From a recent long-pose session; drawn from photo reference and life while working on the full figure.
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This one is called “Contemplation.” Charcoal and chalk on paper.
Thanks to Lisa for correctly identifying the subject. I’d like take another shot at this one, or one like it. It’ll have to get in line, though.
Enter the recent 3D glasses from modern 3D movies. They’re perfect. First; they’re flat; second, the thin sheets of polarized plastic are easily removed, leaving empty frames. Then all you have to do is cut the red plastic to fit and attach them. OK, that last part isn’t so easy. I don’t have a jigsaw anymore, let alone one fine enough to cut plastic without shredding it. I ended up sacrificing one of my small squares by cutting it roughly in half with a hacksaw and gluing the halves to the outside of the frames with model airplane glue. As a proof of concept, it works. And it’s very useful. Doing them “bifocal-style” so there’s some space below the plastic so you can just tilt your head up a little to look straight through without the red, and back down to see it in red again, makes for a very easy way to use them quickly for checking back and forth without having to empty your hands every time. I actually did some live drawing tonight with them on, and it worked well. I think I’m on to something here.
On the left, something I made in sixth grade. An art project from school. Even if it was good for a sixth grader, it was, at best, a good sixth grade project. I’m sure I worked hard on it, I’m sure I was proud of it, I’m sure it even looked OK 30 years ago. Then it got slung in a box and carried around in moving trucks for 30 years. It got banged up. I always held onto it, because… why? Sentimental value, I suppose. What will happen if I don’t throw this out? Eventually, I will die, and then someone else will have to throw it out. So why keep it? It’s not going up on anybody’s wall. I can’t conceive that it would serve any purpose to anyone. On the right, more recent junk. I made this wire-and-clay tree as a gift for someone about 20 years ago. It was part of a little scene with clay figures. I don’t know why I still have it. The clay figures all got smooshed and ruined. And then there’s this tree. Sure, you might look at it and linger for a beat or two, going “huh.” You might even appreciate it as an art object, if you’re being charitable. And yes, again, I worked hard on it and at one point it had a lot of meaning. Now what is it? Something to be thrown away. I don’t know how to see it as anything else. Despite the stuff-purge I’ve been putting myself through over the past couple of years, I still have a good four or five boxes of old crap like this. Old schoolwork, flipbooks from childhood, my old coin and baseball card collections, ratty and not worth much (if anything). All evidence that I was once a kid. And so I keep it out of reflex. Have I ever gone back to look at it? Hardly ever. Might I regret tossing it all when I’m 90? Well, maybe. But a lifetime of not having to keep moving, or storing, this crap seems like a braver and worthier thing to do. We just accumulate stuff. That’s what we do in western civilization. We are taught to worship money and spend a lifetime acquiring more and better things. That keeps economies running. But now there are islands made of plastic bags afloat in the oceans. It’s not good. We really have to find other ways to fulfillment. Just my art supplies now would fill a large and well-packed car. My books, a small truck. But I will not resign myself to this. I will keep fighting. I’m throwing these things out, unless anyone wants them.
It is just a face. It is nobody. I am going to the trouble to explain this because I do not wish to be killed by religious fanatics, some of whom apparently have murder-inducing problems with certain faces. How they decide which drawings they intend to murder people over, I’m not quite clear. I don’t know how they tell if a face looks like the one they have in mind, especially given the lack of a photographic record. Do badly-drawn images count? Are there any specific criteria I should avoid in my decades-to-come of drawing faces to make sure I don’t get killed because of a mistaken identity? Anyway, to repeat: this is just a face. It is not anybody in particular. I hope I don’t get murdered over it.
I like the idea of painting just in earthtones. There are a few to be found on the blue/purple side of the wheel, but the blues especially tend to be fairly expensive. Still, I may see if I can get a couple. I also need to see if they shift in hue when white is added. I think these could create some wonderfully subtle paintings if used as a base with white and black. Small specks of high-chroma color could be dotted in where needed, but I think much of the time you could probably get away with just these. They’re all chroma 8 and down, as is most of the natural world, except for things that are often poisonous or dangerous. I’m fed up with plastic. I don’t want anymore. CDs and DVDs. I’m done. They take up space, they get scratched, they get lost or stolen. I don’t want them anymore. Music and movies are now strictly digital in my world. I don’t care that the entertainment industry is still trying to recreate physical scarcity in the 21st century by buying laws to wrap around digital content rather than embrace the reality now that they will inevitably have to face: there is no scarcity in the digital world, and any system that tries to emulate it will fail. I know they want the movie locked to the piece of plastic it came on. Well, too bad. I ripped two shopping bags’ worth of physical DVDs to a tiny part of the filesystem on my ReadyNAS, and can now speed-dial through them on the PS3 and play them on the TV without having to (a) get up and change discs, (b) worry about whether they will work or whether they’re too scratched by now, or (c) sit through formerly unskippable ads and antipiracy warnings. Netflix is on board correctly with inexpensive digital rentals. THAT’s the right way to handle it. I’m OK with renting something cheap and then throwing it away. But once I buy it, it is no longer yours to control. I will remove whatever DRM you put on it – and remember, it only takes one person somewhere in the world to be smarter than you and take that DRM off, and then problem is then solved for the rest of the world. If and when I ever buy a physical DVD again, it will only be handled once: into the PC to be ripped to the NAS. Then I never touch it again. In fact, I’m having a hard time figuring out what to do with these bags of old DVDs.
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