Thank You

Here is a thank you card I made for Galuchka for coming to visit me. It is a three layer papercut. It was a lot more difficult than i thought it would be. I just need to trim her up and write a little note.
First Layer

Second Layer

Third Layer

Finished

Expect more paper cuts cause they are fun.

A portrait

My last portrait of Galuchka did not turn out very well [See the Gala Portrait Poster], and seeing as how she is my favorite person ever I decided to make a drawing that did her justice. It is marker and white charcoal on found paper (garbage). I like it, because of the simplistic lines and the over all color works very well.
Full Effect

Detail

Detail

Detail

Go Ask Alice

It has been a while, but I have had artist's block as well as trips to Florida and Galucheska visiting me so I haven't really had time to post anything new. I finally finished a piece though. It is called "Conflicted Alice". She is the accompaniment piece to the piece "Amputee Wonderland". The model is my best friend, because I can draw her better than I can most people. I also have a million reference pictures to work from too. The black lines are suppose to represent chaos and turmoil
, and also they help break up the pink. The only thing I am really dissatisfied with/learned from is the fact that A) wood is hard to erase off of, and B) Grids are great, but erase them before you start to paint. They aren't noticeable from far away but up close I can see them clear as day.

Full Thing - Notice the black border!

Detail - Apron - I put paint out of the tube directly onto the canvas to create the impasto

Detail - Face/Hair - I love her hair it turned out way better than usual

Detail - Feet - I fucked them up.


Next Up I am working on a painting for my friend Syd's birthday. I hope to have it finished by next friday.

Sarah Bernhardt stole my heart

Sarah Bernhardt
Today's poster is a portrait of a friend in the mode of Alphonse Mucha. His muse was Sarah Bernhardt a very famous Belle Epoque actress. His posters were in a style he developed called Art Nouveau and it is quite the decorative style. I enjoyed doing this poster, but it took me a long time, and I am kind of upset with how the yellow of the sun came out. All in all though, it is a success.



Amputee Wonderland
Here is a painting I did for my friend Kristen on wood. It is a bunch of bodies all thrown together missing heads and various other limbs. It is one of two wood paintings I am doing for her. The other one is of an amputated Alice for my amputee wonderland. She will love it. I love how the woodgrain looks as skin against the horrendously bright pink of the background. This was all planned but I didn't expect it to work so well.

Poster Contest
The "Angel and Amputees" due date is almost here, but I am pushing it back until the 10th since I will be out of town until then. I will be posting an example, which will also serve as the prize for the contest. Everyone who reads should submit one, even if they can't draw because I want the contest to be fun. Email your entry to believesinpatterns@gmail.com.

Portrait project!

I started my portrait project. I am doing a series of posters called "Other People's Muses". In the series I am putting my own muses in the style or backgrounds of artist. The first poster is of my best friend. She represents Dali's muse Gala. This is because she is my Galuchka. She is the one person who can influence my art no matter what and she is really the most awesome person I know. I fucked up on her mouth but it kind of goes with the theme. Anyways enjoy and leave some comments.

Curls make me feel beautiful

Here is the next piece I will be selling. It is based on a drawing by dali for my favorite painting that he ever did. The original painting is called "Girl with curls". It is the most beautiful painting I have ever seen.



Same Price and ordering as last time. 15.00 with shipping included. Buy stuff so I can buy more art supplies. The medium is crayon and marker. Also if you want to trade art that would be totally awesome too. I need some new stuff to put on my wall. Send pictures and we can chat. I will be working on my portrait posters for the next week or so, so no more posters for sell for a few weeks or days. Leave some comments if you like the work or want me to do something else or have a request.

Crinkled hands and slick black hair

Here is the first piece that I will be selling. It is 11x14 in black and red marker on white paper. It features a copy of Egon Schiele's Nude girl in stockings. It is my favorite piece of art by the artist who has had the most influence on me. If you would like to purchase it is $15.00 (which includes shipping). It is one of a kind, so it is first come, first serve. I will hopefully have some more up for sell later this week. Email me @ believesinpatterns@gmail.com if you would like to purchase.




Also for you tonight is an original drawing that I did at an anarchist house show on their wall. It is pretty sweet and is what usually happens when I don't have an idea and just start drawing.

Off with their fucking heads

This weeks poster is called Guillotine. It is pretty massive compared to Alice, Otis, and Leyla. It measures in at about 4 feet and 7 inches tall. My friend Jenifer helped me post this one cause it was so large. The wheatpaste was kind of weak this time, but it finally stuck. We pasted it on a very busy street, which was nerve wrecking at first, but became kind of cathartic after we had started.


This piece is about the idea that if one has been denied their natural rights that they have the responsibility to remove who ever is in charge of that government. This idea is one that has not been explored at all since it was originally announced in 1776, and during the time of the civil war. Our current president has usurped the power of his office, and has taken away the rights of hundreds of U.S. citizens. Whether it is through the spying laws of the Patriot Acts, or the very obvious rigging of an election where millions of minority vote were not even counted, this presidency is a shame of what our forefathers wanted for this country. It continues to head towards shit.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Depotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Here is what Alice looks like after an amazing amounts of storming. If you look at it you can still see a little bit of her color.



The next post may take awhile as I am working on my portrait poster series. I will post the posters when they are finished but they will not be posted on the street for a while, because I want to finish all seven.

Also, I am working on a set of four or five posters that will be for sell. They will be either 12x12 or 11x14, and will be my versions of another artists' work. The artist I have in mind are Dali, Schiele, Fafi, and Man Ray. They will be $15.00, which includes shipping. They will be one of a kind, so they will be first come, first serve when I post them.

Shit just keeps rollin

Here is a flyer I made for my friend Nick's Folk Punk project called Embargo? The music is fun and very reminiscent of other good folk punk ala Ghost Mice, Andrew Jackson Jihad, and especially Evil Robot Us' (their mixing of Hardcore and folk kinda makes it awesome.) Check out his myspace, and drop him a line. He is a nice dude. http://www.myspace.com/embargo19.

Drawing with friends is sometimes more fun than playing with yourself

Work was slow today, so I decided to play my favorite art game with a co-worker. It is called Exquisite Corpse, and it is a drawing game. The rules are pretty simple. You fold a piece of paper into four sections, and then each person draws on one section but cannot look at any of the other sections. Since only two of us played we each did two sections. I did 1 and 3 and she did 2 and 4. Check em out.

Alice - Wheatpaste 3

I think this is pretty self explanatory with the quote and all, but just in case. I chose Alice because in my mind she represents what men and a male dominated society wants to be. The image is juxtaposed beside the words which have a very strong meaning about sexual oppression. I think the two work well together. I hope it rains soon, because I want the marker to run. I still haven't posted Otis yet, because the parking garage I was at tonight had cameras so next time I will go to the other one and see.

Original

On the Streets

I thought I could find you

So things have been crazy. Not so much art this post. I am gonna show you the new painting I worked on. It is not really a painting. I mean there is black and red paint, but it is mostly crayon. I learned an important lesson. Never try to use crayons on ungesso'd canvas.
Painting

Detail - Upper

Detail - Lower


Drawing I did for Greatest Pinball on Earth. No Clue if they will like it. I love it thought cause it has a Narwhale and a fucking anime bird.



In Art news. I am goin to have an art contest starting today. The prize is yet to be determined but will probably be an original piece or a gift certificate. The theme is "Angels and Amputees". You poster must be no larger than 16 x 20 and no smaller than 11 x 14. The medium has to be marker, crayon, pen, and/or pencil. Collage is allowed. Due date is 4/3/08. Winner will be announced by 4/8/08. I am judging but I am gonna show you guys the poster I am making for the contest. I can't win. Good luck to all who enter. Email your entry or questions to: lifegrd31@gmail.com

Long Diatribe about nothing

So today I went spot hunting and found some sweet spots to put up some wheat paste and other stuff. I am currently searching for a spot to put up my nine portrait posters, but if a spot for all nine can't be found I will post them in threes. Here is one of the spots.

For the other part of this post I want to talk about aesthetic, or what I find beautiful or intriguing. It always amazes me the differing view points on art and beauty. I find Jackson Pollock's drip painting amazingly beautiful, and yet someone else thinks they are utter shit. So who is to say what is art and what isn't? I mean maybe people have legitimate claims that their children's artworks should be hung beside Van Gogh and Derain. Recently I have been thinking (I have been a tad bit depressed lately, but that isn't really anything new) , that what if this view of art and aesthetic goes beyond just art. Take for example, I like really quirky, and often times, pretentious paintings. My favorites are the artist that are crazy as a loon, and usually declare themselves geniuses or get arrested for drawing things they shouldn't. This like of quirky and pretentious things also happens to go out to the women I like, which I really did just discover. I typically like shorter haired, smart, artsy, I'm-better-than-thou girls. It just amazes me how well they fit into what I find beautiful. It isn't just me though, I don't think. I always find it weird that these girls never like me, but the quiet shy type usually do, and in this paradox I have come to realize that you can't create a perfect life based on just your aesthetic and preferences, but you have to develop it with the hep of people around you. I will now tell you a story about Dali to illustrate this point. Dali was asked to paint a perfect replica of Vermeer's Lace Maker, which he gladly went to work on, and when it was finished it was almost a perfect copy. Dali considered it a failure, because the colors were not correct due to the fact that the Vermeer had aged over hundreds of years and the varnish had cause the colors to change ever so slightly. Though the copy was perfect, the artist saw it as a failure, and thus sometimes perfection isn't alway beautiful. It is the faults that add true beauty to something. Pollock's paintings might not be perfect renditions of landscapes or anything, but in the complex simplicity of the idea and the work this fault is turned into a major achievement of the work. I don't really know if any of that makes sense but since you came to see some art here are some sketches (these were taken with a camera not scanned sorry if they are bad quality).

Fafi Copy


Michelangelo Copy


Emo-hair-super-stretched heart girl


Ohh Shit that's so crazy


Grid Drawing and color Practice (Our Man Dali in pink and blue)


Exposed women


Prelim for Flower girl wheat paste

I've been feelin all emo since I wheatpasted you.

Okay, so here is my first post. I am gonna show you guys the wheatpaste I did with Sydney Vicious's help, and show you the new one I am working on. I am also gonna tell you guys about my ideas for some new posters I have and hope you can help be come to a consensus on which project I should embark on.

First: Leyla - Wheatpaste - Week 1

I decided that I want to try to do a wheatpaste or stencil a week, and post it around town somewhere. I am currently working on my Tegan and Sara multilayer stencil project (more details on that later), so I decided wheat pastes would be a lot easier for now.
This wheat paste is called Leyla. I modeled her body off of a God's Girl by the same name, and I think she is pretty fantastic. We (Me and Sydney Vicious) posted it on a metal box before you get onto a major highway. I chose this spot, because I get to see her everyday as I drive by.


Originally she was all kinds of bright pinks and purples, which I chose because it matched the whimsical motif of the image, but it happened to rain before the wheat paste dried having an amazing effect on the cheap washable markers I used (Hey, I am not gonna use my prismacolors on something that large). That is what gave her that amazing splashy grungy look.


As you can see she is quite "hardcore".

What the fuck does it mean? Well, unlike most people I will tell you straight up what I was thinking when I create a piece, that is if it is something I can explain. With this piece I was basically trying to exorcise some demons that I have about leaving ideas unexplored. If you are a creative individual like myself, you will know what I am talking about here. I always have great ideas, but I never write them down or follow up on them. This just kind of makes me sad at the sheer number of awesome ideas that i have missed out on or haven't followed through with (ala Paper Paris, Zazie's stop animation film), and it makes me regret having not accomplished those ideas. So I pasted this on my drive so I will always be reminded to follow up with my ideas and not let them continue to pass me by or sit on them like an egg waiting to hatch.

Yes, there is a reason that she has no face, and that reason is because I wanted anyone to be able to associate with her. That is also why I left her skin the color of the paper. She has no face, no race, and really no identifiable sex (I mean unless you count those heels). I am not trying to be pretentious or have a superiority complex, but sometimes I feel street art caters to one particular sub-culture or race. Thus I want to make things that anyone can relate too. Whether it be my creatures or my portraits I want people to be able to see them as people and not by the color of their skin or their gender.

I miss Leyla.


Preview of Week 2 - Wheat paste - Otis


Otis is a creature I created last night. He is a blob of sorts created from cigarette smoke. I like him. I decided to show him to you before I post him because you can see his coloration. When I make my next post there is no telling what he will look like after the weather and other conditions have had at him. I will give you all the meanings and stuff for him in my next post.

Ideas for the future:
Okay so I want to do a series of posters. I have two ideas (I will eventually do both but I need to pick one to start with):
(a) My first idea is I want to do portrait posters of nine different girls (16 x 20), and all of them would have some how inspired me. The pros of this project are is that I get to work on my portraiture of my already favorite subjects. The cons are I don't really know if they want their portraits pasted all over my town, but three of them are famous so I don't think they would mind.

(b)My second idea is to do a bunch of self portraits. The pros of this are that i get to work on drawing the thing I am worst at drawing. The cons are that I am posting pictures of myself on the walls of my town. I think this is a bad idea but it has such potential as does the other one.

So give me some feed back. I will decide next week, which one I want to do. That is all for today. More posts when Tegan and Sara are done, or Otis goes up. My next two wheat paste posters are: (1) a girl with a tulip growing from her head and (2) a poster based on the lyrics "You say I am overdramatic, but you are the one with the scars up and down your arm" (Ten points to the person who knows the band.)