The Gift of Ordinary Days

Finished The Gift of Ordinary Days this last Saturday. It was a very crazy day being part of the Art Trends Magazine's Artist of the Year Contest. Just thankful to be in the running and glad that I was able to hang with the leaders for most of the voting throughout the day. It felt like running for an election, after the storm took out my phone line; I opted to go draw at the coffeehouse and finish this guy up. I saw that I'd been left behind in the polls and sat back enjoyed drawing this piece while sipping my mocha. The gift of going back to an ordinary day for me.

Ragtime

A drawing that was completed upon my return from my Portland trip that didn't get posted. Ragtime, pen & ink and marker on paper. The title is from the sign of the clothing store in the background. It's sorta fitting considering that almost everyone in the photo looked as if they'd been shopping or were going shopping. I was standing outside of the Target City store at the time.

The drawings for my upcoming Modified Arts exhibit are going really well. I've really broken into a good rhythm. I find myself out of my studio sitting at a coffeehouse drawing with a mocha and a bottle of sparkling water drawing away as the people come and go. Something about drawing a street scene while sitting in a public place with lots of coming and going of people seems fitting - energy wise.  

In Two

Completed In Two a pen & ink and marker on paper drawing this morning as a birthday gift for a friend. It's based off of a photo I took in San Francisco. I love the long shadows and the motion within the piece. This will ultimately become a painting as well. 

Last night was the second reception for the show and it was a fantastic evening. I'm profoundly thankful for the public response to this new body of work. Half the works have been sold and the show hangs for another nine days. Thank you to all who came out to either the Opening or the 1st Friday Reception last night and a big thank you to Kimber Lanning at Modified Arts.

As the World Passes By

Just finished As the World Passes By this morning. The title comes from how I feel this morning and the fact that the people waiting to cross the street are just watching the traffic pass them by. This morning I looked through my newsfeed and just felt a deep pang of frustration. Later drinking my morning cup of tea looking at both this drawing and the painting in progress on the easel; I thought how odd it was that my work isn't political and that I don't actually express my political views on my blog.

That's not entirely true though. It's impossible in some ways for an artist's worldview not to come through in their work. My work is actually political, but it's not tied to the fashionable politics of the day that blow in every which direction depending on where the wind current is coming from on a particular day. My focus is on what it is to be human, the modern world and how I see the world (or rather my attempt to make sense of it).

I remember when I was in art school I had a drawing professor Jim Eder. It was my first life drawing class. He came up from behind me and pointed out that I was missing the subtle transitions of how shadows were criss crossing each other across the model's body. Once I saw it; I saw it everywhere I looked. Capturing it became an insane challenge for me. I quickly learned to keep my drawings loose and not to commit to early to strong heavy shadows. I noted that as the model's pose would progress that more shadows and highlights would reveal themselves to my eyes. Almost as if my eyes needed and adjustment period. I soon learned as Jerry Shutte another life drawing and painting professor taught, that after a pose is held the model will succumb to gravity and their body weight will shift as a result. It became important to either wait for that shift or quickly capture the initial moment. Becoming an artist is more about learning to "see" than learning to master your materials.

When I look at any of political issues that currently divide my country: the longer I look the more complex the problems seem and less clear the answers to those problems become. For me it's just like drawing or painting from life in that there are so many intricate details to capture that don't always show themselves in the beginning and that things are often so much more complex than they seem. When it comes to politics it seems as everyone wants to paint these problems over with a big broad brush of absolutes. There seems to be no middle ground, but in a world of grey...

I'll paint in my studio as the world passes by and hope that maybe my paintings and drawings with all their shades of grey will inspire others to see differently.

Crossing

Finished up on Crossing this morning. It's really nice to spend some time drawing. Unlike paintings drawings are very much about getting in and getting out. It's very easy to overwork an area and destroy the piece. In fact one false move and you may very well have to start over completely - at least with pen & ink. That's the beauty of the medium though. After any length of time spent only painting canvases I find that I get accustomed to be able to monkey around with a passage until I'm happy with it or just the opposite. I also forget that less is more.