issue. The composition isn’t necessarily important to make a beautiful image. Once the lighting is thought of, the “blocks” of the composition must be laid. Filling up the classic rectangle in an exciting way (this can sound easy but really isn’t). Then lastly comes the actual image of whatever it is your painting (keep in mind certain images are connected to emotions and other references; consider this when you want to portray certain emotions).

The watercolor paper is still stacked away in a brown folder made of old grocery bags under the couch. If that paper were in front of his face he wouldn’t know what to draw, yet when that paper is in that brown folder he’s got a million ideas. Maybe it is just about the thoughts, he’ll never have to take out any paper at all and still make great masterpieces in his mind. And what good is the life of an artist if all he can do is think things up.

Craftsmanship must be worked on. Practicing drawings only to make more little scribbles of time wasting doodles doesn’t make much sense. Every work of art is a doodle. It’s a thought created and attempt to recreate it on paper. You cant practice that, you can only just do it. That’s all there is. You make some lines with a pen, however it turns out is all there is to it. It’s about that emission of creativity with the curiosity to find out what happens. What happens? Well, that’s just Art.

newer stuff

little sketches. mostly ink and watercolour pencils; the exception is the last one with the tree stump done with straight watercolours. havent use straight water colours in years...