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Progress

I thought I'd write this to satisfy Grace, since I know she has been waiting in moist anticipation.

On Wednesday I turned in my last drawing (the Josh Homme Masterpiece in progress) and a disc containing images of all my major projects this semester.

The Homme drawing was still incomplete when I turned it in. It came down to a decision between doing a rush job on it for a good grade, or doing it right and not worrying about the number some twat would arbitrarily assign to it. I opted for the latter. As a result of this choice, here's how it looks right now:



According to La Connasse:

Certain aspects of the drawing feel unfinished. The stage lighting and the area under the 3/4 head are a few. Also I would have liked to see more detail rendered in the shirt in the foreground. The value in the negative space between the trees could also be pushed darker in areas.

This is an example of the sort of non-commital language I hate. It's not "unfinished," it "feels unfinished." Sweetheart, it's unfinished. The result: A- (+dignity).

Here's the previous assignment, Big Fat Cock, as I like to call it. It started off as a simple charcoal drawing of a decorative chicken. The assignment was then to wash over it with ink, re-arrange the objects, and draw the new scene on top with charcoal and white chalk.



On another subject, I'm painting a cheesy Jack Bauer portrait for my brother's new house. This is to prevent him from hanging up a Thomas Kinkade:


That's all the on art front, but on another note, thought I'd get creative with parking my car in the driveway; namely, have someone else do it, because I have better shit to do. Chumps...

Thing's I've Done Lately

These are those unacceptably late charcoal drawings. I suppose I can understand why she wouldn't want to take the five minutes to grade them. She's a very busy lady in between creating her masterpieces, sketching herself in the nude, and driving a bus.


For the latest drawing assignment, our task is to draw a memory using at least two photographic sources, and two sources from life. I have chosen to commemorate the first time I saw Joshua Homme in concert, and of course pay tribute to him once again.

The preliminary sketch, which was seriously wonky:


Corrected, and starting to be shaded:

Original concept sketches:

I Can't Believe I'm Paying For This

I have to take a shit. Maybe if I do it on my drawing, I'll get that extra credit.

If I don't take a shit on it, I'm guaranteed to get a horrible grade. Not because the work is horrible (it's not), or because I didn't spend hours and hours on it (I did), but because I missed the deadline by a weekend (I didn't miss the critique, I missed the post-critique-time-to-effect-touch-ups deadline). The zero-tolerance late-work policy, dontcha know.

You know you've found a truly stupid person when you confront her about her unreasonable late-assignment policy and all she can think to do is repeat the policy over and over, even though you've given her at least an hour to rehearse her lines. She knew this conversation was coming.

The question is "Why?" And guess what, "it's in the syllabus" is the same as "because I said so," and that's not a good enough fucking answer. The real answer is "because I don't have the capacity to form an independent thought. Because I'm not rational. Because I'm not sympathetic. Because I needed some hard-ass policy to gain your respect, since I couldn't do it through my own skill and integrity." How weak.

If I've learned anything about deadlines in the "real world" (yes, my instructor used this line on me) it's that they are almost always negotiable, and you can usually push them a little bit. So don't give me that bullshit.

So I might be failing my foundations drawing course.

I feel like Dante from Clerks. I'm not even supposed to be in this class.

Shitty Project Attempt #2

Bas Relief

So, this is that shitty awful project I mentioned in the last post. The rules were that this thing had to be on a piece of cardboard (or similar substance) 2' by 2' square. It had to project at least an inch off the surface, and whatever you attached to it had to retain its original coloring (in other words, no painting). Lastly, it was supposed to be totally abstract. It was not supposed to resemble anything.

However, I found it interesting that I couldn't actually relate to the project until I had associated it with something in reality. Once I started to pretend that it was a big white yak from Mongolia, it was much easier to work on. I don't think I'm cut out for this abstract stuff.

Coming Out of the Closet

I have a confession to make...




I don't like abstract expressionism.



In fact, I fucking hate it. I have made earnest attempts to analyze and understand it, in the hope that this would generate some positive sort of feeling towards it, but the results are always the same- a colossal waste of time and energy. I can't help it. I find it to be pretentious, meaningless bullshit. Is it a choice? Was I made this way? I can't say for sure; you'll just have to pray for me.

I was inspired to write this after producing yet another abstract shitpile for my "sculpture" class at the university. I figure that even if I get an F on it, that will still throw some points my way. That's better than no points, eh? Some small compensation for the hours of torture.


Update (10/28/09)

So, after I handed my project in, my professor literally cringed. He has since been putting off the critique of all the late pieces, and today he revealed that it's because my piece is so shit. He wants me to continue working on it over the weekend.

Peck Drawing: WIP 2

Nothing terribly exciting- I'm just excited that I had a chance to work on it at all (and I worked on it to the exclusion of important school assignments). I refuse to let this project languish and die. Anyway, got the other eye mostly finished-

Homme Doodle

My drawing "professor" has been irritating me lately, so I thought I'd doodle something for fun.



The story with the instructor was that this person marked me down on a drawing, because I used "patterning that doesn't describe the form." In other words, the lines I made did not follow the contours of the shape I was trying to depict. Now, I recognize that this is a valid technique, which has useful applications (the above sketch is experimenting with it, and it is kinda fun). However, to dock my points because I opted not to use the technique is... well, shenanigans. There is no such thing as a "correct" technique. The correct technique is simply one that gets the job done: you like it, it looks good, and it does what you want it to do.

Moral of the story: don't let anyone perpetuate this brand of bullshit. There's no "right" way to do anything. Even if there was, would you want to be right?

Peck Drawing: WIP 1

A drawing I'm currently working on:



I'm really liking the progress on this one, and I couldn't think of anywhere else I might showcase it. It's on 18" by 24" bright white Strathmore 400 Series drawing paper. To be quite honest, I love that shit. The texture is perfect, and it's super durable (I'm told it's made with glue). I actually prefer it to the traditional artsy-fartsy choice, Arches, which does not hold up well at all under repeated erasure.

Arches' fancy feathered edges can eat me.

Fat Over Lean

So I've just begun taking an oil painting class at my university. It's my first experience with oils- something I've been very anxious about trying, because it is pretty daunting, and if you are a spectacular fuck-up, it can also become quite expensive. Anyway, I was sitting there, trying to soak in the wisdom from my professor, amid 20 other girls who are all under the impression that they are painting GODS, and he keeps tossing around the phrase "fat over lean."

"Fat over lean. Remember. Remember to paint fat over lean. Don't forget that you want it fat over lean. Guys...fat over lean. Lean first, then fat. Fat over lean."

He did not care to elaborate. When I asked, I got a very superficial, unsatisfactory answer, so I consulted the internet instead. It's actually a pretty simple concept, which refers to the quality of paint and the associated drying times.

"Fat" refers to the oil content of the paint. Paint straight from the tube has a lot of oil in it and is considered fatty. If you add any other oil medium to the paint, it has even more fat in it. The more fat (or oil content) in a paint, the longer it takes to dry.

"Lean" would then refer to any paint with a paint thinner in it- usually turpentine, or a turpentine-like substitute (like odorless Turpenoid). The more turpentine you add to an oil paint, the leaner it becomes. Lean paint takes far less time to dry.

"Fat over lean" refers to laying paints down according to drying times. Say you sit down to work on a painting. The first layers you're going to do are your turpentine washes. Gradually throughout this sitting, you will work up to thicker and thicker paints until you're simply using the stuff straight out of the tube. The reason for this is quite logical. If your lean layers dry quickly, there's no danger in putting a fat layer over it. However, if you put a fat layer on first, and then throw on a lean layer on top before the fat layer is totally dry, the lean layer can start to crack. That's because as your lean layer dries, it contracts ever so slightly. As the fat layer underneath it dries (at a much slower pace) it also contracts, causing the already-dry lean layer on top to wrinkle and crack.

It would also be pertinent to point out that oil paint straight from the tube can take several days (perhaps a week) to dry. If you're applying the paint thickly, then it may take even longer than that. There's no rule that says you have to wait for the thing to dry completely before you take another stab at it. If it's still wet, just be sure that whatever you're applying is as fat, or fatter than what you were putting on there last.

So remember kids, fat over lean. If you're feeling impatient while waiting for it to dry, get another project going, so that you can alternate between the two. According to Shawn Barber, he regularly jumps back and forth between eight to twenty pieces at a time (fecalface).