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 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 ...

The final class of painting was just this past week so I pulled together the paintings I have painted and have been working on this semester. I'm still not quite at the point where I feel finished with the three larger paintings, but hopefully now with some more time freed up I will get around to finishing them. Perhaps helping pay for the trips across France in about a month with selling them too? First things first..

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.

A painting of Jessye drinking wine from the bottle in our Parisian hotel. Hopefully I will be finished by this Thursday for class. I am wanting to do something with the background but I am not too sure what. Perhaps some patterning and playing with painting and then wiping to build up layers of detail.

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.

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 ...

Oil on cardboard. I have been loving this pairing since the cardboard soaks up the first few layers of oil paint I can lay down some nice intial rough layers without having to wait forever for it to dry before continuing on. I haven’t painted anything focusing on the figure for years and after reading a quote by Toulouse, which seemed like a copy of something said by Courbet, I thought that while in France I could paint things that I have seen instead of imagining places comprised of things that I have seen, but don’t actually exist. This painting is of a photo I took during the Balkan music at the bar night, but the photo didn’t turn out due to the low lighting.

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..

This semester has been so crazy in the amount of work that I get assigned plus all the extra work that I do, like the clubs that I am in. I think that I will finally be finishing up this lady with the big hair soon, seeing as how I have added all the Baroque forms to the background and all that I have left is the fan to put in her hair and add some more detail to her hair. I hope to use this painting in the upcoming juried show on campus, but I am not sure how many pieces we are restricted to and if it is only one I might be putting up the absinthe bar painting instead, with a different frame. I love the frame that it is in, but I am sad that it has a slight curve to it. Oh well, I guess that is what happens with a $5 frame from the back of some antique store.. As for the sculpture, I am hoping to get this finished by Wednesday for class, but thankfully we have been given an extension to Monday due to the project beginning a day late. I am still not sure how to c...

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.

It has been a rather lackluster winter session, in terms of working on art. Although it seems that Billings always seems to remove any inspiration or desire to work on art, I have since come back to Missoula to become distracted by a redhead. A pleasant distraction. I still hope to finish at least one of these two paintings before the end of the break so I can display them with the artwork of other members of the university artist collective. I am liking how the street scene is coming out. I seem to have a better understanding of layering every time I paint another watercolor, which is really helpful with trying to achieve a night like atmosphere. I seem to have misplaced my ivory black and had to go and buy a new one from Michael’s. They were locked up but I slipped my hand into the side of the case and retrieved the tube of watercolor. Part of me felt like just walking off with it as a repressed anger to the frustration of working there back in the day, but I suppressed...

Work in progress. I should actually be working on school work and not my own personal art, but over the weekends as I get stuck in my apartment and not wanting to brave the freezing weather the large acrylic painting calls to me. Now if only I could work faster and not get caught up in all the little details, but then it wouldn’t be my work. I am rather curious as to what the final mood it will put off as it is the largest piece I have painted and I am able to get it much closer to the darker that I am searching for that my watercolors seem to subdue slightly. Huzah. There is a tickle of sore throat beginning that I hope I am able to stave off… But finals are coming up quickly so knowing Murphy and his law, this is going to suck.

Two days of work, although most of the detail flattens out into the dark and the dark doesn’t show any of its gradual changes… artist nitpicks. It seems to be coming along quicker than the last acrylic painting that I did. Which of course is always the fact with working on art. Well until the curve has been accomplished and then insert all the new ideas and techniques to slow it back down. ..The air here is really dry and my paints keep drying up quite fast no matter what I mix into them, so I have been experimenting with having the lid off of my kettle as I have the burner on low so that it will evaporate and add water to the air. It seems to be working, but it could all just be in my head. The more I work on this with all the blinds closed the more that I forget that there is snow everywhere outside and I almost trick myself into thinking that it might be nice out. I have been playing my music in the living room while painting and I can’t tell if the person who lives above ...

My works in progress. I find myself working on them more than I should with my work load for university, but that just seems to be the way that life works. When you need to be doing something your desires transfix on things that are not necessary. I have come to points of frustration with both of them lately, but thankfully the frustration is just because of little questions as to color and style and not something that would be detrimental to the pieces. My usual way around these road blocks would be to start inking in what I have already colored, but at this point I am trying my best to not jump the gun and get as much as possible painted before the inking process. In part because I would like to see just how well my painting is becoming before I cheat by adding the detail with ink. What is really holding me back on the city painting is that I would like my cliché of having a character existing within the scene, but I am not sure what they should be doing. I have gone d...