High Contrast Grey.

 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...

18x13cm Watercolor, ink, and tinfoil. Another small observation piece on some nice watercolor paper I have had in my sketchbook for about a year now. I recently learned about the Arte Povera movement from Italy in a modern art history class I took. From that I took a fascination with the idea of using reflective surfaces to bring the viewer into the piece. Being poor and about to move halfway across the world I have forgone purchasing anything that would work properly for this idea and have instead used some tin foil that was wrapped around a crêpe with nutella I got from university the other day. I thought that the scrapings of trying to get it smooth added an interesting texture. As usual I have mixed observations. The man I saw at a crêperie a few weekends back. He was sitting on the terrace and could therefore have a cigarette. I took some sneaky photos of the terrace. The lighting, as well as the contrasting elements of compacted buildings, were amazing. But I instead wanted ...

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.

I finally finished enough of this painting to be happy enough to show it for my painting final. The professor rubbed his finger over the window to figure out that I cut it out to put the black paper behind, but didn’t really critique it at all. I still did well in the class, but he did comment on how overall I paint in a passé style. So of course I am back to the questioning of; what is contemporary art? When I look up contemporary art trying to find new examples that could inspire my work I instead find art that is abstracted and not really in a direction that I would see as improving or inspiring my style.

and so marks the end of working on my personal artwork while I finish out this semester… I just put these last two works in a juried show at university and I should find out Monday if they make the cut. I am feeling a bit nervous because I worked the process of getting everyone’s piece processed for the show and it seems that the quality and style of work is all over the place, so I am not sure how my work will be received. Definitely not the selection from the last juried show I was in in Billings..

The absinthe bar has been finished… Although I still need to ink in the hinge on the window. (shhh…) Out of all the paintings that I had hanging in the show, I was surprised this one wasn’t the one that sold, but it is my latest so I still feel the most attached to it..

I finished the poster for the first film that French club will be showing, but I have as well found out that the printing of just 20 posters ended up costing just about $90… so it appears that I will probably not be making posters for each of the films. That is somewhat of a stress reliever because my schedule is so crazy busy, but it is as well a little disappointing because I was looking forward to making the posters.. C’est la vie.

I sold this painting at the show for the Artist’s Collective last night. The woman who bought it was in my architectural art history class last semester and told me it reminded her of Italy, which she visited this winter. I celebrated with going out to see Jason Webley play his accordion, which perhaps was a bit detrimental to finishing my French homeworks… but oh well. It is going to be a crazy weekend this weekend with all the homework I will have.

I have finally finished the painting for Amy. Or so I keep telling myself. Give it a little while and I will probably find something that I need to add. It never fails. One of the final things holding me back from calling this done was that I wanted to give Amy an chandelier earring like those that she wears so often and my idea for how to accomplish this was to use a gel pen that can go over the black ink that I had already laid for her hair. But of course I didn’t really want to spend the $2 or whatever it is for a purple gel pen, so I took the painting by Michaels and just used one there in the way that they have them out so that they can be tested. I felt quite clever about this technique of being a cheap artist using my surroundings to my benefit. Better to be clever than beautiful and even better to be clever to create something of beauty. My painting that I did last summer of Noir Marché is in a show at the moment at the university. The president of the university asked...

I thought that one of the pictures that people seemed to like from my sketchbook I would turn into a larger watercolor picture. Old watercolor paper lying about with an old sketch I was going to turn into a painting for Shea before she moved away abruptly. A local character, who only seems to know me through the facebook, is trying to get a gallery off the ground and asked me if I would like to contribute. She is wanting a selection of western, surreal, and erotic art though. Not really my forté. I used to do a whole lot of erotic art, but over the years of trying to get into a more ‘exploratory relationship’ and away from those things vanilla has never seemed to pan out and with it my art and drifted from that subject. Photography from time to time still, but the painting, not so much.

After a long stint in Billings being uninspired to do much work on my art it is nice to be back in Missoula with my café to work at. Although it seems that I have come to an impasse of working on this painting until I figure out the angles and poses for the person crossing the street and the one sitting at the café. Cassie came to visit for the weekend so we wandered about Missoula and relaxed. I have found that my living room does function rather well as a sitting room to hold conversations in. I haven’t really had any guests since Dan moved out so I have yet to have a real test of that function. Although I should be expecting the new roommate any day now so that aspect of the room might dissipate soon. Porcelain and silver back into my bedroom. Meh.

Finished my painting of the underground market finally. I went and got some prints of my last watercolor picture that I finished and while signing and numbering over at Bernice’s the people next to me bought a print. First print sold. I pushed myself to finish this underground market painting so that I can get prints made of it tomorrow and start preparing for a show.

14th and 42nd. Finally finished after months of working.

The final hurdle.. I still don’t know what to put in the advertising mural above the entrance to the hotel. And I need to come across some pretty fabric/paper for the final rugs. Plus, of course, all the minute ink details still left to do…

I’ve been working more and more on my new painting. Its gotten to the point where I only have the color purple left on my saucer since I’ve only been working at cafés and don’t have the ability to add more colors when I finish one off.. So to fix this problem of stagnation I have begun inking. I’m finding more hangouts and continuing my horrible diet of tea and baked goods. This is going well as I am reading Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell. Living off small portions of bread.. I am as well trying to track down where the artsy alternative kids hangout (somewhat like Bauhaus on Capitol Hill) and have been having lots of confusing results. The café that I thought was ‘the one’ the other day was today filled with old people, transients, and a punk rock kid sewing his clothes back together. It seems promising still. Luckily its not too far from the Senior Center where my salsa class is so, when I have to kill three hours before class I can go there. I woke up with Pian...