Blog update, the Shameless Advertorial Edition

Hello everyone, I’ve been busy. But everyone else around me has apparently been even busier! I’ve got a bunch of stuff to talk about and for you to look through, although you shouldn’t feel pressured to do anything. I just thought I’d get the word out on these great projects that happen to… well, happen.

1. em.bod.y

First up, a few alumni and acquaintances from my school (Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art) are gathering money to put on their own show at an art gallery that will give them enough publicity. They have amazing work and they’ve really worked hard at getting it done, but it needs to get out there. I’ll let their video speak for itself, but these guys are major talent. They already have a lot of the funds pledged (out of $7500), but the last two week stretch is probably going to crawl, so I thought I’d help get the word out a bit more.

www.indiegogo.com/embody

2. Mission Small Business: Library for LAAFA

Second up, my own school is reaching out for some crowdfunding … fun. We’re trying to build a library and lecture area — we have the books and the bookshelves, but because of limited space there needs to be some remodeling work before we can actually access these books. So if you’re interested in helping some young artists grow and learn, take a quick moment to vote. You don’t even need to spend any money, just be signed up on Facebook and login to vote.

If you’re feeling charity-minded and would like to help some poor art students out, go to www.missionsmallbusiness.com and search for “LAAFA” and vote!

3. Autumn Dynasty, a new iPad RTS using Touch controls and featuring Chinese history

I met the guys behind this gem of a game a couple years ago in their little basement in Singapore and at that point the game had already been in development for quite a while. It was a work of passion, starting from when they were in high school and wanted to make something great. Over the years they cobbled together enough funds and resources to make this happen and I’m so glad that it’s finally here. I played a very early version of the game back then and it was already looking pretty darn good, so this final polished version should be fantastic. I highly recommend at least checking out the trailer.

4. Ecorche Blog

Rey Bustos is doing his ecorche class here at LAAFA again and someone from the class has been making incredibly comprehensive and detailed notes about it, each week. For anyone who’s interested in the process of making an ecorche (traditionally, an anatomical model sculpted out of clay), or the class itself, it’s a highly recommended read. Here are the links to the classes posted so far:

Week 5

Week 4

Week 3

Week 2

Week 1

Nero WIP

I was originally planning to release the final version of this WIP later this year, but this piece seems to represent a sort of tipping point for me when things really started to click overall, so here it is. There’s a bit more that I need to do on this piece, but I have got a lot of other pieces to work on currently.

Deconstruction Reconstruction

Getting bored of drawing can sometimes yield interesting results. I’m interested in deconstructing pure visual elements at this point in my development, and have taken a great interest in how line and form weave and interact with each other. How do I express the weight of the drape, how do the lines of the cloth flow into and out of the body? The pose may look static on first sight, but there are myriad counterbalances and rhythms flowing throughout it. These are lines that exist and yet don’t exist simultaneously; they are only there for those who look at them and see them for what they are — lines, not drapery, not cloth, just pure visual weight. This pose was long enough for me to have done much more with it, but I wanted to deconstruct — so I took the time for each line I put down.

Paper journaling

For something a bit different again….I’ve been keeping paper journals to write in since last year. It’s been a very helpful process for troubleshooting artistic problems or just letting my mind wander. I’ve finally gotten to my fourth book, where I’ve switched from lined moleskines to gridded ones. Here are the first four pages of them, since I particularly like how they turned out this time.

Sparks

 

Some time to update at last.

The past few weeks have been a literal blur — I’ve been reading a lot, sketching whenever I get the chance, just soaking a lot of things in in general. The above sketches were from today’s sketch session at the Natural History Museum here in LA, a most wonderful place to sketch. The halls were dark and quiet and almost magical. I had a lot of fun wandering through the cavernous building, looking at everything. While wandering and sketching, guided only by my instincts as to what to sketch, I had lots of time to reflect.

I found that there was a much greater improvement in my work when I was guided by pure instinct. For several hours I simply wandered, stopping, looking, absorbing, seeing, touching. Whenever I found that urge to capture something, to learn more about something, I’d stop and draw. If anything, this way of drawing taught me that only when the heart is involved does the work truly take off. When the artist is numb or dead to what is in front of him or her, there will likewise be no magic in the creation. We must always be aware of our own perceptions, our own sensations, paying very close attention to what it is that attracts us. We must, as one of my teachers likes to say, fall in love with the subject. Otherwise we could just as well take a picture of it with a point-and-shoot camera. It is that spark of emotion, feeling, and consciousness that we are after, more than anything else. If we are not ourselves moved then we cannot move the viewer, plain and simple. Art occupies that unique position of being both highly mathematical and mechanical, and also being a highly passionate activity. It demands of us not only our intellect and our logic and our hand, but also our heart.