SKETCHING THE SUICIDE GIRLS

For this post, I had to add the "View Adult Content, Tipper Sticker" to my blog. Watch out folks; boobies and other girly bits below.

It's been on my mind lately that one of the finest, old traditions in art is getting people to take off their clothes and sit for you render their form in whatever your media of choice is.

I got a swell little book, maybe a month ago, of 108 drawings by various contemporary artists represented by Allen Spiegel Fine Arts. Cats I dig, like Scott Morse, Dave McKean, and Jon J. Muth got me to pick up the little treasure. Kent Williams kinda stole the show, and keeps me flipping through the book again. He does some loose, open drawings so loaded with sex, they make me want to be an artist just to capture that.

I have a mini portfolio of serigraphs Craig Thompson did of one of his exes that has the same frisson.

There is a snotty, avant-garde, little voice that I don't remember inviting to the party in my head, who still won't shut up with: "Figure study is sketchbook, masturbation stuff/ It's so been done/ It has nothing to say to the modern era of ART." Whatever. It's not actually hard to grok why in thousands of years of art history, humankind hasn't finished drawing each other naked.

Makes me regret that of the few young ladies I've talked out of their clothes, not to a one did I then say; "Hold still while I draw you." You'd think I got distracted by something.

Now I've had to resort to drawing models out of porn magazines and Suicide Girls.

Introduction to Printmaking - Part the First

SPRING BREAK!!!
With the Flash mid-term in the can; perhaps I will take some time to post a little of what I've been up to. This semester, I am taking an intro to hand-made printmaking class. Best thing I've done for myself since I don't know when. Which has nothing to do with my graphic design certificate; at least from a credits standpoint. From my point of view, reproduction of images is the beginnings of separating design from fine arts. Why there needs to be a hard delineation between the two is something none of my design classes so far have taught me. Seems like the fine arts these days could only benefit from reabsorbing design. I'm not even sure I want a graphic design certificate. I find many designers to be pretty irritating. But, I'll be dipped if I'm doing all of this schooling to merely learn new things. I want my piece of paper!
But, hey, how 'bout them tangents! On to prints:

MONOPRINTS:
I had a pretty rocky relationship with Monotypes, since long before I tried to make them. Fanta Se had a huge orgasm with the form starting sometime in the '80s. I have seen so much mediocrity and sloppiness done in the name of monotype, it is forever tainted for me. One of the only good things I have to say for monotypes is: William Blake. That man could could monoprint! Having attempted the form for myself; I can say that I'm no William Blake. I'm really not much of a painter, I realize only now after having been away from painting for a few years. And, monoprinting is a very painterly form. These are three of the least cringe-inducing for me:



COLLAGRAPHS:

This very modern seeming form of mark making got along a lot better with me, in spite of my expectations to the contrary. I've been telling people lately that I am the most uncomfortable collage artist in most any room. I admire the form tremendously as practiced by those I see as having a gift for it, such as Gail Rieke, ShRiek, or Dave McKean. If I try to collage, it always comes off as macaroni art. But, collagraphs are a little different. The collage is not the final artistic product, but a plate from which to produce your prints. Visual interest, therefore, is derived second generation by assembling interesting textures. Those same interesting textures provided me with a bit of a learning curve to climb, in terms of how to effectively apply ink in what quantity to achieve an image transfer. After some trial and error, I produced some work I'm a little bit proud of:

My very first Flash animation!

To any readers who might have worked in Flash; I am acutely aware of how much this looks like someone's first attempt at animating in Flash. But, we all must get our start somewhere. Also, I only had two weeks to complete this for my mid-term; which actually amounted to one, very sleepless, weekend.
The text is taken from a translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poem, "The Bride of Corinth".
Won't know 'til Monday what my grade will be for the mid-term.