Posts Tagged ‘location drawings’
Chicken eating Knatty
Monday, June 28th, 2010circle saga, Kindle reader
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Hella Neck areas
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
Runway models need not apply.
Father and Son on train
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Father and Son on train
Bic rides again
Monday, June 21st, 2010So I grabbed a bic from my desk so i would have one handy and did a few quick sketches instead of lunch and then started another one on the ride home.
Years ago i went to a sleep away summer camp, where oddly i met two people whom were huge artistic influences on me. One was a Boston writer, the other was a free time portrait artist. Thinking about it know it was a super coincidence on both parts, and kinda leads me to believe life as a way of providing things you need if your paying attention. At any rate this portrait artist, whos name is slipping my mind(read ive plum forgotten, it was over 20 years ago), both intellectually explained and showed me over the summer his methodology for figure drawing. What he did was sort of squint at his subject, thus reducing what he saw to a series of tonal areas or shapes, instead of looking at and intellectually trying to reproduce a figure he was just drawing shapes with different tonal values. This then became the base for the drawing and he would push and pull the shapes tones and spacial relations. He basically generalized until he had enough information to begin to become more specific. it was a process the involved a lot of layers and building of mass through shade. It was a revolution for me at the time and inspired a few years of mimicking his style and approach. Ive wanted to get away from just line work in my drawings for a while as they are getting kinda of stiff, so why not try and work in shades and tones. INstead of cross hatching i used the good old never ending circle.
seeking the silver lining…
Monday, June 21st, 2010As a teacher you are often presented with the predicament of to encourage while not installing misleading self-confidence where it isn’t merited. I remember years and years ago in high-school i did what at the time i thought was a pretty fantastic drawing of a face, in blue ball point pen. It was shaded with many levels of tonality (in my mind thats how i remember it). The next day after finishing it i had it in school and showed on of my art teachers. He responded to it in part by saying Ball point pen was a tough medium to work in as the pens themselves can be unreliable and leave globs of ink on the paper which can smudge etc etc.
For some reason this morning sitting on the train, drawing i was reminded of this incident. I had actually planned on using a ball point pen and method drawing i learned from an old camp counselor as a kid. I thin k i was reminded of the incident by the fact that i had failed to bring a Bic with me on the train and i had sat in a bad drawing seat, so frustration forced contemplation and reevaluation.
So was I being told hey this is great drawing using a tough medium or was i told, hey pen is hard to draw in. The distinction is subtle but huge. What i heard was in part what i wanted to hear, by way of interpreting a slightly open ended statement. Crafting its meaning to fit my need for praise; but i took that with me for life, and i cant think of ball point pen drawing with out thinking of that interaction with my art teacher. And because im a self loathing neurotic im always slightly suspicious that what was meant was, ‘ I can see you’re excited about this, and as not to crush your spirit lets just discuss the medium not the content’.
As a new parent however it raise serious concerns i will no doubt over think and waste countless sleepless hours analyzing the ways in which i encourage my daughter and how those things can have potential pit falls i will blame myself for later.
How do we encourage while also teaching the over all life lesson, that life isn’t fair, talent is not shared equally and all things are at once equal while at the same time they are irreconcilable to each other. To be born is a win, and yet it is the only win in many lives.In the end i think it takes a certain combination of tact and luck to get these encouraging but not always truthful points across. Life presents countless new experiences one can use to measure the accuracy of the past.
Was it I that didn’t live up to my potential encouragements? Or were did my encouragements put me on a false trajectory, that was unattainable based on my potential skill?
were i destination man id probably be more upset; but as a journey man, the trip is the adventure, and as suck one prolongs any destination arrival as much as possible .
poor light I&iPhone flick
scanned paper reader
Train Faces Goin Places
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
E-train hijinks
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010E train Hijinks
Mothers day for a new mother, Big Deal. What to get. No baseball bat presents would do. My father used to call gifts that you will get as much joy out of, as the person getting it, a baseball bat gift. Nothing regarding any sort of house maintenance. A new laptop it was. Decided. I hopped the E-train to 14th street and walked over to the apple store. I knew what i wanted. I had a Print out of what i wanted. There was almost a one to one costumer to apple sales representative ratio going until I ruined the sweet spot by making one too many customers swimming in the sea of blue shirted apple staff. Finally I was spotted, by Johnny up-sale who was still delirious from his last sale kill. HE swaggered over to me and asked if he could help. Yes, i want a laptop with the following things, a- zed of what it needed followed. Will you be needing any peripheries with that? Mouse, keyboard usb Hub? No just the Laptop with afore mention specs, thanks. How bout a monitor? Nope, Im not sure if you seen the laptops you guys sell but they have monitors, keyboards and mouse pads built right in there, so just the laptop, please. Uh, ok. How bout Apple Care? No, I trust the expert manufacturing and design of apple. Well if you trust us then that even more reason to get the Apple Care, as with it you get so much more… NO thanks JUST the laptop. Poor Johnny Up-sale didn’t quite no what to do, selling me a laptop that already cost 2k wasnt enough for him, he need to feel that high of selling some idiot some crap they could get cheaper somewhere else and further more may have no need for to begin with. I hate being sold to, however i respect the hell out of a good sales man. Johnny was not a good salesman. A good salesman knows his costumer. Johnny should have known i wasn’t a first time apple customer, and seen i knew what i wanted and this was a simple opportunity to keep his numbers going and quickly move on to the next kill. This was not the big one and trying to make it such was a waste of all of our times.
In New York there are several city bus tour outfits, their representatives can be found on almost all the corners surrounding times square and Rockafeller Center. It seems more often then Not these representatives are immigrants. Which is awesome for several reasons, not least ironic of which is that people not from here are taking other people not from here and showing them around. AS if regular new Yorkers are so underwhelmed by the sights of NYC they couldn’t be fucked to show them off. What is most intriguing about these guys is that they need to be able to spot Visitors from Residence, in a place that is newly home. Every now and then Ill pass a new guy, Johnny Up-sale-came-lately and hell try and sign me up for a bus tour.
At any rate, i got the laptop and got back on the E-train to head back to work. On the second stop some ladies, and i use that term lightly got on what was a semi crowded lunchtime train car. The leader of the lady Trio loudly announced it smelled like shit on the train. It smell like shit up in here. It smell like Bayby shit here. And not the young baby shit nether. Dam, yall smell that? Neither of the other two smelled it but were quick to call leader lady crazy. Nah it smell up in here, shit. Somehow this motivated lady number two to pop off with some perfume from her purse. And she proceeded to Douse her self with it. Her last 5 mists were aim right at her cooter area. LIke IN her home plate diamond. Really? Lady what are you thinking, what could possibly be the point of that? Do you often find people sniffin your jeans crotch to see if your the one who is stinkin? Do you have some sort of issue that should have maybe been resolved in the shower this morning before hitting mass transit with some of your less then tactful friends; whom accidentally, no pun in tended, air you out in public?
Anyway theres nothing like ridding the train to remind you of why you dont like riding the train.
E-train Scribble Scrabble: illustration by heavylox
Distance Phone Reader
Sunday, May 30th, 2010
i love to see older folks embracing new technology, or at least current technology. This guy was reading the paper for a while then got a call or a text or something brought his attention to his phone. He pulled it out of his pocket and held it at good distance, almost in reverence of its power. Delicately looking at the screen to see what it was saying. Gently hitting touching the keys in the order he had spent so much time memorizing with his grand daughter who had taught him how to use ti to surprise the rest of the family. It was easy to tell he was still more comfortable in the analog world, HE had two breast pockets stuffed with analog devices. the right breast pocket crammed with writing utensils of yore; a plethora of ball point pens and mechanical pencils. In the pocket, a pocket sized journal and some envelopes that didn’t quite fit and jutted up above the pocket line. The corners of which would scrape his chin when reading the lower portions of the paper and he had to crane his neck downwards to read. He was a man who believed in the power of the pocket, evidenced by his fisherman’s vest, which is little more then two or three hundred pockets all sewn together into and wearable shelving unit. the hoarders enabling device.
Booger
Saturday, May 29th, 2010
booger, illustration by Heavylox
After a long day of mothering, booger sits down to do some work at the computer. Tired and ready for bed who wouldn’t want to knock a few hours of package design out?