Some days you wake up and you just feel so blah. I say "you" but I mean "me." I don't know why I put "me" in quotes. Fuck, I keep doing it. "I" need to re-learn my grammar.
I used to work in an office, see. I used to make beaucoup bucks (did you know that was spelled "beaucoup?" Fuck I did it again) in my highfalutin tech job career. Then the layoff happened. And. Now I work at a restaurant.
A restaurant that I love, by the way. I adore then owners and the staff. It's just... sometimes I really don't like that I work in a kitchen and I get super discouraged. I feel sort of stuck. Cue Freddie Mercury desiring to break free via song.
But on the (Mr.?) brightside, I made such a bomb latte today you guys, it's not even funny. The perfect espresso pull with the silkiest foamy oat milk. I can't do latte art for shit, but I don't care. I made noises upon each sip. My sister made my mug too, so that probably definitely maybe helps enhance the flavor.
Today will be a good day.
It has to be a good day. It may be rainy and yucky outside, but "my" (sigh) latte has transformed the outlook. And the weather man says "mostly latte with a 100% chance of joy."
I discovered Christopher McCurdy's work a few years ago and, when looking at his photographs for the first time, I remember my very first thought after the initial gasp was "Man, I want to paint that. I need to learn how to paint." His absolutly flawless eye for beauty in the mundane, worn down, and abandoned is something I eat up with a spoon. His photographs of nature look like paintings. Some photographers fall hard into the over-saturation trap, especially with nighttime photos. McCurdy avoids this masterfully. He knows how to capture light and color in a way I haven't seen from any others, and quite frankly, I adore him.
I'm nowhere near where I want to be as an artist, so for years I kept telling myself that I cannot attempt to paint one of his photographs until I'm really good. The more time flows towards the future, however, I'm realizing that that is a really bad excuse for not drawing or painting more. So tonight I did my first attempt at painting one of my all time favorite McCurdy photographs. I don't know if it has a name, but I've always called it:
"Apartment at Dusk"
I'm still really clumsy with digital paint brushes. I can't quite figure out how to pick the right ones and maintain a "painting" look. I'm still more comfortable with pencil brushes, and therefore my paintings always come out looking like cartoon backdrops. To be fair, I love the cartoon backdrop look. If you look at the four windows in the center of the building you'll see how charmingly wonky the windows are. There's real charm in non-straight or level lines and quick pencil strokes. I'm not sure I'll ever stray far from that style.
I am anxious to begin learning how to paint with oil paints though. This dream takes up a lot of my mental space creatively and so I can tend to get discouraged when I don't know how to accomplish the look I want digitally in Procreate. Like, I can visualize it in my mind, I know what good looks like, but I don't know how to accomplish it. I have to keep reminding myself that the journey towards learning oil is just beginning and I cannot expect to grasp it immediately.
So in the mean time, I'll keep practicing light and color values in my own style. And I'll probably keep doing that with McCurdy references.
Took a quick little trip with a friend to Vashon Island this weekend. Matter of fact, I took a little trip with a friend to Vashon Island last weekend too. Huh. I should post about that one.
While we were on the ferry on our way there, I looked to my right and saw the cutest thing. A giant pitbull trying to figure out how to climb over the center console of the front seat of the neighboring car so that it could lay down on it's mama's lap and take a nap. And after much anxiety and trial and error, the pooch finally figured it out. And I loved the way it was laying down all awkward, butt in lap and chin on open window.
I immediately thought that it would make such cute painting, but I was worried about taking a picture and looking creepy. But I moved fast and snapped a pic, and last night I did a quick painting of it in Procreate
Unfortunately, it's not my favorite. It doesn't look good to me.
I don't typically love to share paintings like this one. It's embarassing. But its important to share all of it, the good and the bad. Nothing is perfect and you can't win them all. In fact, you only really win a few. Most of 'em are gonna be bad.
Hey, Pal. So there I was, right. Mindin' my own and workin' on some art or some shit. Then I gets up to go take a leak and I sees all this luggage in my living room. Now I was confused, right! And I says to myself, I says, "what the heck?" I was just about to phone the roommate when all 'a sudden BOOM! In walks Adam.
Adam's a guy from outa' town and a good friend to the roommate and me see. And typically the roommate's gonna keep me aprised of the visists from Adam, but this time I had no clue the guy was comin' to town! So I'm stoked as all get out right. And Adam and I, we's catching up right. How's the job, how's the romantical stuff goin', you know. He had a job interview today but he don't want people knowin' that. And he says to me, he says, "Hey Pal, we're gettin dinner and you's comin' wit us!" And I says, "AS LONG AS YOU'RE PAYIN" I says. hahahahahaha
So anyways we get in the car and we make our way to Capitol Hill right. And boy, the Apple Maps takes us such a wonky way all our eyes are crossed. But anyway. We gets ourselves to Harry's Fine Foods cause the roommate's got a Pal who works there right. She gets us a table and she says to us, she says, "Happy hour fer anudder thirty minutes boys." And we says "hell yeah, we'll take three smash burgers" which is only available on happy hour ya know.
Well anyways just take a look, Pal
We gets a few more tasty things but boy lemme tell ya that was the best burger I've ever had and I've had a lot of burgers ya know. Hard to beat, hard to beat.
So anyways we head back in the directions 'a home and we stop off to get some desert at Salty's, you know. You know Salty's, yeah? The roommate's got a coupla' Pals who work there right. Anyways we went and got ourselves a coctail at Da Nook after dat, see. 'Cept mine was non-alcoholic on accounta' me not drinkin' no more. But it was good! We hadda good time even though I couldn't hear nothin' cause the people sittin behind me was loud but I still had fun.
Here's me and the cake I got at Salty's hahahahahaha
There's Adam on the couch at Da Nook ya know I gotta preserve his anatamoninity ya know but he looks good he's single ladies
So anyways we had a real good time. All the best to ya's, Pal.
The biggest hurdle for me on creating this blog so far has been writing the blog posts. I wrote one weeks ago just for the sake of having filler while I build out this website. I'm not a fan of it. I don't like how it reads or feels while you read it. It's not clean or polished, and it feels like a kid wrote it. You can tell I rushed my way through it.
The mere fact that I had to write it at all was annoying and writing itself was a chore. And while I doubt that anyone will ever see it because its going to get buried under a pile of posts and, well, who's reading this blog anyway... I still hate that it exists in the form that it does. It's lazy and roughshod and sloppy, like a house kept together with scotch tape. Its a living reminder of this part of my creative self that I'm learning to see for the first time. And it's a scary monster.
But that's been the story of my creative life in a nutshell, really.
Feel inspired
Start a project
Get anxious
Crank it out
Stick tape on it
Show it to the world for validation as fast as possible
Quickly move on
That's the thing. Anxiety.
Looking back on all of the artistic eras of my life, one of the throughlines through all of them has been an anxious need to be done with the projects I start. Yes, I also had the "need" to start the projects; inspiration happens and heats up fast and one must strike while the iron is hot. But once I'm locked in to a project, my body starts to feel an intense need to get it done. I used to think this was so I could take a picture of the finished product and get validation from people online, and that does still feel good, but now I know that its because of something else that uses my anxiety.
I know it has a name, but I can't remmeber it. Something that starts with an "R." This feeling of, I don't know what, a thick snake-like rope, like three inches in diameter pulling from inside my body towards the end of the project. The rope is attached to my gut, loops upwards, and comes out between my eyes. It's a pulsing, off-white, living, glowing tube and it's angry and slippery. I really don't like it so I have to finish the project so that it goes slack and slinks back inside my body.
Is that weird?
Anyway, how is that related to this blog? Huh. I honestly have no idea. I think maybe the thought was that the idea of building the site is much less scary than writing the blog posts themselves. Because that big rope, snake, whatever monster is going to come out and start pulling, and I have to somehow figure out how to fight it, take my time, enjoy that slow process, and create.
I have this problem recently. I’ve been incredibly inspired to create and learn new things that it’s sort of dominating my brain space. I’ll be honest, I haven’t had this kind of spark to create in a very long time, and never at this level. It’s coming from deep inside, and it’s literally keeping me up at night. There’s so much I want to do and learn that I can’t turn my brain off. I’ll be exhausted at the end of the day and I’ll just be laying there in bed unable to sleep, my brain spinning.
I’ve never been pulled towards one kind of artistic expression, I’ve always been excited by many things. Drawing is one of those things, especially portraits. I’m working on one right now. It’s been 12 hours of work so far and I’m not anywhere near done. I think about the drawing all the time. It takes serious will power to put it away and come back to it later. But I can feel the portrait sitting there staring at me. Thumping sounds coming from the drawing pad like Jumanji.
I’m building this website too. There’s still a lot of work to be done. I’m drawing the image assets, learning css, learning GitHub and Terminal command prompt, and I’m loving every minute of it. When I’m not drawing I’m working on the site, slowly figuring out the code and making it look the way I want.
I’m writing story ideas down all the time. Little blurbs about characters; heroes and villains, settings and worlds. All of these things to hopefully one day put down on a page or in film.
I’m filming little moments with my iPhone, using Cinematic mode at 24fps usually, to hopefully create cohesive videos to post. I love little videos. Here’s one I made that I love.
I have all of these feelings, intense urges to bring things in my mind to life. My mind is just going going going, even when I’m exhausted.
I’m grateful for it, but I am worried about burn out. It’s happened before. I don’t know if it’s because of ADHD or whatever my version of non-neuro-typical-ness is, but I tend to obsess over things. The fire burns hot and fast and then I’m burnt out. I don’t want that to happen. I want to take my projects slowly and give myself the time and space to learn things properly. I'm taking this current bout of inspiration much slower than I would have in the past, so I'm hopeful that I can maintain it in a steady way, rather than burning out. I’m trying to be mindful of my energy and not overdo it. I’m trying to take breaks and rest when I need to. But it’s hard. The pull is strong.
Is this normal?
Here’s the drawing so far. The first was a super quick color value test in Procreate, the second is the physical piece. Still a lot to do:
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