Art Dump

I’m not going to lie. I haven’t drawn in a while. I’ve been sort of consumed with things and I allowed myself to sort of waste away. After much struggle I finally picked up the pencil and decided to do some work.

I’m not averse to using friends profile pictures from face book for inspiration. One reason, because when I ask these friends if they would be willing to pose for me they never quite get back to me, and the second reason is because it’s there. I admit it’s a gray area, but I do try to make it my own and it’s their own fault really, not getting back to me and all. I normally try to keep my line work as clean as possible almost to the point of sterility, and I did put some values in here. I used to spend thirty to forty hours on one sketch trying to make it look as complete as possible and by the time I got around to starting the “real” version I lost all interest. Some if it looks sort of filled in, that’s fine. I know what beats I need to hit and I see it quite clearly in my head. I want to do something Klimt-y, this friend here has red hair so I’m in luck because all the best subjects of Klimt painting have red hair. I also want to replicate all that pastel like look of his paintings. I see it in my mind and don’t really feel the need to spend thirty hours on a sketch.

I hate showing the earliest parts of my drawings. I tend to sketch very gesturaly and I don’t like how rough and unfinished they look. Its one reason I don’t like to draw in front of people, I think people have these expectations about art being fully formed from the artists head and have no concept or appreciation to the work that is involved. When someone sees work like this I’m afraid they are going to attempt to call me some sort of fraud, not knowing how the process works, and I get frustrated because I don’t thinks this reflects my best. But, I have to remind myself that its just another step in the process and a sketch book ideally is used to show how an artist solves a problem.

My cousin said that she likes my work. I have done a terrible job selling myself, but I appreciated her kind words. She also wanted me to a paint a picture of her and her future husband as a wedding gift. I said yes, but I am apprehensive to the entire thing. There is a great deal of sentiment behind the request and I don’t want to give her a finished work that betrays the trust she has in my abilities.