Scribbles, line, and color.

Busy day, working on my s-21 series and more. Lots and lots of work- got an offer to be in an exhibit in San Fransisco in less than two months on the theme of "Internet culture". So much work, so little time! Low on money, augh! Tomorrow I find out if I got the RA job! I'm confident, but getting a bit nervous at the moment.

CLICK IT!

Here's an impressionist painting I did for my painting class, very happy the way it came out considering how boring interiors can be.

I just finnished cleaning up most of my room and I'm not completely into the idea of doing a blog post right now but I want to share some of what I'm working on. The image directly below is "Prisoner #20." She's quite beautiful, and looks like she went through hell in her short life time.

She spent her short life in the Cambodian secret prison "S-21" and died while in captivity, like hundreds of others. A good deal of the prisoners had their photos taken with a number tag, and the pictures were recently released onto the internet as well as in various galleries in the far east from here. I'm working on show showing hand drawn portraits of these people- this image up above is just a sketch, but I'm pleased with how ink + ebony came out. Maybe a bit too much contrast, but hey, that's why it's a sketch.

Changing gears;

For my core project I made small fetuses out of clay that I'm molding in an organic compound that dentists use to get impressions of your teeth. I'm filling the mold with plaster to create a hard object, and then next I'm going to make a plastic mold, and start producing hard-candy fetuses that you can eat! Delicious. The white figures below are the test plaster mold. I have a great deal of work to do, and below are really just tests and sketches of what the final project will be.



Other than that, I've got painting tomorrow, and Thursday I find out if I get the RA position or not. I certainly hope so!

I'm trying to figure out how to make a small mold of a clay figure I made. I'm going to ask my 3D teacher tomorrow about it and see if she has any input.

Today I put a cloth sheet between the kitchen (with my loft), and the main room (where my room mates stay) because of the heat is unbearable. Nick blasts the heat and I had to do something because there's not really any other way. (He sleeps by the window, and gets freezing cold) and I sleep farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr away from the window, up in a loft, where heat rises. So it can never be comfortable for both of us, even if we both compromise. (Which he generally doesn't anyway.) Also, the sheet will eliminate some of the sound and light from them too.

I stapled it into the wall with a staple gun, haha!

Other than that, I had my group meeting yesterday- and I think it went wonderfully! I honestly believe that I got the position- I really took the role as the leader at the group interview. The only thing I need to do now is hand in Tricia's reference! I did once and I had to re-do it because I left some parts blank! I need to do that tomorrow ASAP. I'm going to ask my teacher if I can leave class for a bit in the mourning and get it done. I don't remember where I put the form now that I think about it. Augh, I'm going to have to get up extra early to find it. I'm going to head out now to sleep so I wont have too much of a problem waking up...It's almost 2am.

One more thing, I met someone on (the dorms on AIM-thing) ((Everyone in the dorms has their own seperate program that's like AIM for the dorms)) and we talked about random shit. By the end of it, I found out that she's the RA for the 7th floor, and we do some art that is similiar. We're going to meet later this week and if everything goes well, we're going to have a show together!

Awesome.

I had my second RA interview today. I believe it went really well. I answered all the questions truthfully, promptly, and with great confidence. They were also 3 dimensional answers. IE, answering a questions, as well as answering a following question or making the question work in my favor. Overall, it was a good expirence and I have a great deal of confidence that I will get the job. I have a group interview this sunday at 12:30 and on March 1st I find out if I got the job or not. On a side not, I still need to pursue getting a job this semester or I'll be in big trouble. I'm dangerously low on money, and I have my eye on getting a plane ticket to visit Kelsey as well as some new clothes and maybe a used Dreamcast. More art supplies would be nice, but I'm pretty stocked up at the moment.

Other than that, I'm still working on a small sculpture- and I'm thinking about doing more paper making- it was very easy and relaxing. I'm additionally trying to come up with more ideas for some paintings. For some reason, I'm finding it very difficult to come up with (and always have) subjects or conceptions for oil paintings + film. I'de like to do either, and I need to make some paintings, but I simply don't have any inspiration for them. When it comes to sculpture, watercolor, and stenciling- well, that's a whole 'nother story.

I'm debating whether to start a large stencil, or work on some mystery oil paintings. On one hand, I believe I'm pretty damn nasty with a razor + stenciling- and could produce something big pretty efficiently, but on the other hand I need to catch up a bit in my oil painting class.

I might do both at the same time. Or work on some small stencils. I'll call Ted for some guidence tomorrow about it.

I guess this small update wasn't very small at all. Oh well. Also, here's a picture from "The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" episode "Love Sick Sonic"- Part 2. It's amazing what subliminal stuff they put in those old cartoons. At least he was the bad guy in the show...

Cheers!

It's 2:20am, and I've got to get up tomorrow around 10 so I can be ready for my second RA interview. It's going to be a bit of an issue falling asleep because my my irregular sleep patterns and such, as well as my roommates being active and social at the moment. Today one of my roommates remarked that in effect, the way I dress and the art I make is all imitation-Ian. It doesn't bother me much, it's just an example of being judged on random circumstances. Ian is a great guy who I met last semester, he doesn't go here this semester however because of money issues. The guy has a nearly unmatched knowledge of history, philosophy, and art criticism in comparison to my peers, as well as some of the teachers. We don't hold the same philosophies and morals, which always meant interested and active debates between us. In short, I would be the existentialist capitalist, while he would be the socialist anarchist. He would dress with button down shirts, vests, blue military coat, boots, and fancy pants, similiarly to the way I have dressed, espcially since I got back to school for the second semester.

While at home I aquired various suits, pants, shirts, and more from my grandfather as well as a pocket watch. I am finally dressing the way that feels "right" that I just wasn't able to attain with my hoodies and ripped jeans. Don't get me wrong, they are good for around the house or late at night, but definitely not for going to school or being in a social environment. Through dressing as a gentleman, you project a positive and mature image of yourself on to others. Something that Ian had done before I had the opportunity.

Oh, and I love my Shemagh too.

Nick can't seem to get over the fact that I dress similarly to Ian. I'm not exactly sure why, but it comes up in conversation over and over again. As for my art being like Ians, I was going continue an idea that was origonally his of a wooden sculpture, but I ultimately scrapped it and made "the box" instead.

In other news, Kevin (my other roommate) has been much warm to me lately. It's certainly a pleasant change of pace.

After my RA interview tomorrow I have to rush right over to art history to take a quiz. Hope I do well on my quiz. I will, but still worth noting the possibility of failure.

Before I go, I'de just like to state that never put your fingers between the bars of metal chairs stacked on top of eachother and sit. I nearly broke my finger today during the critique of "the wall" project in Research Studio 2. A bit embarrassing, but I was able to bring humor out of it to everyone there.

Night!

I just finished a small sculpture/painting for my research class that is an experiment on an iconic representation of "home". I focused on an old timer's home. Like your typical grandmothers house. Nearly as if you went to your grandmothers house and cut out a section of a wall with a shelf.

To make it, the first thing I did was construct a shelf from wood and attached a shelf to it. I Gesso'd it and painting a portion green.
After painting it, I added some small details, and began making wheat paste! Two tables spoons of wheat flower to every cup of water. Boil until paste texture.
And less than a half of a jar is what I got. This stuff smells just like Cream of Wheat. I love it!With the wheat paste, I began layering tracing paper on. The reason for this is to give the illusion that the wall paper is old and layered, and will give it a nice peeling away effect.
Next, I painted over it once again with yellow, added some small details (such as a light green floral print), attached a small picture of a pocket watch I painted, as well as bottles and some other nic-nacs to give "home-type" theme.


I ended up with something that I'm not crazy about- but I feel it was a good exercise for me, and I learned a lot about working with wheat pasting which I've never done before. This piece has inspired me to get back into stencil working. Additionally, I think that I may begin to cover unconventional walls and objects with pseudo-wall paper. Could turn out interesting.

Hey, currently I'm working on two small sculptures. I'm documenting their processes, and enjoy working with new materials. (Molds + Casting). I'm not going to post the documentations of them until I reach a final project. Here's a picture that I took at the Garfield Park Conservatory Feb 11th, at their annual Chocolate Festival.
I missed class today, mainly because I was sick this whole weekend, and I hadn't gotten proper sleep because of it, and partially because my roommates were up all night drinking and making no attempt to keep their volume levels in check. Tomorrow I have painting, and considering it's 1:45am, it doesn't look like I'm going to have a warm and fuzzy mourning tomorrow. Still, I look forward to my time after class to finish some of the stuff I've been working on. Busy busy week up ahead. And damn, my loft is oven-hot. Oh well!

On to my paper stacks. These sheets of paper are hand made from trash left over from a voyage to White Castle. I go there about once a year, and decided I'de save all the garbage. I played around with paper making and after un-countable failures I finally nailed down the process and used the left overs. Some samples here are: Staring at the top left going right- Medium Sprite, cheeseburger with extra onion and bacon, Chicken and cheese sandwich, medium fry. In that big pile everything from the bag, napkins, hamburgers, cheeseburgers (hold the bacon), chicken fries, and a few other things exist. There is no actual food in the paper (well maybe a little bit + grease), but when I name the food, I'm talking about the wrapper that it came in. I was able to make an enormous amount of paper, and here's a sample of it. I'm considering making larger sheets and continuing on using recycled fast food wrappers. And in case you were wondering, the smell that the wrappers released during the pulping process was nearly unbearable.

Another series of sketches and works I've been contemplating and playing around with. They are called the stringmen- long figures drawn from life. Working with themes of isolation and unease with surrounded stringmen + environment I feel that these works create an atmosphere of intensity and paranoia. This is one image of a larger (yet draft-quality) body of work.

I've been having fun with water color and inks, and got two images that I'm oddly attracted to. The first image is a visualization and interpretation of the word "Refraction". The second is "Juxtapose".