Unfinished Business

The hiatus here has been long and unwarranted, but I figured it was better to stress about not creating, than about not blogging about not creating. In any event, I finally got back in the saddle about 2 months ago, and have been trying to learn a bit of oil technique. Having just come off watercolors, it's been challenging, to say the least. However, I'm starting to get a better feel for it. Still not sure this is the right medium for me (in fact, pretty sure it's not) but it can be somewhat satisfying nonetheless.

Perhaps the hardest thing for me is the long open time of the paint. I've got all these unfinished paintings around. Some are, truthfully, unstarted. Don't be fooled by how much paint is already on the canvas. It might be good for me to have to look at my unfinished work every day, though. Although I'd like to have a studio space separate from my living space, I also like to live in the work. This is not an office job.

I'm posting these unfinished images without comment, without editing, and in some cases, apparently without even focusing the camera. When the things are complete, I'll get more pictures. Please feel free to comment, all feedback is welcome, even if it's the basic like/don't like reaction.

Every post needs a title, or I can't find the comments later!

Warning: Brilliance Ahead!

There's a feature on the news here about Kehinde Wiley. The paintings speak for themselves, and the link just takes you to a Google search. It's f'ing brilliant. Just go look.

Still not dead, still no mojo.

But, nonetheless, check Nick Veasey, xray art photographer.

Holy crap that's cool.

I'm not dead, but I play one on TV.

Until I get my mojo back, please enjoy these HDR pictures of graffiti.

ABUZEEDO

Easily Amused.

I'm going to go take some pictures of things I've done this week RIGHT NOW, but for the time being, and because I'll want to review it later myself, I give you The FBI Art Crimes Web Site where you can read about what's been stolen from where and when. They say art crimes is a $300 billion annual losses for the law abiding world. I think if I'd known about this when I was going though career counseling in high school, I would've wanted to do that for a living.

The real down side of art theft, of course, is the movies about art theft, which are almost always trashy vehicles for people in the Top 10 Sexiest lists to make out in exotic places. (After the Sunset, Entrapment, Ocean's Twelve, and Bean*.) And, you know, if that's what art crimes is all about, than I guess I'm OK with being in the FBI team that works on that.

* Really, I just wanted to know if you are paying attention. Although the thing with the turkey was memorable, it wasn't in the same league as seeing Pierce Brosnan lick Salma Hayek's navel.

Further

Not as excited about this one as I would like to be, but it might be growing on me. I will give it time to ripen, but I'm not going to run out and get it framed just yet.

Thanks to some excellent advice, you can see my "extra white" paper now at least looks like it might be "at all white." (Not to be confused with "hussy white.") Still not a great photograph, but better. And I expect yet better in the future.

Which reminds me... I have spent a little quality time with my camera in the last couple of days. I confess, I've kind of been treating it like a flashlight... it's a handy electric device that I need to use sometimes, and I try to keep the battery fresh, and I can work the buttons without any thought. BUT! I've been shooting auto. Auto focus, sure, 'cause I have problems with that (eye-based problems) but also letting the camera work out the exposures and all that. And that's just lazy. Pure laziness, on my part. I can admit this.

So, I dug up the manual, learned the last 3 things I needed to know, in order to own the manual settings, and shot a few "rolls." As in, literally, I treated it like I was shooting film. 12, 24, 36 exposures of this kind or that (B&W, color, different speeds, etc) to get back in the swing of working the aperture and shutter settings. Sure, I took a lot of crap pictures, but then I eventually evened out, and can take the picture I want much, much faster and easier than trying to coax the full-auto modes to give me what I want. Hell, it was faster and easier than getting those same shots would've been on an old school SLR (non digital), even not counting developing & printing..

It amazes me sometimes how being lazy can actually make me do more work. Besides that, I bought the camera I have specifically because it has some features I really wanted in a digital--it's compact, it allows 100% manual control, it can shoot silently, and it's fairly powerful (considering the size). So there's really no excuse to treat it like a flashlight.

A Special Time

In every art project, I experience a moment of clarity. I know if it works, or if it does not. I know if the time I've already spent is worth it.

Sometimes, I know before I begin, before the first stroke of paint, before the first sketch. Sometimes I don't know until a long time after it's finished.

In the case of one of my current projects, the moment of clarity came to me after about 30 hours of back-bending, eye-squinting detailed painting. More, if you count the sketch I did before I started the "real" thing.

It's very encouraging, that moment of clarity. I won't make any sweeping generalizations, like "it's what artists live for" or even "it's what I work for" but I do think it's a vital part of the process. It's part of the creativity high, and it's an important part. No matter how much satisfaction one gets from the actual execution, the certainty that it's going to be all right is invaluable. Hard to explain, but it's a big relief. It's more validating that anything anyone else could ever say about the piece--fundamental, intrinsic satisfaction.