Recent Evenings

This week has been an incredible one for music. My interest in music just keeps getting deeper and deeper. A friend of mine has showed me some amazing artists whose music I plan on acquiring once I get back to mke. Soundcloud is an amazing hub for quality music it seems. The songs are so fresh and contemporary. I'm starting to be able to recognize styles and musical trends that are occurring in modern electronica music. It is hard to fathom all the possibilities in creating music with computers.

Some artists, who as far as I've heard kick ass, (spelling may not be perfect) are Eryka Badu, Dert, Baduizm, Firewater, Sigward, Buset, and a slew of soundcloud and myspace dudes whose names I have to search for again. One of the most interesting things I've seen since yesterday was Umfeld. I would not suggest watching the whole thing through (even if you could) as you might go insane, but it is an interesting display of sound and visual manipulations. To me it is one of the most organic and lifelike displays of computer animation and digital manipulation of sounds.

Before this blog goes from visual art to music blog completely, I have been thinking about re-focusing my artistic energies on my digital art. Layering of drawings and hybridization of analog and digital mediums. I really enjoy using the computer, and some of my best 'drawings' have happened there. An art day is in store.

Summer Shows

Astronomically speaking winter has only just begun. So, as an ode to summer and the longer days I thought I would post some pictures of a couple summer markets where I've sold my work. These shows were always stressful, not always lucrative, but I did have fun and am glad I made the effort. I should also mention thanks to my mother who let me use her car and who occasionally helped out with preparation and setup. For a full list of the places I've been go here.

The Brady Street Festival - 2007




The Madison Farmers Market (Capitol Square) - 2008

This was before I got a permit, just sold on the streetside (much more profitable)


After the permit, with a new display set up.

Christmas Music

Merry Christmas to everyone, or happy holidays, whichever you prefer. Today I gave my sister a Christmas gift, a drawing, of which I was not particularly proud. It was procrastinated upon, and despite my efforts proportions and value structure were slightly off giving the whole image a slightly off feel. She agreed saying it looked like she had just gotten through chemo in the picture and then she mentioned something about "baldilocks." Now thats a vicious critique if I ever heard one ;).Currently I really feel like jamming. Here is a drawing I did a couple weeks ago of a guy named Marty Finkel playing drums at one of the first Library Donut shows. Kinda digging ink and pen drawings.. In other news my friend Mr. Squirrel's EP is out and for sale (this guy works like crazy on his music, so if you like it, buy it)! If any of you have an interest in electronic music, check it out. He has most of his songs up for download available to celebrate the release of this EP so take advantage of it and rock out to some awesome digital music!

Time to make some music, peace!

An Old Friend

When looking back on my artistic endeavors it is interesting to look at the materials I used most frequently. (Note: digital drawing tablet is included under pen). There is a slight exaggeration of my graphite use as I cannot remember my first drawing ever. Thus I will just assume that I've been drawing all along, even at age 0. For the vast majority of my life I have been using graphite which I fell out of favor with once I fully entered art school.


Problems with Graphite: As far as drawing materials go graphite can be a wonderful drawing tool imho, aside from several things. Graphite does not have as wide of a value range as charcoal, pen, pastels, or crayon (except for maybe 9Bs). Graphite smudges like a motherfucker. Charcoal does as well, but with the way I personally hold a graphite pencil (tight) versus a charcoals tick (loose) I actually smudge less with charcoal. Graphite is also very difficult to erase, especially when you're dealing with very dark values. A dark graphite pencil and eraser will tear my piece of paper a new one.

Bonuses of Graphite: Graphite is an amazing line tool. Very small details can be achieved with a sharp tipped pencil. Whereas one's charcoal stick will go flat within a series of strokes a pencil can retain its sharpness for much longer (although frequent sharpening is a good idea imo). In addition cross hatching is ideal with a pencil. Along with pen, graphite pencils allow for some amazing cross contour hatching to describe the planes of any form. Posted here is my most recent and best yet use of cross hatching with graphite. I decided to do my last in-class drawing with my old friend graphite.


Recently (past couple years) I've fallen in love with charcoal and oil paints. Mainly because I've been forced to use them, but they do provide a whole new world of visual possibilities. I love their feel and their wide range of abilities (value, texture, fluidity, etc).

Happy Holidays and Happy Drawing!

Graphs

This blog is slowly taking over more and more of my soul. With every post artocalypse gains a little more sway over me, and again it won't be denied:

Creativity is good. To graph my 5% art profit donations I went on an online hunt for a flash or jscript graph maker to post graphs on my website. Well most of the software is not free and just at my peak of frustration with the search I figured out a way to make some good looking graphs. I used this site (which is actually an educational site for kids) and took a screen shot of the graph (after some ctrl zoom inage), photoshoped it, and now I have some jpgs up on my website's homepage. I'll post them here just to prove that asking money for software now adays is a losing cause.




I hope to see the day monetary currency dies and our markets are funded by usefulness and awesomeness.

LD + NC

It seems to me that every time Library Donut reunites for musical episodes its like a rebirth of joy in my head. The solstice show last night was a complete success. We actually had a crowd of people nodding heads and several of these: |..|,

My interest in music has also been spurred by my recent discovery of Nerdcore (thanks to a kickass friend of mine). I can relate to this music because one, I'm a white nerd, and two I like rap. This shit is awesome. Tonight I'm dedicating atleast an hour of my time to messing around with my rarely used MIDI keyboard. This post is specifically short of detail about both these subjects because I've got some music to make, some websites to refurb, and some christmas presents to make.

peace out world.

New direction in the same direction

Ho Lee Shit

Stress levels returning to normal, workload transfer complete, engines cooling. As of tonight I no longer have class for what seems like a wonderfully long period of time (2 weeks). My busiest semester by far is over, my house is clean, my computer clean, I've got a meeting w/ Sovine about the Collegium Sorcerorium commission tomorrow, a show with Library Donut in madison this weekend, and I'm feeling pretty damn good. Had my final critiques today and turned in some ok projects (above and below). Definitely not as high caliber as I wanted, so next time I'll start a little earlier...

One thing I've been meaning to write about is a recent sale with a user on Etsy. This person bought two drawings from me and when I was prepping to ship the works I noticed it was a gallery I was shipping to. The gallery is called the USpaceGallery based in Atlanta Georgia. I checked the site recently and they have the two drawings they bought priced six times higher than what I sold them for. I think it is a good idea, buying art on the cheap from artists online and reselling it. Its only I find it somewhat humorous that these are works done in about two hours at most and one is being sold for $120.00. Damn. If they actually sell one of those drawings... damn.

One can expect more blog posts since finals are over and I'll probably be hibernating in front of my computer for the rest of break.

Thoughts on a day off

Recently I've witnessed something of a personal renaissance. My band Library Donut is having a show (it is rare that we're all in the same city at the same time) in Madison this weekend, I've started playing Civ IV which is not good for my final projects, and many of the sketches I've been doing recently are hitting upon my old themes of fantasy war. I thoroughly enjoy these things. I know that I have lost a certain enjoyment in drawing that I used to have. When I was younger I would wake up with an image in my head and get a pencil and paper. Most of the time the drawings I made I did not like, but when I did I was ecstatic.

World view lens is being transformed by my art studies, a lot. I see things quite differently and almost daily find myself thinking "that would make an awesome painting" when on the bus or walking down a hallway. Also when looking at art I think about the sellability of each work. I hate this. Many times in the past I have had brainstorming sessions w/ myself about how I can make money with art. I don't like feeling as if I must use my creativity to make money, but money runs this world so what can you do? With the social network coming along bit by bit I hope to use my creativity for something bigger than me and bigger than money. In today's society it is harder and harder to make money off art (pirating) so new ways need be developed. I think its a shame though that we are forced (or are we?) to think about money. Its too bad in today's society money is one of the ultimate tools for getting shit done. More and more new ways to get shit done are being done w/o money thanks to web 2.0. I leave it at that.

Social Network Update: Revolart.com

After perusing the interweb for sometime I've decided to relocate [edit] so I can use elgg freeware for the social network. Thanks to responses by some people on the [edit] think tank a new name has been generated. The new domain name for the social network is Revolart.com. I'll be building forums with phpBB3 software and tons of mods. Lots of new ideas have been generated and I can't wait for finals to be done so I can pounce on this project like a 5,000lb lion.


In other news, I recently created my most naturalistic painting and best self-portrait to date in my opinion. The images you see here are from finish to start. The painting was inspired by Timothy Stotz and Odd Nerdrum. I have begun to really appreciate realism in paintings because I think it ups the level of human presence and emotion in a work.


Time to crash. zzzz

Compare Contrast

In my last post on the 5% rule, I mentioned a classmate Chris Martin whose art and imagination I think rock equally. When he showed us some of his art in drawing class I couldn't help but notice similarities in his recent works and my oldest works. On these are works from Chris' facebook group and drawings I did back in 6th gradeish (except the map). His are on the left, mine the right















































































In addition to subject matter (although my subject matter is often more violent and militaristic in content) I think there are some similarities in the way we both construct, cities, facilities/buildings, and ships. Chris' works are definitely at a higher caliber, the details go beyond detail into hyperdetail. We think in a similar way when constructing some of these images.

When talking about his drawings Chris said he made everything up from his imagination and started building off of what I would call logical additions. For instance when drawing city he might put in some rivers, and then some bridges for the rivers, and then some bridge towers for the bridgs and then roads to hook up to the bridges, etc. I do the same thing, here is the barracks, now I'll put in a road from the barracks to the mess hall and then some shacks outside the mess hall for food storage, then maybe a road for trucks to deliver shipments. Interesting je pense.

The 5% Rule

I'm writing from one of the UWM computer labs after having sold two drawings to a friend's sister. They were wedding portraits based off some photos she picked. The 5% rule is something I have enacted for ALL art-related sales. Since this summer I make a donation of 5% on ALL art profits to non-profit organizations. A mix between my meditation studies, business mentality, and obamainfluence has hardened my belief that a steady continuous focus of energy on a goal is the best way to achieve it. Part of what I want to do with my art is benefit other peoples lives in real-world ways. I have no idea how to express this in my work yet (aside from building the social network), but donating 5% of my profits to good organizations is a start (you can see where and when I've donated at my website in the updates column. Change is best when gradual and consistent. Once you have a goal you should begin working on it immediately with what time you have. Even if its only 5% of your effort little by little a foundation will be built and after years and years of development great things can be accomplished.

Speaking of little by little, the Collegium Sorcerorium illustrations are nearly done and I am eager to start working on some new drawings. I really enjoy going on drawing streaks and putting images of them up online for all to see. Its rewarding for me to see my work bouncing around the interweb. The recently commissioned wedding drawings will be online at a later date as the new owner of the works wants me to wait until after she gives the works to her husband after Christmas.

One last thought for awhile on art business: All my recent sales have been works priced at $20 a piece or less. Often times I see student work for some pretty high prices (myself at one point). A piece of art is only worth what someone would pay for it and I'm quite pleased with the prices my works are selling at now, because people my age can actually afford it. Looking at what I'm making off my drawings from an hourly wage standpoint is probably around $10-15/hour. Not bad considering my other jobs. Low prices also helps me keep my mind off the money and on the art, which prevents stagnat artistic growth. Since most of the recently sold work has all been in class work I'm inspired to focus on my studies and not think of what I'm going to do with the drawing after.


The works in this post are some cartography drawings from here.

Late night thoughts on the ways of the art world

I've surprisingly been making sales on etsy of late. After trying so hard to sell work online last summer it seems odd that now I'm selling work within days of putting it up. I think its definitely related to my growth as a student of visual spaces. Its crazy how quickly things change and shift, go up and down. [Just to note, I don't claim to have great knowledge on the ways of the art world, these are just some things I think about in my spare time.]


One thing I wanted to mention was that over the past years I've been in art school I have noticed such a disconnect with our art classes and the real art world. I think technical skills are essential, because they are the foundation upon which we craft our ideas. Thinking and creative skills are also important because they provide a direction for our skills. But one thing I think is oft left out is the business side of art (UWM has perhaps 1 or 2 classes for upper levels and other business topics come up in guest lectures like the Artist Now Lecture series, that is all).

So many of my fellow peers have some pretty amazing ideas and works developing. The image is from a classmate's facebook group where he frequently posts his new work, a lot of which I find absolutely fantastic. There is so much potential, but many students are hesitant to try and push their art because they don't feel it is good enough. In addition students aren't encouraged enough to explore the many ways that artists practice successfully (be it monetarily, be it growth as an artist, be it whatever the artist sees as success). I'm not saying this doesn't happen, many teachers will go out of their way to encourage us and provide us information about opportunities outside of school. However, the number of older students I've talked to tell me they have no idea where to go or what to do with their desire to make stuff. I'm hoping the artist social network will be a good participant in helping artists find inner confidence, awareness, direction, and knowledge.


Artist and instructor Kathryn E. Martin Meurer is definitely one of my favorite instructors and artists. Once she brought a class over from MIAD to a Santiago Cucullu installation at the Inova gallery (vogel I think) to talk with Santiago about his career and how he works his personal art business. (Because being an artist is the same as being an entrepreneur of your own small art factory that is you). Learning how to run your art factory is crucial to producing art and something I really want to learn how to do well.

Warm and Cools, the REAL laws of color

I'm taking a color class this Winterm, already the colorful creative juices are starting to flow. Colorful creative juices. Sorry I had to type that just one more time. Seriously though, color has to be the most perplexing composition ingredient I have encountered. I'm eager to study it for 4.5 hrs/day, 5days/week, for 2 weeks. The images posted here are paintings by Mark Rathko because of his profound interest in color and because they kick ass.


Recently I had a discussion with a good friend of mine who is not a trained artist. I especially enjoy conversations with inquisitive people who are not submerged in visual studies like I am. I believe that we all see equally just in different forms and colors. In explaining the properties of warm and cool colors she told me that she believes that cool colors catch the eye more than warm colors. She believes cool colors advance, not warm colors. When I first heard this I was stumped, because it has been drilled into my head that warms ALWAYS advance and cools ALWAYS recede. I make no claims about knowing which is true. The whole point of this post is that there are always exceptions to the rules. Its important to keep this in mind when going into painting class for 2.5 hours of rule teaching.


I think sensitivity when talking about art is important because the relationships between images and people are more complex, more intricate than we can possibly conceive. I believe that laws and rules are false because things are constantly changing, yet I believe that they are true because there always seems to be a structure to the way things change. Like life (because its part of life), the answers about visual hierarchy and composition matrices will 'always' allude us. This is perhaps why I enjoy living, because its a constant puzzle, and perhaps why I enjoy art so much, because its an enjoyable puzzle! Whats your favorite color?