The Creative Process

EDIT: For whatever reason the photos in this post have consistently come up in google searches and people seem to randomly find my blog. Please don't steal my photos! I appreciate it.

Today's post is mostly about painting process, because I've ventured back into oil painting, which is generally much more time intensive, so I don't have a finished product.

Remember when I said I have a problem with buying art supplies? Well I wasn't freaking kidding. This is about half of my art supplies (since most of it isn't even visible). Every kind of "mark making" tool you can come up with, I probably have...in multiples.

 

Seriously who the f*** needs this many paintbrushes? What was I thinking? Oh wait I wasn't... Amazingly there are no repeats in paintbrushes, with the exception of 2 detail brushes because they tend to get wrecked so easily. Oh and these are just my oil paint brushes. I have completely different ones for watercolors.

If you are venturing into painting, don't mix your brushes if you can help it. Getting acrylic and oil and other paints on the same brush can quickly deteriorate it.

As for ACTUALLY painting, I had a lot of fun mixing paints today.

Black paint you say? True, it IS black paint, but it's actually mixed from ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. In other words dark blue and brown make black!

Why mix black?

It was a trick taught to me in high school (and sadly never pointed out in college. wtf?) But it does create a "richer" black. Black paint from the tube can often go flat on a canvass in comparison with all the other colors you probably mixed. So why not mix a chromatic black? There are actually other combos that work too but I like the way this one turns out.

Similarly, mixing flesh tones is tough. Take brown, add white to taste, right? Blegh. That's for lazy artists (Yeah I'm calling you out. haha). It's actually more like this:

I usually start with a lot of white and add a little red (I actually don't have the best red for this) until you get an awful cotton candy color. Then add a little cadmium yellow and the color quickly turns to a familiar peach flesh tone, although it's pretty "cartoony" at this point.

Then a little ultramarine OR a little of the right green. I haven't heard of many people using green, but I think it results in a better Asian skin tone. Then finally add bits of yellow ochre, burnt sienna or burnt umber.

Voila, instant flesh! I've been guilty of putting paint directly on my arm to make sure the color seemed right. Not really suggested, some of this stuff is actually kind of toxic.

So what the hell was all this for?

Tada! If it seems like blobs of things you would be correct, but I need it to dry a bit before I proceed. Patience is key with oil painting.

 

This is on a piece of canvass "paper." Basically just an 18x24 piece of prepped canvass. It's just taped to a piece of newsprint to keep it from sliding and protect the table.

In other news, I definitely have paint in my hair. Yeah. I missed oil painting.

All in the Family

Today's drawing is the best I've done by far since I started this project blog.

In what ended up being an early Father's Day gift (because I'm too impatient to wait another week) I gave my dad a framed drawing of HIS father. My grandfather was a baker in the army during World War II. My grandmother had a photo of him in his uniform from 1946, which I photographed while I was visiting about a month ago and used to construct this drawing.

My dad loved it and I'm happy he did. It also got me thinking about my family's creative history. My grandfather was a painter, but sadly he was not able to paint as often as he would like, because as an immigrant to the US, he had a hard life caring for his family. But I know it would mean a lot to him and DOES mean a lot to my dad that I paint now, even though I never had the opportunity to see him do so.

My dad jokes that I definitely didn't get my creativity from him, but my dad actually did some photography when he was younger, and was better at it than he realizes. My dad's sister is a fashion designer and my uncle did graphic design for decades.

On my mom's side, my sister has an amazing visual sense and does incredible videos. My brother is a musician and was in a band for about 10 years (they were big in Amsterdam I'm told!). My niece is a dancer and DRAMA QUEEN!

So that's a little of my family history. Please leave feedback on this one, I would love to know what you all think as this one means the most to me out of everything I've done so far this year.

Charcoal and black conte crayon on bristol board

Art school confidential

I've been watching movies and shows while I draw just sort of for background noise, and today I was watching Art School Confidential. If you haven't seen it, skip it, it's not very good. BUT it does ring true that the main character is struggling to find his way, can't find inspiration (except for being in love with this girl for no reason ever explained except that she's pretty), and in general doesn't understand how other artists are succeeding. He also runs into a bunch of douchey artsy stereotypes that I also dealt with in college, but that's another story.

That was the case for me today. Nothing has stuck so there are a lot of random things. It's frustrating that after a month, no clear idea has stood out or started to evolve for me, although my most successful thing to day was revisiting the images of the recent storms in the Midwest. So here you go art lovers! Lots of random, not that great drawings. But I promised myself I would draw every day regardless of artist's block.

Definitely the most successful thing of the day. Revisiting the images of the tornado damage last month.

I was watching the Alice in Wonderland movie and just thought the costumes were really beautiful.

Also the result of watching Alice in Wonderland. 

This isn't meant to be a particular person, just a sketch.

Ready for my close up! I always enjoy drawing eyes.

Words to live by

Buy a copy of this poster at http://shop.holstee.com/collections/designed-x-holstee/products/holstee-manifesto-poster

Volcanos and Tornadoes

The worst kept secret of all artists (painters, illustrators, writers, etc) is that misery is your greatest muse. I am always sad to see the destruction caused by nature. Today's muse was the tornadoes in Joplin, MO and the Puyehue Volcano currently erupting in Chile.

Watercolor and conte

 

First part to an experiment with paper cutting and layering. This is the bottom layer:

Charcoal, conte crayon and chalk pastels

This is the top piece:

And here it is all together

And now for the Piyehue Volcano. If you think I'm exaggerating this madness, check out these photos:
Chile's Puyehue Volcano Erupts

 Charcoal, Conte Crayon, Chalk Pastel

Kid : Candy Store :: Me : Art Supply Store

Everyone has something they can't resist shopping for - shoes, clothes, the newest gadget etc. My something is art supplies (although I do enjoy shoe shopping as well). I love to touch all of the papers and the mere act of being in an art supply store lights up ideas in my head. I see a material and I can't wait to create something.

Well the pro tip of the day is to watch for groupons/living social deals. I saw one about a month ago for a store I had never even heard of. It turned out to be heavenly. And I bought an absurd amount of stuff for $13.
The store is Plaza Art supplies. They are a chain, but smaller than Utrecht, Blick or Pearl. Notably their "artist" discount is 20%, whereas the others are 10% and all of their prices were on par with the bigger stores. The difference is they don't carry their own brand, but the bigger chains make their own canvasses etc. The cost evens out in the end.

For any friends interested in experimenting with art, always ask if the store has a discount card. Most do. You just have to be an "artist" but just say you are, it's not like they can prove otherwise. Last I checked being an artist doesn't come with an ID.

Anyhow, here's all my beautiful supplies that I am going to start using RIGHT NOW!

Delay for family

Thanks to everyone who has been checking the blog regularly! I really appreciate the support and always love more feedback. Critiques are invaluable. If you like something, let me know why. If you hate it, I want to know.
You don't have to be an "artist" or speak with any art language, you know why you do or don't like something.

My mom has been in DC all week and before that a friend was here and before that I was traveling and I think the inability to be on my own schedule is wearing me down. So I haven't created anything the last 2 days and I know I shouldn't make ANY exceptions but I'm just so tired.
Trying to balance a project I've taken on, visiting family (also saw my Great Aunt today which took most of the day), and this project, and looking for a new job not to mention a minor sports related injury (very minor, just enough to be an inconvenience) just got to me this week. Hopefully I'll have time to resume tomorrow.

Back home

Back home in DC. Making some changes to the apartment to make it easier to maintain this blog (i.e. be encouraged to draw/paint/whatever and scan it).

If you happened to be following the blog up to this point, you can check out the earlier posts. They've all been updated with better images of my sketches from my trip as opposed to the VERY low quality of bberry images. 

No excuses

I bought a new sketchbook today that is lightweight and much more portable than my usual one. It only has 24 pages in it and is sort of a soft back, but at least I can't use the excuse that my sketchbook is too heavy to lug around (it does get quite heavy after a while).

Steal this book

I've never been tempted to steal a book until I came across this gem. Found it in the Hartford Public Library in the closed stacks, which means you can't even check it out anymore.
Beautiful book from the 50s of Hokusai "sketches." Beautiful art and a beautiful book.

Coat rack - May 17

Oops, I blew a fuse in my friend's place so I guess I'm done with this sketch for tonight!

 

Note: The quote says "Color is the most relative medium in art." and "Discovery and invention are the criteria of creativeness" from Josef Albers' Theory of Color book which I was perusing at the time.

The Un-rules of the Draw Anything project

As many other creative ideas have started, this one begins in a coffee shop. A coffee shop in a Barnes & Nobles in Hartford, CT on a rainy day. (For the record, I don't live in Hartford).

The idea was born from a basic need - I need to create more. It's something that I have not done much since I left college and I want to recapture my love of just creating. In college I often felt pushed to find "meaning" in my work and to push my work to the next level. However the result was that each piece of paper or canvass became something unreasonably precious and I attempted to make it "greater" without clear guidance on what greater meant. In a lot of ways the college setting destroyed my love of art by causing me to over-think it constantly and therefore took away a lot of my sense of creativity. 

So in that Barnes & Nobles, the Draw Anything project was born.

The Draw Anything project Seeking new creativity and inspiration by willfully creating art every day

Premise: Forcing myself to sketch, draw and paint every day with no financial, intellectual or other goal in mind will open to unexpected channels of creativity and may lead to something I truly can follow and commit myself to in art. There are no expectations or limitations. Only a basic set of un-rules that can be broken at any time (except for the first one).

The Un-Rules of the Draw Anything project

• Create art for creating's sake. Draw or paint something EVERY day.
• Disregard searching for meanings beyond what organically presents itself (natural story telling, etc).
• Allow critique and input but don't let it be the guiding force.
• Try using different mediums and techniques. Experiment with tools and things at hand.
• Failure IS an option
• The blog should be more art, less writing (this first post should be the most words seen on this project unless it is part of the day's drawing).

That's it! And go...