High Contrast Grey.

I sneak in a mirror reflected reference photo. While we were in Toulouse we ducked into a nice little salon de thé that to me felt like something out of a 1940s representation of Europeans in Africa. Probably just the French dealing with the heat of the south. While at this place I noticed a girl sitting alone at one of the tables reading on her phone. Perhaps surfing the internet, perhaps reading a book, I couldn't quite tell as it was in Asian characters. I would guess that it was either Chinese or Japanese. In such a beautifully intriguing place I found it to be somewhat odd that she would pass the time ignoring her surrounding to immerse herself in her phone. I remember they also had nice restrooms. The girl then left and we stayed a bit longer sipping on our drinks, which if I remember right were not actually tea but something cool to counter the heat of Toulouse. Taking a breather in the hectic nature of our vacation. It was one of those towns where I ...

 I finished a piece today that I had started as a 'little' drawing to fill one of my many empty frames. I had received some old sketch paper in California from my grandma and wanted to pair its yellowing with some of my layered drawing. It took a lot longer than I thought it would take, but that was my own doing with adding more and more detail to such a small piece of paper. I am still in the process of trying to finish a collection of other paintings. They are inspired by my travels around France and the many things that I saw while traveling around. Except the one in the upper left hand corner which is one that I had been working on last summer and was left behind while I left for France. At the moment I think I am done except for naming the gallery. That and finding it a frame to put it in. I really need to work at cutting the paper to fit the many empty frames I have in my collection, so that I can display them easier and save money on going to get things framed. To...

 I begin the piece by defining the form and covering up the painting already on the canvas. Something found at Emmaüs. A painting of what looks like was a French town. I try my best to lay the new layer of paint as thinly as possible so textures won't later interfere with my painting. I know that everything is going to be covered at some point so getting perfect colors isn't really an issue. To get the form I use a gel pen to make an outline to see how things will be laid down. I try to error on the side of thin to allow for the paint to cover it up. I continue laying down the form. Getting a feel for where everything is going. How the figure interacts with the setting.  Turns out that the leg was a little too far out so I fix that and start adding shadow. I had a little bit of orange left over so I play with adding a halo.  Layering up. I start to add some of the finer details that I won't have to mess with too much later on, ie. hair. Playing with the su...

 Another scrap of watercolor paper resting in the pages of my sketchbook. This time not premeasured for an empty picture frame but this time the left over scrap from a previous project. With my time in France starting to come to an end I have taken to sitting at French cafés while I am still able to. Sitting. Observing. Filling up pages in the sketchbook with little observations. While sitting at the Tavarne watching art school students in their non symmetrical hair cuts and leopard print this older mad walks over and begins to hunch over while sitting at one of the small café outside tables. Rolling his own cigarettes as those french like to do. Flat cap and a red scarf like Jessye's. Collar flipped up. As with the girl drinking coffee in the wind I was having troubles thinking up a background. The original setting just didn't seem like it would work properly. I find a good collection of Victorian wallpapers on the internets. Millard. Something to fill up part of backgrou...

I have finished the little painting. Now to just get it back to the frame back in the states, or perhaps sell it and get a better frame.. I like how the contrasting between inked and not inked worked out in this. She separates from the setting, but with her legs she still blurs in slightly. Perhaps since it will be a while still until I get this back to the frame I will continue to play with this. A nice 4" square to keep in my sketchbook for now.

Fulya was looking at my sketchbook the other day and remarked that she liked the random sketch that I had made of some girl that I saw walking along with a little plastic cup of coffee during the wind storm a few weeks past. As I still have some small pieces of very good watercolor paper [that I had sized to be used for some small frames I had collected but did not have anything to put in them yet], I thought that perhaps I could transfer a little sketch to a little piece of paper to play with techniques. Namely the layering of water colors. Something that I know I have been working on a lot, but practice makes perfect. I also wanted to see how using my new mechanical pencil filled with blue graphite would work in hiding my lines as I initially worked. I forgot to take a picture of the transition between not having the girl inked at all to inking her and starting the background. I was having a hell of a time trying to figure out a setting in which to put her. At first I was th...

 More continuation on the painting. Since the façade is coming along slowly now I have begun working on the interior of the building. I have been having a hell of a time working on getting proportions correct with the woman up in the window. First she's too small, not she seems too big. She's like Goldilocks. It seems that lately I have been running into really missing a few of the paints that I didn't pack. Simple things that I know I can get replacements for here.. but the price would be a bit higher than I would hope for, ie. free since I already have them. It will just have to be added to the list of things that I will look forward to when I return to the states. Burritos, an oven, a sink that doesn't scald every time, options other than shitty hand driers that don't work while in public restrooms, toilet seats, my collection of cooking items, and of course family and friends... most of these complaints with France I think could be solved if I didn't live...

I realize it has been a little while since I updated the progress of this piece. It has been going slowly lately. A combination of having to deal with a full schedule of classes, wandering around Bretagne, and an addiction to the stupid little games on my computer like solitaire. Usually I can combat the addiction with going to a studio to work, but Rennes 2 doesn't seem to have anything like that set up. Not even a single student easel that I can seem to find. The painting is coming along very slowly, but I think I am close to the point of coming back in with ink and redefining everything with a sharper edge soon. I have already started with some of the shutters on the 1st floor.

One of my professors has been wearing an old fishbone suit jacket. Only 1.5 of the buttons remain on the cuff of his left sleeve. I found the patern to be interesting though and wanted to see how it would look applied as a texture. It seems to have worked for the most part (even if the detail is too small for the camera to capture properly), although initially my idea was to ink in the detail, paint a thin layer of color and then ink in the detail again but I kind of like how this is working at the moment. Mustache or no mustache. It is times like these that I miss having my tripod. It could make things so much easier if in the middle of the night I could take reference photos of myself.

One of the problems that I constantly run into when I have two art classes is that I don't always know how to divvy up my time so that I work on all projects at the same pace and intensity. I feel like my comic has been neglected as I have tried to figure out my painting. I over heard the prof last week say that there is a two page maximum so, my initial idea for three pages has been cut and repeating frames have dropped down a lot. The last four frames are still being repeated (with slight alteration of the last), which will hopefully make this go faster and help me finish by the deadline of tomorrow.

I have found that the encre de chine is not actually water proof so as I try to paint in where the chinese lanters will be going the black ink mixed in with the white paint. Hopefully this will stop happening once I build up a few layers of paint. I like the direction this is going so far. I just wish I knew how to make the colors of buildings with yellow street lights shining on them at night. The contradictions of light shining on dark. All of this is still very loose as I paint it. Finding the right colors for now to come back later and bring the detail back/add more. Taking breaks I took out my tarot deck to show it to Inga. I deal us both a couple of hands. Past, present, future. I think the first card I drew for my future was perfect to explain the fears and anxieties surounding my future of returning to the states. It was one of the darker cards in the deck that doesn't come up too often. Not shades of gold like the others, but black and blue. The image was of a hand ...

I worked most of today on this, but yet in looking at it so little of it looks changed. Perhaps it is just the calm before the storm. I was hoping that the mixture that I had made with my acrylic would be more of a wood grain color and not this blue green hue, but oh well. It is just the initial layer for the shutters. I am not too sure what color I should go with for the shutters at this point as I am thinking that the store front will be green and the canopy will be blue, if I should try to play up contrasts or not. Perhaps I will paint over the paper that I use for the canopy and give it even more layering and depth, perhaps not and the paper will just be perfect how it is.

Still working in this painting and feeling as though I am moving 'at a snail's pace,' which I believe my prof thought the same since he said that it seems like I haven't worked on it too much since last week. I really look forward to reaching the point where I will be able to begin to use my acrylic paint, but first I need to finish planning everything out in ink so the perspective stays correct.

For my comics class we have been assigned to make a short comic about an object that means something to us. Since I came to France with just the basics I thought that I would do it on the little Tintin figurine I used in my architecture class last semester to represent me while I am roaming the country of France taking photos.

Continuing down the long path of getting this painting’s line work before the paint done. There are so many little details to do that it is getting a bit tiring that I can’t just jump in with the acrylic paint right now.

Using ink to establish all the darkest areas. I have been enjoying the results of playing with the colored gel pens. Sadly the metalic aspects just don’t photograph so I can’t really share it with my friends back in the States.

Establishing the figure. He feels a bit emotionless right now, and I am not sure if I am wanting to play that up some more, or to add some emotion to him. I’m thinking I will try to give him some heavy eyelids to play up the drink in his hand.. hopefully that will give me the emotions I am looking for.

Initial pencil sketch. To make the angles less harsh for the perspective I nailed a string to my wall and have been using that as a crude straightedge. It seems to be working alright so far, except that everytime I need to put something else into perspective I need to renail the picture to the wall.

Continuation. I saw the usage of a thin white line recently and I thought I would give it a try. It seems to have added a much more illustrative look to the piece, so I am not too sure how I like it or not.

A new painting for this weeks painting class. It took me forever to start this one because I kept having ideas but no form come to my mind. Finally I just took one of the photos from my inspiration folder and decided to use that as a figure study which I will then mutate. My plan is for war paint, piercings, and tattoos to blend the old photo with new details. A bit cliché, but I can see where it will evolve to. I have come to see that in my painting classes here in France that the French are all about concept, so as I try to experiment with mediums I am running into not having an answer for when they ask why.