Impersonating an Artist
rediscovering painting
Mugshot #3
0186 days
I’ve wanted to do a series of portraits for a long time. I thought about mugshots but couldn’t find any good ones. Then I found The Smoking Gun and Mugshots.com, and then I saw Karin Jurick’s series of 100 portraits, 4″x4″ in oil, all of mugshots. Sorta burst my bubble. But I had the idea a long time ago, just didn’t have the gumption to get up and fucking do it. I’m a total lazy ass. I inherited it. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
I have been having fun looking at all the mugshots and sketching them. I haven’t posted all of them, but not knowing who they are takes a lot of pressure off the likeness. And nobody really cares but me. Yes, these last couple are in regular ball point pen on regular steno notebook, spiral-bound paper. No, I don’t draw underneath, I just start. I almost always start at the brow/hairline area. I don’t know why, so don’t ask. Well, you can ask but I’ll just shove something rude in your ask-hole.
What's my name?
Mugshot sketch #2
0188 days
That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s going to be. The smooth, plastic roll of the drawer and the pen on the pad… they pleaded, they begged, they demanded. I acquiesced. Intention and desire sometimes, for me less often than I’d like to admit, lead to action. Glances askew and raised awareness, I pressed ballpoint to ruled steno.
Indifference and repentence
Everybody grieves in their own way
0194 days
by shuste73
in Art Every Day Month
“Dad,” venetian red on plain paper, 8.5″x11″
My dad passed away in June. I’m still quite torn up about it. I’ve never drawn a picture of my dad, and I’m a 37-year-old artist. What the fuck. So this isn’t a great likeness. It isn’t all that well drawn. I don’t care. I’ve been reading up and berating myself because I need to create more; damn the torpedoes – full speed ahead. So I’m trying. I’m doing. I’m pulling out all that I can right now. I had 4 close deaths in the past year and I’m pretty emotionally drained. I’ve wanted to do a picture, but it the manifestation will never meet up to the standard in my mind. Never. Well, fuck it; everybody grieves in their own way.
Grandpa in Venetian Red
0195 days
by shuste73
in Uncategorized
My grandfather passed away in 2005. I only have a few pictures of him. I have been meaning to sketch this one. My grandmother and my father would have loved this sketch. Sadly, they both also passed away this past year.
Such is the struggle
0It’s been a while but I’d love to get started again. I have a few things to take care of in my personal life first, some demons to deal with, and probably some other fucking obstacles that come at me quickly and furiously in this thing we call “life.” But I’ve been getting the urge. The poking. The internal prodding. The call. The voice. The grip that comes to you in your quiet moments; fuck, it even comes to you in your loud moments. Sitting in a chair in a meeting, you notice a pattern, a color, perchance the vision of a completed painting saunters aimlessly through your brain, only to vanish as its ephemeral drift would imply.
Then the orbiting, omnipresent satellite of reality decays its orbit and comes crashing back down upon you in a fiery burst. Such is the struggle.
Re-dedication?
0Ouch, I haven’t posted since April? Yikes! I need to get painting again. Something about the end of summer and the coming of September always makes me start painting again, or at least get the urge. Perhaps I should paint a series entitled “September” which is just reflections on what September means to me, not the traditional autumnal bullshit; I’m from New England so the leaves changing are passé to me.
I should also reinvigorate my social media efforts. I’m tired of the day job and I long for the painting to become my day job. I can do it. I’m good. Really good. Just rusty and old and needin’ a little soap and water, a little buffing around the edges, and I’ll be good as new.
Self-flagellation
0405 days
by shuste73
in Uncategorized
Spent some time, as usual, perusing artists that paint daily.
Mother-DAILY-fucking painting!
I could do it, but I don’t. I’ve been quietly reading/following Ali Cavanaugh for some time. I like the socks, the brilliant light.
I like that she paints all the time.
I don’t like that I don’t. I have ideas but, typically, I get home and I’m tired. Wife needs attention. Kids need attention. *I* need some fucking attention from myself. Holy fucking shit. I get to my office after the kids go to bed and the same canvas is on the easel, mocking me, telling me what a piece of fucking shit I am, rubbing its smelly ass on me and calling me Nancy-boy.
And I let it.
Then I self-flagellate. I whip myself, mentally, and I don’t forgive and forget. I wish I had time and energy but I just don’t. I just don’t. And I hate myself for that. I will get back to it. But not today. Why? GFY, that’s why. I don’t know. I need to. I want to. I have to. I must. I must. I must. I must. But then I don’t.
And then I self-flagellate again.
The brush is evil, the canvas a foul temptress. The easel rises before me, a spectre of Christmas future, and calls to me in its ghastly whisper. I listen. I beg. I raise my brows and shake my head in silent pleading. I acquiesce. I but I do not paint. I do not. And I look around and the ideas flow and the paintings form in my mind and I know what I have to do.
But I don’t do it.
Instead, damnable self-flagellation.
Warm, late summer
0503 days
Late Summer, 5″ x 7″, NFS, oil on canvas board
I painted her sister in September of 2009. I don’t have the link handy to that post. Hoo doggy, it’s been a while. I’m rusty as all get out.
‘S’ok. Don’ worry. Or so I think. And silently, pleadingly, chastise myself internally. Again. Dang!
So I painted this in one session, in about 45 minutes or so. I mixed up a Cadmium Yellow Medium + a dab of French Ultramarine Blue. Basically orange and blue, which make a grayish color if ya dunno. I thinned the heck out of it and blended it with a soft bristle brush and proceeded on.
Or so I thought it was that way a ways back. I made promises to myself and summarily broke them. One fell swoop and that. You know?
But then I just decided to paint with no drawing. I drew from a picture on a computer monitor, too small and too far away, and painted blotches of color. BLOTCHES! Very impressionistic. I wanted it to be that way. Blocky, blotchy. But warm, late summer. Warm, like it isn’t outside.
I’ve been entertaining the thought, of late, that my artwork isn’t really the thing you see. It’s me. That little girl is me. The picture of the other person’s kids are me. Really, it’s all about me. Except self-portraits. They aren’t me. They’re little demon spawn, impish creatures that dance with delight in my turp-soaked brain, laughing and pointing and otherwise indifferent to my very existence. I made a mental note to reject that, to derail that thought train, as it were. But it was warm, late summer. And I caved. I gave in. Don’t we all? When we beckon unto ourselves? Most especially when it’s warm, Late Summer?
3 new portraits
0I painted 3 new portraits as an xmas gift for a friend, commissioned by his wife. I couldn’t post progress here (they were gifts, obviously!) and I finished them too late to get pictures of them (but I’ll get pictures later) before I delivered them for xmas.
Felt really good to get back to painting and to finally get my office converted well enough for use as a studio. Now I’ve got a backlog that I need to get to, and I need to show up to the easel daily in order to get back into the rhythm.
I’ll post those pics in the coming weeks – I thought they were creative, the client loved them, and the recipient was blown away. How’s that for props and ego boosting?!
Digital grunge
0676 days
Digital Grunge, 640px x 400px, digital image created with The Gimp
I fancy myself a Linux aficionado. I also like The Gimp. Lemme set something straight – The Gimp is like Photoshop but doesn’t seek to replace Photoshop.
Lemme set something else straight: I used The Gimp in a graphic design class that required Photoshop. And I got an A in the class and the instructor (and everyone else) was none the wiser.
Now that I got that out of the way, I have to say that about 9 months ago I discovered that The Gimp had brushes, and that was the way to do the best stuff. Forget importing images and tweaking them – brushes have it down pat! So I messed around and my first image was a halloween drink menu for my wife (she’s a private bartender when she’s not in nursing school).
I got a new laptop at work so I had to reinstall my apps… along with The Gimp, obviously… so here’s what I did today after grabbing all the new brushes I wanted.
I’ve been eager to paint again but my time has been consumed with my main job at a Fortune 100 company, with my side job working for my mother-in-law, with my side job as the CIO of a startup with my Navy buddies, and, finally, as a painter. I’m pretty fucking busy, to say the least, but what I really want to do out of all this is to make art. So today was slow at work… and I used the time to do this. Not a total waste of time, mind you, because I use The Gimp all the time to whip out a quick graphic (logo, banner, icon, etc.) at work, so I do need The Gimp up and running well so I’m ready when called on, but the image started as I was playing with my new brushes and sorta blossomed from there. You artist types know what I’m talkin’ about. Dig.