High Contrast Grey.

"God is in the details." The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. (wikipedia)   This was something that was said by my first art history prof in university. She was using it to explain the high level of detail used in a Christian painting we were looking at. Or perhaps it was that sculpture The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. I had grown up atheist, so I struggled with knowing the art history depictions of stories from the Bible and trying to keep track of saints. But it also meant that I interpreted this phrase differently. In my godless eyes this meant to me that the process of creation through repetition and the application of intricate detail was not dissimilar to meditation where the labor leads to deep self-contemplative thought. When I was in high school, I began to attend a Buddhist center in town once a week for a weekly meditation. Their meditation consisted of listening to a repetitive drumbeat while we focused on clearing our minds. This led me to thinking of...

Jessye looks at my presentation. With university in 'full swing' it seems as though all my free time has been taken up. Regretfully resulting in fewer posts keeping up with my art. Part of what has been filling up my time was learning that I could still apply for the Bachelor of Fine Arts which I had originally thought I had missed the chance to while I was in France. I had thought it was one of those things that needed to be applied for a year in advance, but thankfully (and frustratingly) I was incorrect. It has been nice to finally get all my art supplies together. All those antique frames that are in need of images to put in them. But still I wish that I could be back in Bretagne. If there could have been a way to have all my things and groupings of friends here. The BFA show was based on a collection of ten different pieces. 5 in my medium of preference (I wanted to select both the painting and the drawing categories as I try to apply both, but I was deterred into ...

 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...

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.

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...

Took a sick day and spent it at my desk painting. I think that this is well enough to turn in for painting tomorrow, although I still feel that it is missing the finishing touches. Like perhaps some feathers and a background, but then again, I never know when to stop. I think it is time to make myself another hot toddy, put on some TOS, and take a nap. *edit. Thanks to Dustin I added the forgotten shadow of the hoop on her thigh.

I think that this is the state I will show this for class. I used the pattern from the tie I bought in Paris for the background. I am not too sure how I feel about how it turned out since it isn’t weaved but drawn and painted it seems to loose the industrial feel to it. Also I can’t seem to capture the color of Jessye’s hair at all. I put in some gold streaks  to help show that her hair is red and not brown, but perhaps that will be lost in interpretation.

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.

Me (as a painted Tintin figurine) regarding Otto Dix and Christian Schad. Centre Pompidou. The next floor we went to was much more my style and interest. As we had aldready spent a lot of our time on the first floor I tried my best to quickly make it though this floor but was constantly finding myself having to stop in my tracks with paintings and art pieces in styles and movements I had only read about or seen obscure pieces of before which were now in front of me. So close my breath could fog the glass if I so pleased. In the description of the Otto Dix before me it stated that watercolor had been used although I wasn’t sure for what part.. It is sad just how much destruction was caused by the second world war and even in the hypothetical where the art movements that were flourishing became derailed and scattered. If such movements had been allowed to continue and mature I wonder what changes the art world would have seen.

Centre Pompidou. I like Olympia in Black Face. (1970) Larry Rivers. The first floor we were allowed to explore by means of our wily talking skills was filled with oeuvres of movements from the 1960s. Lots of art pieces that existed more so as “ideas than art pieces” as put by Fulya. It was pretty dense to get though because almost every piece required reading a rather lenghty back story, well all of the pieces that included back stories.

I finished the painting of the girl and her accordion enough to take it in for the critique in painting class. I still kind of want to darken the background a bit more to make her stand out more as well as add detail to the ‘speaker’ on the accordion, but perhaps I also just need to be finshed before I ruin it. The critique was a bit of a disappointment. The reactions from all the other students was that it was kitsch and not a true represenation of France. The professor added in that it was painted well, but in a style that has been outdated for almost a century. Again the language barrier prevented me from defending myself adequately. Although after class I went up to the professor to ask if he had any recommendations on contemporary artists I could look up, which I hope helped him see that I am not an idiot.. So now I would like my next painting to be a bit more ‘modern.’ I have another piece of cardboard in my room that I think I would like to use of this new idea, but as ...

I still need to come up with a title for this one… The consensus so far has been that it is kind of creepy. Which provided an interesting critique in sculpture class. Instead of discussing my process for creation or what my percentage of changing my found object the critique instead focused on what the piece could mean. I would like to find a way to make the baroque-esque filigree appear more so that that is what they are. I am thinking about perhaps coming back with some fancy thin ribbon to give detail.

“Self-Portrait ca.2011” iron casting, acrylic. The semester has ended and I have left Missoula. Like when I left Seattle it was raining, but of course the weather is not dependent upon my moods. Billings has been like how Billings always is. At one point in my life I would like it that I will never have to end up back here. I am already trying to think up new places to run away to. Perhaps finish out university in Missoula, which should hopefully only take one more year after coming back from France, then grad school in New Orleans? I would think that there should be a university there that should have a pretty interesting architecture program, with some French architecture influence which I would enjoy. Assumptions.

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.