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another portrait...yay

underpainting...


  


"finished" portrait.


  


I think in the actual painting i got her likeness better...but I wish we had one more day on some of these!
No matter. i still enjoy it.

an underpainting i did of my friend Danny...


  


No one can ever accuse me of not showing my work ever again. ha.

i will read The Great Divorce again, Joey. thanks (:

hungry.

Brushes, Blues and Bridges

try saying that ten times fast...

Sarah's hands...


  

  

sweet.

i can't believe how much i have to do!!! I haven't spoken to any of my friends in nearly a month. Well, except for pip and Andrew because they just showed up one day but besides that...
i'm sorry everyone! there's just so much going on and i'm just trying not to get overwhelmed.
lots of it is good...the rest is just my stupidness.

anyway.
okay.

so, there's this class.
i have an assignment wherein, i have to do a painting about "what i feel art is"

or something

it's very vague

and it has to be figurative...hmmm

this assignment is the result of a big ol' controversy that happened here at LCAD a few weeks ago when one of the teachers (my figure painting teacher, actually) put a painting into the faculty show that was...well...a bit explicit.
Now, in figure painting, there's artful nudity, and then there is tastless nakedess bordering on the pornographic. This painting was without a doubt, the latter. Anyway, i was shocked, appalled and offended when i saw that the painting was going to be put up and displayed. What were parents supposed to think...? Young prospective students...? Families? This wasn't a show in a museum focusing on erotic paintings of females...this is a private school!
I was so close to saying something about it. And i think i would have.

Thank God, however, someone came to their senses and the piece was pulled from the show. My teacher, of course was beside himself with anger and offense and considered himself as being misunderstood, censored, etc...in his class we got to hear allll about it. Not surprisingly, everyone in my class was in passionate agreement with him.
So, my teacher gave us an assiggnment, due at the end of the semester, that is supposed to portray what our feelings about art are, what it is, what it should be or some other mumbo jumbo. Using the human body as the focus, of course. So, many of my classmates have been talking about what they want to do. Brilliant ideas like gigantic paintings of male genitalia, transvestites, or just about anything shocking or offensive. How immature and pointless can you get...?
Talking about the whole situation with another one of my teachers, Betty, she agreed with me. What happened to art that is meant to be beautiful? Art that is uplifting? Art that is...HEAVEN FORBID...Godly?

Granted, some of my favorite works of art (visual, musical, &c...) revel in the dark, the melancholy, the downright depressing...
Yet that is only one side to being human. One of my all tima favorite artists, Alphonse Mucha, celebrated beauty, life, color, delicacy, and hope. I wrote in a paper recently:
"Mucha was once quoted saying: 'The aim of my work was never to destroy…but to build bridges.'
...He built bridges, and that’s what I want to do. I was inspired by individuals who tried to be a part of something bigger than themselves, to celebrate darkness and beauty; death and life; joy and sorrow. We weren’t created to do without one or the other. To forget that there is love and bliss to be had in this fallen world is to fool yourself into the belief that there is nothing worth living for. To ignore the existence of hardship and strife is to cheat yourself of the pure joy of being joyful! Mucha found this balance and flourished within it. As an artist, that is what I so desperately hope to do."

Why is so much art created only to destroy?

Betty suggested to me that i paint something religious (as much as i hate that word, it will just have to do). I said that i had actually been considering doing that, and i told her some of my ideas. I mean what could shock people more these days than a well-executed work of art that is rooted in spiritual truth? That is inspired by the character of Jesus Christ, and depicts what and who God is? i don't know...it's a beautiful dream (as Pip would say), but it could come off as pretentious and cliche and altogether unsuccessful so easily...
i need to be very careful and prayerful about this...

and prayers and suggestions from anyone would be greatly welcomed. i won't say any of my ideas yet...not until they're a bit more concrete.

i need to go eat lunch and go home and do homework now. and try to get the paint off of my shirt...

thanks for reading (:

painting process

some photos of an oil painting i did in 3 class sessions. yesterday was our last day.
(yes, the model was pregnant) the last one is the "finished" painting...i forgot to take a picture with the feet in it. /:


  

  

  

i wish i'd had more time to get little things like the hand and the arm just right...painting hands is HARRRD!

ta da

oh my LOTR...

So excited.

Los Tacos

  

  



  

  

  

um...apparently the sopas were under par.


  

  

  


Pip and Andrew...thanks for being good friends and taking me out and cheering me up. i'm sorry the fish tacos weren't very good. adios amigos. (:

The LB

Yesterday after my portrait class was over i drove into Laguna and went to my favorite spot to eat my lunch. Said spot is a bench on the top of a ridge overlooking the ocean, one of the best views in the world. Yesterday was no exception. It was around 1:30, and the sun was high and he breeze was cool...and i had never seen the water look so incredible. It was like looking down from a cliff in Cancun or Fiji...the water was so bright and clear and dyed with such brilliant shades of blue! i breathed deep and just gazed out into it with joy and wonderment. What an awesome gift...


  

  

  

  

  


In my portrait class we finished a head painting we started last week. I did mine of a student who sat for us. I thought i'd put it up since people always ask me to post my work...so here you are! The first is the underpainting...more of a drawing, but in paint. I did that last week.


  

  

The second, of course, is the "finished" painting (sorry it's abit blurry). It was only meant as a quick excersise, so altogether we only had about 4-5 hours. Less than 3 hours to do the actual painting. But i enjoyed it...i'm excited because we're starting another one tomorrow, and we'll be finishing it next week. I love portraiture!! i could just do that forever, if i was able to.

I had that class this morning...the lesson learned? Pretty much that Yayway (Yaweh...as my teacher spells it) is "Really mean and unfair." amazing.

At least it's another beautiful day...(deeeep sigh...)

(:

thinking outrageously

Sometimes there is so much to write you just can’t write. I’ve felt that way all day every time I’ve attempted to compose this post…and I keep starting over and over.
There has been a certain disquieting thought occupying my mind for the past couple of years, and rarely do I let it overwhelm me. But for the past week or so I have let it take precedence over most other things...mostly because it just keeps popping up in my head…

I don’t know if I want to be an artist anymore.

okay…big deal. Except for the fact that my entire life, that’s all I’ve worked for. It’s all I’ve felt I could ever do well. Yes, I’ve dabbled in other things that interest me. I write a lot. I’ve taken singing lessons. I learned web design and computer graphics. I love traveling and learning history. I’ve studied French, Italian and German with great enthusiasm and interest…but not with great success.
But I’ve never felt like I excelled in anything. I’m a good reader…but there’s not a lot to do with that; however much I adore it.

These days school is hard for me for so many reasons. Many I’ve related before, but many I have not. I just don’t find the same joy in painting as I seemed to before. Drawing portraits I will never tire of…but what about illustrating my own graphic novel? Living in Italy? Creating music? Studying literature? Learning Japanese? Animation?

Perhaps i’m merely in a slump…but I feel like I’ve been here for a very long time. Check out these posts from June 9, and June 18 2004...
I know i am where i am for a reason. But i’m not making the most of it and i’m discouraged. If i even had the chance to do any of those things…would i?

i really don't know. or maybe i'm just afraid to say i wouldn't.
i hate feeling frightened of life...! What a wretched, shameful, impossible burden!!

it's about 12 hours later than when i started this post. my eyes are heavy. but i can't go to sleep yet...first i have to wash my hair...which is now past my waist. (that's just for future reference for me).

the sky outside is lit up by the rose bowl.

good night...almost...

it's getting old...

You know what...? i'm starting to get very weary of school. i've been going to school for nearly 19 straight years of my entire life. There are days when i love the idea of just being able to absorb and learn and not have to worry about working full time...but mostly i can't wait to just get my life started...whenever that may be.

Last night i was so tired driving back to my apartment from Pasadena that once i was in Orange County around 0023 i came to a nice slow stop at a green light, waited for it to turn yellow, and drove on through when it changed to red.
no, i'm serious. Praise Jesus no one was coming the other way...i didn't even realize what i had done until i was through the intersection.

I'm sitting outside at school on some steps on the hillside where i can still get wireless. I just finished classes for the day...my hands are nice and raw and sticky and blackened from making a wire sculpture of my head. Actually, it was fun. Hot, difficult and frustrating, but fun. I'll take a picture of it at some point and post it.

I was kind of dead all day today...especially this morning in my history class where i got to learn all about how Moses got the Ten Commandmants from a burning bush and why the four gospels were actually NOT written by Matthew Mark Luke and John, that God is a big old spoilsport because He wouldn't let Adam and Eve have sex and that their noble rebellion from his rigid rules was what caused the fall (which was ALL Eve's fault, of course, further proving what a Patriarchal, tyrranic religion Christianity is), and about how we can't really trust anything written in the Bible because its history and origins are so unreliable, but why we can trust the authenticity of the Qur'an. I wanted to throw up.
I kept my eyes on the table when i could, so my teacher wouldn't see the horrified look on my face.
There were times, however, where i was looking around the classroom to see if anyone else was as appalled, or amused, as i was. Quickly realizing that i was more likely to be surrounded by Atheists and Buddhists rather than fellow believers, i gave up. The only other Christian i knew of in the class was dozing the whole time.

uhuhuuhgggggg. i'm sleepy and dirty and gross. Time to drive back to the apt...get a workout...make dinner...do homework...wash my hair...and then, MAYBE then...i can go to bed.

2 more years...just 2 more years...