Song of Myself

Self-Portrait, colored pencil on illustration board, 20x28, Drawing II, Fall 2012

______Here be the final project for my Drawing II class!  Our assignment was to create a portrait of ourselves that said something about us, whether that something be super deep or just gives hints about something that defined who we are.  I opted to draw a fairly traditional self-portrait and incorporated a tree ring since I'm always fascinated by the wonderfully organic shapes and patterns which can be found in nature (it's actually cut out in that shape, too, which essentially rendered my hand useless for the rest of the day... totally worth it).  You could say that the tree rings represent the different years of my life, or you could just say that I really like tree rings.  The choice is up to you.  But no matter what the tree rings represent, I think that this is the closest resemblance I've been able to get in a drawing of myself.  Drawing yourself is hard, you guys.  You don't want to make yourself too pretty, but you don't want to make yourself too ugly.  And the whole making it look like yourself thing is a struggle in itself as well.

______Also, there's a Mr. Cicada chilling in the corner by a rose, 'cause obviously they're the cutest lil' bugs nature has to offer.  If one could have a spirit insect, a cicada would be mine fer sure.



______Anyway, I'm just glad to have exams out of the way.  I guess I had it rather easy with only two written exams, though both were weighted quite heavily and required half a dozen pages of writing.  My art classes, on the other hand, just required us to turn in all of our assignments from the semester, including a final project.

______But alas!  I won't dwell on the passing of exams, for they are over now, and I am as happy as a plump bumblebee in a field of flowers.  I'm also ready to get down to business and defeat the huns--err, I mean, bake scrumptious Christmas goodies.

______(but really, defeating the Huns is a priority)

______Peace out, cool cats!

Dreamstacks

Dreamstacks, charcoal on paper, 18x24, Drawing II, Fall 2012

______Imagine having to maniacally draw a bunch of faces on top of each other on paper whilst being timed.  Then, imagine picking a small segment from those scribbles which you must create a drawing from using a few interesting lines contained within it.  The drawing that results apparently is a drawing that has accessed the subconscious mind (my art teacher is rad, okay?).  And thus, thar be art.

______During our group critique, some people said that my drawing resembled stacks of pancakes, or a canyon, or two blob creatures (the one on the left is apparently trying to attack the one on the right, which has lips?).  Interesting interpretations indeed--I can only wonder what that says about my subconcious.  Something pretty strange, I suppose.

______But where did this drawing start off from?  What ever could the source have been?  Why, it was a hair line!  It doesn't look anything like it, of course, but that's the subconcious-ness working it's magic...  I think.

______What do you guys think it looks like?  I'm curious!

Here and There

______I'm glad that most of you enjoyed hearing about my dream in that last post (and I seriously had a nice time reading all of yours, as well!).  I think it's tons of fun to write down dreams and reflect on them, and sometime this summer, I'd really like to start illustrating mine.  I think that'd be fun--drawing something that you barely remember and all.  Sometimes, I'll only recall snippets of dreams, such as how last night I was a secret agent on a mission in a post-apocalyptic hospital and ran into my partner agent dude who warned me about the swarm of earplug bees that were on their way.  Thanks for the warning, fellow secret agent bro!

______Bahaha, but alas--my dreams have yet to be illustrated anytime soon.  However, until then, here's a little collection of some drawings and such from my sketchbook so far this year.


 




______Drawing II, Fall 2012

Fragments of Faith

______My art teacher is a merciless trickster.

______It all began when he gave us our first drawing assignment, which was to simply draw a still life that was set up before us.  Alright, okay, no problem I've done this before a ton in Drawing I--throw some charcoal down, move it around a little, and in about two class periods, I've finished it.  Not bad, not bad.  For the third class period, he wanted us to add some color to it, to "embellish it," as he so eloquently put, so I traced out three circles and filled them with muted purple and yellow.  I hastily snapped a picture of it with my iPhone before leaving class that day.

______But wait.  Later in the day, el art teacher e-mailed everyone and instructed us to bring in an exacto knife, a ruler, and some rubber cement to our next meeting.  Interesting, I think.  I wonder if he'd be crazy enough to make us cut it up?  To cut it into squares or strips or triangles?  

______I would soon know the answer to my foreboding questions.  We come in the next class period, and he reveals to us that we're not yet done with the assignment.

______Now cut, he says. Cut your work into two-by-two inch squares.

______Our work, which we had spent some 9 hours on, was now to be reduced to cracker-sized squares that resembled abstract nothingness.  I might as well have been cutting into my own soul when I ever so precisely snipped and trimmed my art down to a lowly pile of mocking squares.

______My art teacher is a cruel one.

Rabbit Holes, 18x24, charcoal and colored pencil, Drawing II Fall 2012

______Unfortunately, he also must know some things, because I kinda liked the end result.  I worked the colored portions together to create a sense of objectification within the circles, even though there really isn't anything super recognizable there.  I suppose it's more interesting than the initial "boring still life" (no, seriously, that's what he named it on the syllabus) that we had to start off with, but I wish that there was some way I could have saved the initial drawing, too.  Art teacher said that my final drawing had a kind of depth to it, and some girl in my class compared it to Salvador Dali, who is pretty much my king, so both of those comments made me one super happy squid.  That being said, art teacher's assignments have been fun so far, and I'm kind of glad he's such a rad and surreal kind of dude.

______I suppose the fact that I wasn't too attached to the initial still-life drawing helped me reach such a conclusion about him, but hey--I can't just give him all the credit.