I’ve started to try being really organized with my drawings in the last year.  I think it would be a pretty valuable resource to have a personal catalog to look back to.  This basically means my drawings on 8.5×11″ paper are no longer discarded.  Instead my preferred treatment is this. I use those glossy paper holders and load up a bunch inside a three ring binder.  The binder is then labelled a year or season or some time based grouping.  Say Summer 2008.  Within that binder youll find a not necessarily neat, but at least organized jumbling of my papers.  To save money and space from having to have so many glossy holders, there’s usually 3-7 papers within each page holder.

Perhaps ill come back to these old small drawings for ideas in the future.  Perhaps if i’m teaching they’ll be a helpful thing to show students.  The quality of professional work to a youth may be alienating, yet if you can communicate with ‘em based upon your work from at that same point in life, maybe there will be more commonalities to discuss.

Here’s some example doodles from 2008.

this is maybe a few months old -circa April 09?  I thought it was posted here, but i see it was not.  I think i meant to re-photograph it, something to get it more detailed and less light reflective within the graphite pencil.  oh well, though, oh well.  This does for now.

i think its kinda an important piece for me.  opens some new avenues which i’ve considered, but not really put to paper in satisfactory ways. also carries on some traditions which coulda easily been lost such as mixing woodcut prints with drawings, while doing some more contemporary type o’ stuff from my usual.

22×30″? woodcut, acrylic, pencil and inks. ya can click the image to see it a little larger.

He knew all the right art-world people but hated most of them and was sure they hated him. He was an aggrieved traditionalist with a pop-culture itch, equally entertained by Rubens and tabloid cartoons. He was a sophisticated artist who helped shape early Modernism, not in a Paris studio but in an attic room over a novelty shop in a resort town on the North Sea.

- Holland Cotter, NYT, 06.25.09

i never saw this work until tonight. thanks moma. “Conservatory” 1902.

James Ensor, Belgian print-maker, seems to be growin’ in popularity.  I wouldn’t be too great of a person to say for sure, cause i ain’t all that old or too involved in knowing the who’s big in the art history world.  Ensor, however, does seem to be everywhere i look in recent times.  Years ago my discovery of him was as a blurb under printmakers chapters or a footnote.  That’s pretty historic itself, not many make that, but i wouldn’t describe him as well known.  This led me to seek works and finding bits here and there.  Later i’d hear people raving about him and see more and more papers or articles on Ensor.

There’s currently a MOMA show goin’ on, so mainstream identification should only grow.  Maybe he’ll move a bit beyond the artists’ artist to the typical college or artsy person’s artist.   Pasted to dormwalls beside Klimts and Van Goghs.  Maybe screenprints on yer tote bag of his Christs or skeletons.  Good i suppose, anything to rid us [or at least lesson us] of all that Warhol and art noveau.

Of course, its probably the paintings that are most catching on.  They are good.  Strong works I couldn’t take anything away from.  The paintings offer some differences from his prints and drawings.  Less about light, more accessible, experimentation with application of the paint.

“Death Chasing Flock of Mortals,” 1896

Here are some things about Ensor as a person that make him cool.

+ didn’t spend his days flocking to artist meccas.  No Paris.  Made do with his home and found his voice through practice and individual focus.

+ political deviant.  advocate for some undefined socialism/anarchism from what i’ve read.  Nothings clear, historians usually lumping him with Socialists or just Anti-Imperialist, but the works seem pretty addressing of power in a variety of forms.

+  scat humor.

Part of the 400+ series.  Three like drawings derived from a single image of one person laying on another- both resting above a pool floaty.  With these the drawings shifted to a bit darker as I started using more india ink.  I wish i had some white ink- i need to get some of that so I can re-work the dark areas.  Sometimes white pencils work, sometimes they don’t.  I like white and blue for reflecting light and ripples, but sometimes those waxy materials don’t work well over certain washes or non-jet back washes.

first, some drawings which are based off that 1/10 original drawings in previous post on the 400+ drawings.

1/3 set

2/3 setdifferent 1/3 set from same initial 1/10 drawing.

second 1/10 initial drawings.

a 1/3 subset

different 1/3 subset

2/3 3/3

drawings made under employment.

Briefly before visiting Athens, Georgia I started a lil’ drawing project of my own.  The purpose is to generate in a relatively rapid amount of time- hundreds of drawings.  Upon coming back I’ve worked a little on it each day but kinda lost some steam.  Hopefully I’ll finish this up soon.

When ya set out to draw that much, it can be intimidating.  So I decided to take it bit by bit.  It can be difficult to try imagining and constructing hundreds of environments and interesting images.  You’ll drive yourself insane doing the same thing over and over hundreds of times.   Therefore, this kinda forces you to step out of your comfort zone and make images you wouldn’t immediately think of doing.

The system I set up for myself was this. . . Draw 10 images on some archival typing paper with regular ol’ graphite pencil.  Spending real little time on them, 1-3 minutes pretty much.  Then I take each of those drawings and use that as a starting point for 10 additional drawings.  These drawings are also not very detailed and not much time spent there either.  The main point is to limit yourself to one image then try re-imagining it.  Would ya use different characters, a different perspective, different line qualities, a different approach to the same basic action occurring within the image.  And then, with these 10 per 10 [or 100 drawings] I then draw 3 more images based upon each one [300].  These three I’ve spent more time on, but still, when using small and cheap paper such as this the images don’t seem super finished or special- so they’re still pretty loose. I’ve done the first 10, the first 100, and about 60 or so of the 300.  I think I’m now getting to an interesting point with the 3 drawings.  I’ve been testing a variety of tools and techniques for the 3.  Lots of ink washes of varying colors, then trying images with a limited palette, micron pens, and watercolor pencils.

one of the original ten drawings.  diving.

one of the subsequent ten based off the above.  variation 1 of the dive.

another variation of the dive.

third/10 variation of the dive.

one of the subsequent three drawings based off the first variation of dive.

2/3

3/3

1/3

2/3

3/3

1/3

2/3

3/3

These are the earliest ones I made.  They’re pretty similar and not really too interesting.  Just some basic variations of representations of water, and tools used to make the drawing.  The later ones get more interesting.  But who would want to scan hundreds of drawings in one night and post them all at once.

Maybe some etchings or larger works will come from these.  One thing that will come which is a main reason, is the adoption of new personal visual rhetoric.  After drawing stuff so many times you start to take a level of posession over it.  I should become pretty confident with working out pool-side or water imagery.  But more than that- in the later ones to reject what I initially did with these drawings, which was rely upon my figurative drawing skills, i explored more and experimented more with plants, backgrounds, design, color, mark making tools, and more.  These fresh new ideas will carry into the art I make after this so I will have a greater library of knowledge and imagery to work with subconciously since almost the entirety of my work is made without visual references and purely imaginary.

intimate excretions, a  series of semi quick drawings completed over two days.

inspiration. Rembrandt and Scheile, some poses taken directly.

the point.  Picking a theme, particularly one without any level of seriousness or forceful intellectual ideas allows for greater study.  To build a habit of proper time management with art and generate a lot of imagery- ya can’t think too much.  To work on pieces one at a time – or more dangerously try to make an “important” piece every moment you get to work will destroy you.  It will destroy your self confidence and intimidate you.  So instead I drew these, and found that in the days I was working on these, I was excited to sit and draw, and created other works of varying ideas and experiments.  The pictures are of people peeing, pooping, and puking, so beware.

two etchings by Rembrandt. . .

many more images below. . .

Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore by Brunelleschi in 1436

So I may be doing one of these kind of things.  It’s too early to be absolute and definite.   There is a Central Florida artist who taught at the University of Central Florida yet retired before I arrived.

This artist has been in negotiations to paint a dome in Pittsburgh.  The measurements are about 14′ in diameter I believe.  The apex 20′ from the ground.

Through the recommendations of his friend and son I met with the artist and will be helping him out if this project goes through.  We will make preparatory designs and models here in Orlando, then eventually travel to Pittsburgh to do the painting.  As he is aging and his back offering difficulties, I myself will get to do a good deal of work.  The design and product will be all his, but this is still quite exciting.  It will offer me an opportunity I probably will never have again, to paint a dome.  It is quite a weird thing.  I wouldn’t ever expect myself to do this kind of project.  I didn’t even really consider people were doing this, being a dome and not merely mural- it makes me always think of Renaissance artists.

Hope it works out.