June 12, 2009: Shit - You'd Look Good Even in a Burlap Sack
[Link: 2009/6/12-polaroids.html] - [Comment]
It's amazing how a burlap sack can make an evening -
I totally screwed up a night. On Tuesday, while getting shaky on coffee at a ridiculous time of night, I was told that the 30's Depression-era themed party I was hoping to go to was NOT on Friday, but on Thursday - a day I had double-booked with a picnic with someone much older than me that I'm sort of well, seeing. Shit. Shit shit shit.
I didn't want to miss the partay, since I told the adorable and cute and wonderful person that I would be there and I can't wait and all that. I'd also somewhat half-heartily attempted to look for a costume to put together, the main problem being: what was men's fashion in the 30's. No idea. All I knew is that plastic was out, since plastic was invented around WWII. So, I just bought some cruddy clothes that were too big that I guess I'd cut holes in and stitch severely back together and get a piece of rope for a belt - etc and call it Good.
And until Wednesday, that was the plan.
And then I found a Burlap Sack in my kitchen. It took me forever to figure out where it came from. It's been laying around for what seems forever. Was it mine? A roommate's? A current roommate? Would they get mad if I just, you know, stole it? Would I care, or would I laugh at them, show them my superior strength, intellect and creativity like the little asshole I am sometimes, and call it good?
It just occurred to me that Chicken John, of all people, sent the burlap sack to me, as part payment for some nerd work I did for him. His lady friend works for a Soviet-themed coffee company in San Francisco. There was coffee involved as well. This all gets strange, as if you look at a picture of Chicken John (straight stolen from his site):
And take a look at some photos of me from this past year:
That shit's uncanny. I digress...
So, I took this burlap sack that was just hanging out near the microwave and went, "I've got scissors!" snip snip snip and all of a sudden, I have a top that ruled and I was looking forward to the party. I wasn't really looking up to it before, since I screwed up the picnic thing and had to call lady-friend about that and get that straightened out.
Party itself is strange and sorry - I'm going to talk about my life right now: Lady-friend picked me up at 9:00pm and promptly started driving to her house. I asked, why - well, she said we had a picnic!
"At, NINE?!"
"But I thought we planned one?"
"Not really - remember? I told you about the party, I wanted - needed to go and you were more than welcome to come along? And that you were going to call me TODAY to make solid plans, which you didn't?"
And of course, we had differing views of the chain of events, which will never be figured out - just miscommunication.
So, we still had to go to her house because she had candles on. I have no idea why she had candles burning with no one home - but! she did and they had to be blown out.
On the way to the party, she informed me that she does not like parties. At all.
"Then, why did you agree to come?!"
"Because, I like you."
That's sweet and all and after a few drinks, she was OK. The party itself was somewhat magical. The sky threatened to rain on us the entire night and did! with the only cover being a leaky tarp between two small houses. There was a string band that played music for everyone at an agreeable noise level, lots and lots of chatting and costumes and themed liquor.
Gary was also there and he had set up fancy lights and had a beautiful polaroid camera - taking pictures in both color and black and white. I cannot tell you how amazing his photos look. They make me realize that I am never going to be a photographer, myself but it's worth enough to just marvel at Gary's talent.
I found the lady-friend and told her we're getting our picture taken. Gary told me to go first, then her - and then both of us. Which we did. Mine is at the top, there. We took the other photos and the sky just opened up and everyone scrambled for cover, especially Gary, who had all his photography equipment - film/camera/ligts, etc to get out of the rain.
With all the hustle and bustle, the last two photos taken of that night, of her and of us, were lost and the one of me - above, was the last taken of the night.
I can't put my finger on why I find the polaroid picture so amazing, as most every guest had some sort of camera, able to take an infinite number of pictures for practically nothing, but Gary's polaroid setup, with lights and chemical/paper process was, to me, the cornerstone of the entire party - let alone the birthday girl and the couple celebrating their four-year anniversary. I don't quite want to think too hard about it, but it's nice to think that the magic of the polaroid photos, which can easily be described as, "lush" can mix and mingle with the shitty digital camera and cellphone pictures everyone else was taking.
I was going to write more about drama with lady-friend, but it would be incredibly self-serving, so I won't. People are just strange, I guess and find comfort in pathetic things. Myself, included.
[Link: 2009/6/12-polaroids.html] - [Comment]
May 21, 2009: Dionysus Process
[Link: 2009/5/21-dionysus_process.html] - [Comment]
My Workflow for making a drawing is horribly convoluted, inefficient and neurotic.
First step is to bag on a friend, until they let you do a photo shoot with you - hard to describe psychological how this works, but it does. This also usually involves doing bizarre favors for them as well. Photo shoot commences in their extremely dirty basement bedroom.
Hundreds of pictures are taken, so more homo-erotic than others. Most look and have the quality of this picture:
and you wonder why you splurged for a $1,000+ camera. You realize that you are NOT a photographer by any means and it's just time to come to terms with that. You're only hope is to attempt to DRAW the scene you want to depict. You realize you're not much of a drawer, either - but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
You then take that ONE photo from the shoot that seems to barely past some sort of esthetics test and do you damnest to tweak, sharpen, play with levels, chop, stitch - whatever, so it passes as an actually - well, alright photo and then print it off on the cheapest black and white laser printer you could have possibly have found (you cheap bastard!) - thereby removing all traces of enhancement of the photo. Then you bring it to the coffee shop and do, "thumbnails" of the photo,
Trying not to spill too too much coffee on the original print out, your sketchbook or yourself. This is a way of wasting time, while being extremely focused on yourself, while being around others. The hip kids use laptops these days, but you're going old school with pencil and paper.
A person of less time and more brains would skip all steps above after, "take a photo and print it out" and simply, "trace" the photo and copy it onto drawing paper,
but you are not such a person.
Days go by.
You're finally psyched yourself up to draw the damn thing on some good paper - making sure to not keep a safe copy of the original penciling-in stage - since it gives what you consider a, "no turning back", feel and also gives you this intrinsic, "link" to the techniques and lack of technology of the Renaissance, which you've sadistically romanticized.
To add a few more insults, use a pen that commonly breaks and floods your drawing with ink, needs to be refilled every few lines, needs 5 or so minutes to dry to go over and hasn't any way to erase, if you make a mistake. And use it for hours with a shaky hand from too much coffee you seem to be able not to live without. You will soon use these burdens as a foundation for your, "style"
Job well done.
More Dave Yonkers:
[Link: 2009/5/21-dionysus_process.html] - [Comment]
May 17, 2009: Earaches.
[Link: 2009/5/17-two_more_gay_guys.html] - [Comment]
Crow Quill Pen and Ink on (in?) Sketchbook
I could probably draw drunk people in some sort of embrace all day. It has possibilities.
I had this weird idea, that my inherit clumsiness stems from before a time I really had memories - around three or so:
When I was a child, I always had ear infections and ear aches. I do remember a few when I was a little older and they were horrible. Probably similar to bad tinnitus, or something similar. Usually, with strep throat. I also know that my family was dirt poor, without insurance. I doubt I was mishandled or mistreated - not even a bit, but I bet having so many ear problems led to some weird wrong-wiring when it came to balance and hearing.
I doubt I have the best hearing in the world and if you heard me talk, you may actually pick up a slight muffling of my voice - the connection between whatever composes speech and the muscles/nerves that make you talk are just a little on the weak side. Even though I attempted to excel at things like skateboarding, juggling - you name it, there always seemed to be that glass ceiling I could never get over. Every time I practiced, it seems as if I had to start from the very beginning and relearn the basics
Also, as a child, I used to act out in, well, weird ways - but was at the same time very shy and felt, very much a misfit. Sometimes, I would act out aggressively.
I wonder if all this points to being simply in a state of slight confusion and aggravation from outside stimulus, a slight pull inward towards myself and my acting out was just over compensation of attempting to create an identity with myself with a world I was having a hard time understanding, fully. My current clumsiness is just me being a little off-balance from never really figuring it out when I was, like three.
Or, that all could just be buuuuuuullshit - me wanting to make a confession to my inadequacy, while being bombarded with what seems to be absolute genius in talent at every corner. I'll never know my early medical history, so it's really not of my immediate concern, anyways.
[Link: 2009/5/17-two_more_gay_guys.html] - [Comment]
May 15, 2009: Puking up Sushi
[Link: 2009/5/15-puke.html] - [Comment]
Crow Quill Pen and Ink in Sketchbook
I don't really write about day to day things anymore in this journal. They're (the day to day things) are probably exceedingly boring, or too fantastic to seem true. Here, I'll try:
I got up around 3:00pm, having stayed up really late - 6:00am? Trying to wrestle with some client over technical server web technology wonder stuff, that neither he, nor I understood.
I then, fired that client after, "Breakfast", loosing many, many hundreds of dollars. I then patched a hole in my Diesel Jeans, using a back pocket of another pair of jeans - these jeans, in fact. And - relax, I bought the jeans at a thrift store. Seven Dollars.
At around seven, I met a friend of mine for dinner. I had been having sexual dreams about this person, since around 11:00am this same morning, until probably I finally got up - it had to do with the dinner we were going to have actually - somehow I was going to suggest we actually, you know - "Date" and then we had lots and lots of sex.
So, this friend and I had dinner - sushi. My idea and I said I was going to pay - told them well ahead of time. Yeah yeah, I knew it may be expensive, but the shit gets me high. We went to a favorite of hers and it was great. So good. Afterwords, we had gelato and coffee somewhere in Cherry Creek and she drove to her house, with me in tow.
She said that she needed to puke and then, she puked up all the food.
We did not have the conversation about, "Dating" and I did not have lots and lots of sex.
I then, rode a bicycle home and drew. And now it's 4:30 am.
I think, that's why I don't really write about my personal life, in this journal.
Oh, here's a secret. If you want your drawings to look better, all you do is draw in a large format and then shrink the drawing - and just you know, clean it up just a bit. Watch this:
See? A thousand times better.
I wonder if I'm stretching a metaphor by thinking that sometimes we try to look better ourselves, by just cleaning up a bit,
and trying to look small.
[Link: 2009/5/15-puke.html] - [Comment]
May 13, 2009: Beards.
[Link: 2009/5/13-beard.html] - [Comment]
Train wreck. I changed inks and found a blacker black, but then found out this black doesn't like it when I take an eraser to the drawing, so that's why this drawing looks really dirty. I also lost all my focus. People that you love in life can be cruel.
[Link: 2009/5/13-beard.html] - [Comment]
May 11, 2009: Burn All Billboards
[Link: 2009/5/11-burn_all_billboards.html] - [Comment]
It's actually very funny: this pair of billboards are viewable from my kitchen window. The ironic juxtaposition isn't so. Sometimes, when I wake up early and bleary-eyed, I can test my vision by reading the messages on the billboards. When I go directly to downtown, these are here, almost as a gateway.
One billboard attempts to tantalize you with how tasty that huge dish of food must be at the chain diner - better than even the picture!
And isn't the picture inviting. So many meat products... And the other billboard is basically saying old Joe there is buying this, instead of paying his rent. Can you blame Joe? It does look absolutely delicious.
Maybe, one day, I'll burn down these billboards. I'd rather put up my own funny pairs, so that when I wake up from a night of furious wheat pasting, I can squint with delight at my handiwork. CBS be damned!
[Link: 2009/5/11-burn_all_billboards.html] - [Comment]
May 10, 2009: Just Chord Progressions
[Link: 2009/5/10-chord_progressions.html] - [Comment]
One hour pencil, one hour + crow quill pen and ink. Sketchbook
The drawings are starting to look almost like I would want to show them to someone. That's good I guess. Practicing is getting a little tedious - which is what this is: practice. Endless chord progressions and I don't attempt to make myself think any different. Do the exercise. Change your brain. Do another. And another. And -
There's a whole lot of things I'm beginning to like about these drawings - there's a lot I don't. A lot I don't deals with me getting confused on where to put the line and also still, some of the sloppiness - not Looseness, Sloppiness. These drawings should be almost engraving-tight, I'm practically gridding out the figure's ever-changing planes, but, well, I mess up. Sometimes there's seems to be three choices to go, and I take all of them. Starting on one side and finishing the line to the other was a great idea, though. I also gave more room per line, so I could go in with even a third round of lines and all of a sudden, I have 5 shades to work with - all you need.
I sort of realized that my lines would look less shaky if the paper was actually of good quality, for pen and ink, instead of a piece of sketchbook paper, just out there, willing to move as the ink does its job of changing its qualities. I'll stick with sketchbook paper for now, as it'll just toughen me up and let me get ready for disasters, like my pen exploding at the wrong time. This ink truly sucks for photographing, having that sickly shine to it that makes absolutely no sense for anything.
It's currently 5:30am - I'm finishing my day by photographing this drawing and writing about it - just as a log of my exercises - just like riding bikes great distances. I just got from the studio, prepping for the intern tomorrow and washing gigantic screens to do secret Things with. Before that, I finished the above drawing and got coffee. Read books on bizarre topics. I can't help but go to the library and just steal books I find important or interesting. Computer card catalogs are just not my type of tea, I guess.
I have to get up at 9:30 and jostle someone out of bed, make them coffee and make sure they start their day - they have a lot to do: make a doctor's appointment, find a job. It's been months, but they need to find a job. I truly love this person - if I didn't? No way would I bike half way across town with 4 hours of sleep to get their lazy up. But for this person? Anything.
And other people - less intimate than I am with this person, have done the same for me. It didn't work - I never got out of bed, but in hindsight, I appreciate it. It was a wonderful act of selflessness. Or just no big deal. To them. To me? I should have taken their kindness and repaid them 10x.
And I guess, it's not up to me what they should do, but it would be nice if they could just. Get up.
I write these things with heavy eyes and a dull sense of language. It irks me to have it down, but it's either in this form, or not at all. And I doubt this will ever be thrown away by me. I can think of a lot of things, that also fit this template. Funny as we record in exhaustion, what we did in exhilaration? Maybe recording all of this isn't of extreme importance...
Good night.
[Link: 2009/5/10-chord_progressions.html] - [Comment]
May 9, 2009: You've been lied to, let The Mechanic tell you the truth!
[Link: 2009/5/9-mechanic.html] - [Comment]
One hour drawing, one hour inking
I'm sick.
The best way, it seems, to make this shading technique work is if you have all the disparate lines, from each separate planes, all match each other. In other words, you should start a line at the top of the head, and be able to follow the line, down the forehead, all the way through the nose, lips and chin. The next line starts parallel, a few line thickness from the first line you drew and following the contours of the face, in then exact same way.
It seems, if you follow this idea perfectly, you'll get a drawing that looks as if you're copying a marble figure - something akin to the illustrations of the author's for the Wall Street Journal. It shouldn't be quite a surprise, but the whole technique becomes quite mechanical, if taken to its extremes. I'm pretty sure it can be created using a computer program. Perhaps.
Below is a Step Test for testing the exposure time for screen printing (here's a larger version, for detail):
I've been investing a little bit of money in my screen print setup, which sort of means, I've been buying a lot of wood and screws and making things to do stuff. I've gotten some fancy professional emulsion and I have no idea what the burn time is, so I've been experimenting. According to this print, around eight or nine minutes should do the trick.
The print is actually interesting to look at, but it's something that's been made thousands of times, by different people, for purely testing reasons. I remember, when I started screen printing, doing everything was sort of guess-work - I didn't quite know how everything worked, or what I needed and exposing screens was the most difficult part of everything, as the times seemed long and each burned screen seemed to be a gamble - would it work? A lot of the times, it didn't.
I did three such tests, with three separate burns, on three separate screens. Each one told me, the burn time is around nine minutes. And, that's it. Like tightening up the drawing style, it's becoming purely mechanical.
[Link: 2009/5/9-mechanic.html] - [Comment]
May 7, 2009: Justin Beard
[Link: 2009/5/7-justin_beard.html] - [Comment]
One hour drawing, one hour inking
I've drawn/painted Justin more times than I really care to mention.
But I will (a few times):
This drawing is just as sloppy as my other one hour draw/one hour inks - it's just a lot to go through. I've taken weeks on such drawings in the past. Good to keep loose and with a good pace, I guess and work on style just by having it happen. The looseness of the lines reminds me of Pettibon, the all-around shading reminds me of Robbie Conal.
This technique works best when you create tight lines and I really faulter when there's wide expanses of area, like Justin's forehead, that needs to be shaded in. I also snuck in some lines to outline changes in form - not really something that's pure of this technique, but I think I'll keep it.
I also like when I just make those broad pen strokes - sort of controlled Bleeeeeeeh, which is different from the sloppiness I was noting. Makes the form a little less wooden.
I'm going to have to figure out the sloppiness thing though. Just be patient, I guess, or, perhaps figure out a way to guide my pen along lone lines? Take breaks half-way through the line? I don't know, yet.
The ink I'm using has a sort of reflection to it - it's not flat and taking pictures with it sort of sucks. Crap ink.
[Link: 2009/5/7-justin_beard.html] - [Comment]
May 6, 2009: A Week's Worth of Drawings
[Link: 2009/5/6-weak.html] - [Comment]
One hour limit drawing, one hour limit inking
One hour limit drawing, one hour limit inking
