Catching up...Days of fun and art! WOW!

So, i know this is a few days late, but i've been busy.

Saturday Pip, Sarah, our other friends Florette, Eddie and his wife Heather and i went to the Getty Villa in Malibu. I had never been, and it was very very beautiful. It was built to resemble a Grecian Villa, and holds ancient Greek and Roman art.
There is something so undescribably magical and chilling about being up close to things that have been around since long before Christ walked the earth. I'm starting to appreciate figure sculpture a lot more, so i loved looking at the busts and the figures carved in Marble and Limestone. People in the ancient world were extraordinary.

Pip and a creepy head. There were a lot of these.


Eddie and Pip. Chillin. It was a gorgeous day...!


Eddie Heather and...you guessed it...Pip!



On the way home, Sarah, Pip Florette and i amused ourselves by telling one-worded continue a stories and singing songs and listening to tunes. Pip is really into Michael Jackson right now...so that was interesting...

After arriving home, Sarah and i busied ourselves for a couple of hours and then headed over to Alec's apartment to hang out and record music. Now, Alec here is one of the most amazing crazy talented people i know, if you don't believe me check out his music myspace...

So we made some very silly songs about nonsense and Alec gave me an awesome mix cd which i haven't stopped listening to. Then we went to go get dinner and see a movie! horray!

Los Tacos. mmm. mexican food...


Lovely cousin Amy was supposed to meet us at the theatre, but we didn't see her until the movie was over. She had sat only a few rows behind us! She said she realized we were in front of her when she saw my profile. Hard to miss that!










We saw The Science of Sleep, hence the previous post. I love Michel Gondry because you know you are going to expreience something truly unique and genuinely heartfelt. I loved this film.

Well, time to go home and work on my painting.
ohoh, first some pictures of what i've been doing...

some hand studies...(again, blurry...sorry...)





underpainting for our next in-class portrait...now that we're doing half-length we get 6 sessions instead of 2! :D
This is my friend Krystyl...i'm very excited because i've been wanting to do her portrait for a long time...

i'll be painting on it more tomorrow...

cool.

Now, I thought it would be kind of interesting to let everyone see my process for my homework i'll be doing for that class i was writing about a couple of weeks ago. I'm a bit reluctant, because art goes through some very awful "ugly stages"...but oh well. It might be cool anyway.

Here's my set-up for the painting, Complete with 40x60 canvas, and lots of pictures of Pip's back and shoulders. Thank you Pip!!




A couple of hours later...


i still need to fix the hands. that's not what they're going to look like. The head will be more thrown back, too. I know this sounds terrible, but because Pip shaved his head and i wanted longer hair on the man in my painting i might need to use another head...any takers? I'll be working on it more tonight, maybe i'll get the hands right.


okay. now i really do need to go home. It's getting dark and cold an hour earlier...which i'm happy about, by the by.

A bunch of people are going to Universal to party and yuk it up in vampire costumes and fairy wings. But i get to do something better with my evening...i get to listen to my new mix cd and paint and dance around. Who needs trick-or-treating. Not me!

Happy Halloween...

so much time and so little to do!!

wait...






p.s. i'm 24 now. gross.

It's October! And that means...

Pumpkins and Birthdays!!








i had one between my legs, too.





Happy First Birthday Caid!











Poor guy. Too bad no one cares about him. (:




"Real" post coming soon...maybe...

kaleeka

click

Majesty Snowbird

Last night's show was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I hope and pray i get to see Sufjan play many more times in the future...his performances make you feel alive and safe and hopeful. They are otherworldly.









This video isn't from the show we saw, but it might as well be. This is a video of the "theme song" for the tour, last night they were wearing the same costumes, playing the same images on the screen, and he introduced the band the same way...you'll see. (:
The song is incredible...i hope he puts it on an album, but it just won't be the same as hearing it live! It's long, but it's worth it...even though the sound is bad.


The best way to hear Sufjan Steven's music is live and in person with the colors, lights, sounds and stories he tells. The man has been blessed by God with incredible talent and integrity, and he's passed that on to so many people. When he played Casimir Pulaski Day i nearly started crying...people around me were. Hearing him sing about Jesus dying on the cross last night in a concert hall filled with hipsters and "indie rockers" was nothing short of a miracle. Sometimes it was so quiet as he sang you could hear yourself breath...

if you ever get a chance to see him...go. just go. seriously.

This is a music video for the artist who opened for him, My Brightest Diamond. She was stellar, i bought her album. She also helped sing and play guitar and piano in Sufjan's performance as well. Gorgeous video...i think she's mesmerizing to watch. She'll be the next big thing, folks, mark my words.


i also got a sweet shirt. Pip, Sarah and i all got one...they say "Ride the hatch!"

All in all, what an inspired and amazing night! Thank you Lord!!

AAAAGH!!

I'm about to leave to see Sufjan Stevens!!! I'm very very very excited. I think i'm going to go scream and cry and laugh all at the same time.


It's fall. It's cold. And lovely. WONDERFUL...!

oh, and here are some pictures from Oktoberfest...





















Yay (:

just a few things

paint!


After Bible Study...(happy birthday Amaris)




exactly.


fin

Why i love Mucha

the following is the conclusion of an epic paper i wrote about my trip to Europe this summer. Thought i'd post it because i've been thinking a lot about it lately.

Enjoi...

Our time in Prague went by in a blur, and before I knew it, it was our last full day in Europe. Katy and I had decided that because our first jaunt to the Mucha Museum was so short, we would spent our last day there drawing. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Seeing the Mucha Museum was my biggest reason for going to Europe. I was not going to leave knowing I could have spent more time there and never did. We walked around that little museum and sketched and browsed and absorbed for over 5 hours with a lunch break in the middle. If it wasn’t for the stuffiness, heat, our tired arms and legs, and the fact that we were already exhausted, I could have stayed until closing! I admire him so much, for his unfailing graphic sense, his elegance, his sensitivity astounds me. Yet he could render out a figure as well as any old master.

I respect Mucha both as an artist, and as a human being. He is one of those individuals that just had too much to say and do to keep still. The man simply never stopped. He worked because he wanted to, and because he needed to. He just had no time to waste with so many pictures and ideas crowding his mind! His work on the Slav Epic, a series of twenty enormous paintings would be enough, alone to occupy someone for their lifetime. He pondered and toyed with the idea for years, and once he finally got down to starting them, it took Mucha 18 more years to finish them all. “…the Slav Epic is an astonishing display of Mucha’s stamina and dedication, marrying his talent for historical painting, his compelling use of symbolism and his mastery of the flat presentation and muted colors of his Decorative works. If he had done nothing more, this work should forever free him of the accusation of being a ‘mere poster painter’. (Mucha, 17-19)

Mucha was a success in every sense of the word, because of his devotion to what he loved…his art, his family, and his country. It took him a lifetime to sort it all out, but his heart was always in a place where he desired to be of service, he desired to do something different, and he never slowed down. I don’t know what it is like to have that kind of drive…it seems like every individual I have truly expressed admiration for has been someone very unlike me. To say that I came away from this journey into whole new realms of creativity and thought unchanged would be a terrible fallacy. My mind reeled for weeks after coming home…in a way it still is; which would explain some of the ramblings in this paper. I find, with myself, there is a fine line between being so inspired by an artist I can’t wait to start painting, and having so much admiration for someone’s work I get discouraged, throw out the usual “why bother?” and go sulk in a corner. Happily, I experienced the former a great degree more than the latter inclination.

Alphonse Mucha was once quoted saying: “The aim of my work was never to destroy…but to build bridges.” And he lived by that; no matter what trials he might have been enduring. “At the end of the 1930s as he looked back upon a life span of nearly 80 years, the Decorative art that had been the font of his fame and glory had all but disappeared from the public scene, the patriotic values that he held so passionately had become an anachronism and the great Epic that had been the capstone of his life lay rolled up in a dank museum basement, homeless and largely forgotten. His personal misfortune was compounded by he knowledge that his nation seemed on the cusp of losing its newly-won freedom, apparently destined to return to German rule of a Nazi hue and to the agony of another great war.” I read this and I ask, what would anyone else do in a situation like this? What would I do? “At that moment he was engaged in studies for his final project, a monumental and celebratory triptych, The Age of Reason, The Age of Wisdom, and The Age of Love. It was the ultimate expression of the benevolent and optimistic faith that guided his life…The circle of Mucha’s loving vision had enlarged, undiminished by the disappointments of the years, beyond the Mucha Woman, beyond his beloved people, to embrace all mankind.”

(This is the same excerpt i have a few posts down...)
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. And only time can tell whether or not I will someday build bridges of my own.


(all quotes from Mucha by Sarah Mucha)

another portrait!

we do them once a week. On top of two other painting classes...i've never painted so much in my life!!!


  

  


this one turned out okay...it was interesting because i got the side almost completely in shadow. Anyone ever tried painting shadow mass? it's a challenge. i needed that. i wish the picture didn't have a glare on it. photographing a wet painting is tricky.

Still trying to figure out what to do for these paintings...(see the end of sept. 25). nothing's coming to me. a little panicked...but that's okay. i'm used to it. (: hahaha

randomness from the last week or so...

  

  

  

  




  

  

  

  





Alors, je suis triste ajourd'hui. Mais c'est maintenant Octobre et c'est si beau dehors...il fait du vent...et il pluit un peur...pourquoi suis je malheureux? Beaucoup raisons...trop beaucoup.
J'ai faim. Je veux...some sushi.

b-bye.