Slick Rick the Ruler

Crumbs!

This is a 50"x40" painting of Ricky-D in a pose jacked from a Japanese woodcut print of a Kabuki actor. You know, derive your own art historical context and comments from that. This is going to hang above my bed.

Remember when my homework used to be writing papers?

Oil painting, the historical standard for excellence and beauty. Refined, sophisticated, elegant.

Hair Metal Zombie 35"x 24", my homework for painting class a few weeks ago.

Sorry about the quality of the picture, it's from my phone.

Sketches 2

This week's drawing homework is to draw an exploded view of an object in 1/2 scale, using either parallel projection of perspectival projection or a combination of both. Here are my notes, with the example of a blender.

We then did a few quick sketches of stools at the end of class so that our professor could make sure everyone understood how to explode an object. I am very excited about this project, as I really love the idea of drawing something in the exploded view. Should I be a product illustrator... probably not. You generally can't draw monsters.
As you can see sometimes I get carried away with the "quick sketches" and spend a little too much time on letters.
My illustration homework this week involves making two sketches of the New Yorker's iconic Eustece Tilly. At first I was getting really wild with it, but then after re-reading the assignment realized it had to be more controlled. One sketch (not shown) turned him into a flower pot with similar proportions. Apparently it actually has to be him... oops.
So I did these two: A frontal view of Tilly with the text disappearing into the background to give a sense of space...
And the modern day Dandy: A New York hipster looking at his iPhone instead of a butterfly, which is also a little self deprecating as I actually quite enjoy my iPod, flannels and facial hair. Haha.
I have a few more, but I think these might be the two I show in class. There's one made of abstract shapes, but I don't know how that will go over.

200 Posts!

I didn't have time to make another MS-Paint celebratory image, but here it is: 200th Post. I will celebrate by posting some more art.

This week's assignment for painting was to create a reproduction of Degas 'Portrait of Diego Martelli.' This was our first oil painting assignment, so it was time to see what people actually could do with this tricky medium. (The image above is the Degas painting). One thing that added to the challenge was that we were doing our reproductions at less than half the size, meaning that places where Degas was free to use expressive brushstrokes were now places where we had to pull out the magnifying glass and one-haired brush.

I am a sloppy under painter, but I prefer not laying everything out perfectly before the oil painting, because then it gets a little boring, kind of like a coloring book... Well, no, a little more challenging I suppose, but still not as fun.

 
Ta-da! Six hours later and I am done with my oil painting. I realized I need to go pick up some colors, because trying to make a cool red with cadmium is impossible, and trying to make bright blue act like cerulean blue is also impossible. Oops.

Here is the close up. My phone takes terrible pictures, I apologize.

New Socks

This is the finished product. Also, it was brought to my attention that I didn't fully explain my sketchbook drawings. I was NOT writing what brought me joy in order from first to last, I was responding to our assignment, which was a very limited scope. You will notice that making music or making art are not in the list, because we were only allowed to use people and their clothes, no background, no props.

That being said, don't think I'm a huge creep. Also, eating the ice cream cone was invalid as well.

Starting a new blog, but not right now

I'm going to start a new sketchbook blog with only images of pages from sketchbooks. But I don't feel like it right now, so here you go world:

I'm trying to tackle what makes you look crazy? Big eyes, huge grin. Trying to illustrate "Joy."

Facial expressions that I was working through for joy as well. "Sometimes my hat wears a hat for composition's sake."

Thought process: "Should everyone be wearing socks? Should there only be one new sock? A pile of new socks? Old woman wearing socks? Young man?" The story board at the top reads: 1. I just got new socks 2. Which is good, because my old socks showed my toes 3. If I could I would sleep on a pile of new socks 4. I'd even wear new socks like gloves 5. I would not wear old socks like gloves, because then my hands would smell like feet. 

What pose should the character be in? Ecstatic about his socks? Pulling them on?

Sometimes when I get stuck I try and come up with new ways of drawing letters. These often translate into ways of drawing other things, like people.

These are the initial joy sketches. 1: Two people having sex, both with creepy grins. 2: Man with ice cream cone 3. Kids playing tag 4. New socks 5. Holding a baby 6. Playing with a puppy 7. Kiss on the cheek 8. Hug 9. Skipping 10. Singing 11. Meeting someone new 12. Showing off (there's a man flexing his little muscles) 13. Drying off after a swim 14. Whispering.

Micah informed me that everything I drew was cliche except for the new socks. "You're better than this shit." Haha.

Yeah, it happens sometimes.

Sometimes the sketches are fun to do in a narrow color palette, like red, yellow and black. These sketches are concepts for my self portrait for illustration, which was a cut stencil. I added "Thug Life Fitz" because I was sick of drawing the same face.

Here you can see me working through what the self portrait/blob should look like. Shirt/no shirt? Hat/no hat? Glasses? The top left shows the final composition for the piece.

And these were the initial ideas for the self portrait. 

These are some quick thumbnails of ideas for drawing apples, which was my first assignment for illustration. 70 illustrations of apples. Once I hit 50 apples my brains was completely tapped. You can see I was crossing them off as I went along.

As you can see, these are not at all finished drawings. My sketchbook has really become a sketchbook. One thing I credit RISD with is making me really go through a concept phase before trying to delve into a finished project. Little thumbnail images are a much better place to make huge mistake than on an expensive canvas or illustration board. It is making me think a lot more about composition, context, yadda yadda. Lesson learned. Sketch.

Bad at blogging, better at homework

Sorry to leave you hanging four readers, but it seems like doing actual work and getting my assignments done is more important than writing daily jokes.

However, here is Today's Joke:

Art school seems to be a void of knowledge. For example, if you ask anyone at art school why they do not know anything, they will undoubtedly respond, "How should I know that, I go to art school."

This can range from acceptable excuse to pitiful excuse. For example, "What are some laws of quantum-mechanics?"
"How should I know that, I'm in art school!" - is a perfectly acceptable answer.

"How am I supposed to know Mexicans were native Americans? Wait, Indians here aren't the same Indians there are in India?"
This answer, which I got recently (I won't name names) is stretching the art-school cop out.

The worst excuse however came when someone was drawing in terrible perspective. When pointed out, they responded, "How am I supposed to know that, I am in art school."

Back to school.

How many times can you have "the first day of school?"

So far this year: 3 times.

First RISD assignment: Illustrate 70 apples. First thing that popped into my head: "That's not very many..."

Let's do this.

PS: Today's joke is being formulated, but I'll let this one simmer a bit longer before serving it, with a slotted spoon.

I just got a job

I'm at the RISD library looking up my schedule so that I can figure out whether to take "Nude Interpretive Dance" or "Full Contact Pottery" at Brown, and also so that I can let the Nature Lab, my new employer at RISD, know what hours I am available. The nature lab is full of taxidermied animals, bones, fossils, live animals, etc. Basically it's awesome, and I am going to work in a room that looks like a hunter's wet dream.




I can only hope I get to stuff the animals by hand, and wear a sweet watch while I do it.

PS: Meaghan has left for Ireland leaving me all alone. I am very sad, but at least now I can watch zombie movies while eating a Big Mac on the couch, while listening to Queen. (I'm just kidding. I hope you're having a good time)!

She's got a sweet job at The Wine Port, where she is a chef.


I wish I was a chef there, because it looks awesome. I am also envious of her proximity to sheep and cheap Guiness.

Art Post

This post is delayed, but whatever. Here are the reasons I haven't seen, talked to, or hung out with anyone for the last couple of weeks. First is a 4'x3' painting. Here you can see the progression from the underpainting in black and white acrylic to nearly complete. It was my final project for Intermediate Painting, and, unfortunately, it is lost, since I had no way of getting it home. Now I'm sure it resides either in the trash somewhere, or in one of the tech's apartments on campus.

Aside from this monster painting I've been working on an even larger sculpture. It is a kinetic drum machine inspired by the work of David Ellis, although I have no knowledge of actuators and vacuum-pumps so my machine operates on a hand crank. It kind of looks like a complex loom, except it bangs on cymbals instead of weaves. It is all hand made minus the wheels because I can't make a perfect circle. It measures 8' x 5' x 4'. It is a beast, and it suffered the same fate as my painting, because I had no way to get it home. However, this on I'm sure was just taken apart for the wood, because no one really has the use for a giant kinetic sculpture.

Word. You can't really tell, but there are a bunch of levers, springs, cogs and what not that go into making all of those things work. I really enjoyed making that. Also, side-note to Meaghan, the spinning-wheel will be a piece of cake.

Finished

I finished my semester today. Great. I start school again in exactly one month.

As soon as I finished I went to work, and I stayed there from 5-11:30. Long day.

...But, it is worth it, because we were preparing for Don't Sleep On It. I expect all of my blog readers (all four of you) to go. It's going to be really fun, plus you can see me while I work a 30 hour shift.

Alright, short post, longer post tomorrow, but it's bed time.

I need to find a sculptor

I am currently enrolled in sculpture at my school, and we are on our final projects. For these we must find a sculptor that inspires us to do something interesting. Here are my candidates so far:

Theo Jansen



David Ellis



Joshua Allen Harris



If you can tell I'm into kinetic sculpture, but also very interested in the combination of sculpture and sound. I think that it is something I would like to explore. No matter what I choose to do I think it will probably be fairly dificult, so maybe I should take a step back and realize it's finals season and now might not be the best time to undertake a huge project. Hey, whatever happened to my radioactive plant sculpture? I have to find it...

Also, under-rated dinner option:
Pot-o-corn

That is all.

I just finished that paper I was talking about

I think I've done more homework in the last two days than I have done in my entire college career.
1. I built a sculpture from start to finish. It is a crow's head that I wear on my head made out of 100 sheet metal feathers and wire.
2. I wrote four beginnings to short stories and then completed one. The rest are awful.
3. I wrote a research paper.
4. I created a presentation on Camille Corot.
5. I made a breakfast of toast, bacon and omelette at 1:00am last night to keep me going.
6. More crows


7. Have I mentioned I have an infatuation with black birds?

Now I'm about to start a painting, and hopefully finish it by 8:30 am.

I am really glad there are only three weeks of school left, I can't really fathom keeping up this schedule. Oh, I also forgot that I cleaned my house, did all my dishes, and washed all of my clothes. Caught up on this entire season of Breaking Bad...

Oh, yeah, I forgot. I finally got my stuff back from the courthouse after seven months. I cannot even begin to describe to you what dirty clothes smells like after seven months in a sealed plastic bag. But this means I have my old/new phone back, which means that my 1998 model will once again be retired.

One last thing, we're planning a super ill event at the Walker involving Burlesque Design, Hardland Heartland (or the other way around), Scott Stulen, Liz Miller, John Grider & Eric Inkala (and a surprise guest), Kristina Mooney, Chris Pennington and another group of artists that is slipping my mind right now... so on and so forth. 24 hour art-making cave. I will be there at least 30 hours straight. Oh, and it ends with a party. Oh, and it's offsite at the Art Crawl, which means you can probably booze it up (no, not really [I didn't tell you you could].). MAY 15h-16th. Anyway, reserve that spot and stuff, cause really, I'm excited, and you should be too. What's better than making art, insomnia, and parties?

Nothing. Absolutely not one thing. Period.*

...



*Things that are better:
Popeye's chicken, a decent night's sleep, drunk sledding, good music.

You mad doggie!

News from blog land:

MN weather sucks.
I made Jambalaya.
I got peppersauce in my eye.
I painted 3 paintings today, one of which is terrible.
I signed up for Twitter.
I came to realize that Twitter is of no use to me when my phone was made in 1999.
Three more zombie movies arrived:
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn
Army of Darkness
Dead Alive
I miss class because of a power outage.
I watched this:


And I got into the Pratt Institute, which is an art school which I applied to. Best email I have received since that free viagra trial, but not as good as the million dollars I'm about to get once my check goes through to the Prime Minister of Ezahkstan.

Anyway, off to Twitter that I'm going to bed.