Once Again, In Lieu of Content...

I give you a link to something awesome:

Some incredible woodworking, including a ukelele that has a pictorial guide to the mustaches of the world.

Someday, I hope to start posting my own stuff here again. Someday soon!

Dan Hillier

Here is a great example of the kind of visual art I like. It's got class, style, absurdity, and tentacles. Also, it is ink and engravings, which is hard to beat, in my book.

Check it out, yo: http://www.danhillier.com

Lost in the Dark

This week, my computer hard drive moved and did not leave a forwarding address. In the timeless wisdom of an idiot, I failed to make back up copies of almost anything from the last six months. This includes a fair amount of art, both original and reproduction. It is at times like this that I am glad I have made a habit, however sloppy and inconsistent, of posting my photos to the internet. Blogging may be one of the forms of poor mental hygiene, but at least it has a high Preserved For Posterity factor.

Go see Simon Schubert

Because the embossed paper architecture studies RULE!!

Seriously, check it out.

Go see Simon Schubert

Because the embossed paper architecture RULES!!

Seriously, check it out.

Two Heads and a Clown

At least, I think it's a clown. I don't remember exactly what I was thinking when I drew this. Just having a little sketchfest, I guess.

Another unfinished painting

The larger, pink, swirly painting is unfinished. It needs more contrast. More.... red. Mostly. I think. I'll paint on it more when I know what.

This is closer to what I was trying to get with the blue one, but it's still not right. And I'm still not totally sure why. Also, I painted it two weeks ago, which means that I'm actually moving farther from my target. Whee.

The other painting is just to demonstrate that I've become that kind of artistic bum who piles things up any which way. (When I say "become" it makes it sound like I was not already a bum. Please go along with this, my mom might be reading.)

just a doodle

Just screwing around with ink & watercolor, washes, fills, silhouettes, etc. Quite like some of it, haven't figured out where/how to use it.

2/5

I'm less fond of this one. Well. I like the composition. Not happy with the green sphere. The yellow one isn't bad, although it didn't photograph as well as I would have liked.

I guess if I want better photos I'll have to use lights and a tripod and all that tedious crap...

Part 1 of 5

I'm working on a 5 panels series, this is the first one I finished. I'm fond of it.

Looks better in person...

... but still isn't GOOD. I don't know for sure what effect I'm trying to get, but I keep not getting it, so I keep trying again and again. It's a little frustrating, and my house is filling up with a wide variety of similar and similarly unsatisfying paintings... but I'm hoping someday I'll actually find what I'm after.

sweet swirl action

Painted this in acrylic a few days ago. It's not great, it's barely composed... but I like it anyway.

When I get too much into the subtle shading, I start feeling like Rothko, but then I put some real color into it and can go on living. Anyway, it was an experiment. I didn't like it.

That's right, it's time...

Time for one of my mass-uploads of recent stuff. Yeah, it'd obviously be just WAY too much effort to put them whenever I have put them up on the wall. Worse than calling the book-ordering place.

Out of spite, I'm beginning with a hand-written list entitled: A Partial Catalog of Things That Are Not Funny. Everything else will be images, though.

Right Brain Took The Day Off

I have noticed that it is VERY difficult for me to have days which are productive for both art, and not-art.

For instance, on days where I'm getting art done, cleaning the toilet is a Herculean task, requiring a stunning amount of planning, fortitude, and recovery time. I can paint, draw, cut glass, design a dozen new projects, and cut mats for 4 pieces... but somehow taking the trash out is as feasible as a 3 minute mile.

On the other hand, on days when I'm not getting art done, I can do the shopping, clean the apartment (toilet included!), make the cat food, get some exercise, cook something for us peeps, do the filing, answer that letter from my grandmother, and read the newspaper... all in less time than it takes me to figure out which pencil I want to use with my sketchbook.

Why must the 2 halves of my brain be on a time share?? I'd have thought this would all be easier. I have a natural tendency toward ambidexterity, and often don't know right away which hand I want to hold an object or utensil with. I have to think about it. Is there some way to think about things so I can get the other side of my brain into gear?

n.b.: I will be posting some pictures later today, or possibly tomorrow. I've spent lots of time on art since my last picture post, just more in the "technique development" aspect, and less in the "resolved execution of a design" side of things.

Two days' worth...

This is a poor photograph if a watercolor study that I started yesterday. I may or may not actually complete it, there are a number of technical and compositional errors. And, besides that, it's just a study--I wanted to know how this would look, if I put a bit more depth into the mosaic style I was working with last year.

There is a great deal of potential in this, and I suspect this will lead to another composition of a more complete nature in the near future. I may even get ambitious and take a better picture of this one.

Or. You know. Not. You can never can tell with me. Unending surprises around here...

an artistic problem

sunday morning
Originally uploaded by oferchrissake

With photography, there is a persistent problem with how it can be art. In a sense, photography is no more artistic than meeting notes--it's documentation of event(s), and can be just as plain as text. On the other hand, there is the idea that the photograph is inherently visual art, because it evokes time and place, action, stasis, and emotion. There is a story told, or intriguingly not told, with any image. Photographs are no more "true" than any other first-person account, and yet they're regarded as more valuable evidence than the expressed memories of a human brain. A photograph is not a painting, or a drawing, and yet offers the expressive qualities of both. It's a kind of printmaking, but somehow regarded as a less venerable tradition. New money, not to be relied on or accepted fully into society. And yet, it is money, and makes its own society.

So, is this photograph of red underpants on an asphalt sidewalk Art? Is it documentation? Is it true? Is it suggestive, does it tell a story? Is a single such photograph trivial, while a book of photographs of underwear on the ground becomes an epic? Where would the line be drawn? 5 photos? 10? 100? Is there no limit to the number of photographs that I could make of this theme that would turn it into an artistic statement?

Or is it already, in and of itself, Art?

Spring Blow Out

leafingout
Originally uploaded by oferchrissake

Textures

coffeechino
Originally uploaded by oferchrissake

I'm a fan of subtle textures. I can stare for ages at patches of moss, or old brick sidewalks... or the foam in my coffee cup.

Part 1: Soft & Hard

I am finally indulging my fascination with moss. Today I hot-glued broken glass to half a broken plate, and filled the spaces in between with starter moss. The glass is not frosted; it's been sprayed with a moss starter fluid that involves something like buttermilk, so it looks frosted right now. It'll get cleaned up later. The glass shards actually have very raw edges. Pretty sure hot glue wasn't the right thing, but it was the thing I had on hand.

The moss will eventually fill in and grow, as long as I remember to keep it damp. Since I grew this moss from a small dried chunk I found on the sidewalk a month ago, and still have enough left to grow more starter moss, I have some confidence that I might be able to manage this. As I told Regan a couple of days ago, unlike a lot of modern cultivated house plants, moss is a much older life form, and has seen far, far worse conditions than my attempts to cultivate.

There are other potential projects with moss in my brain right now, but I wanted to start with something that I wouldn't have to buy any parts for. I have a bag of broken glass and a glue gun, but most of my ideas revolve around carved designs in less delicate materials. We'll see what comes next, assuming I don't kill all the moss and/or lose a finger caring for the thing.