Evolution of an image

Long time no post, but I have a lot of news and images so this week will be chock full of entries! I wanted to break pace a little bit with my sketches so here are some process shots of the charcoal portrait I had in the show at Monstrosity Gallery! (It also made its way into a magazine! but I will write more about that later)

Hopefully you can still pick out details and follow the evolution of this image despite the bad quality of the photos. Dodgy as they may be they still show crucial moments in the rendering of the face as well as some of the drastic changes I made between stages.

I had been working on this image for a while and had some interesting marks happening, but it wasn't moving anywhere and at the end of the day it was just a slushy indistinct collection of facial features. So I clarified where I wanted the head and the shoulders to be with some strong lines. After solidifying my guideline I was able to push the image because I was confident on the placement of the face.

Most of the fun happens in the beginning when I am just throwing water and smearing charcoal around trying to find patterns I like from the resulting mess. I draw a face and then water it, let it dissolve for a while and then re draw and then let it partially melt again. Then I slowly piece the image together from these leftovers like a fortune teller with tea leaves.

Towards the end I make smaller and smaller adjustments, slowly becoming more afraid of my image and a little too precious with it. Some images die this way. I get too hesitant to change certain areas and I get into a stalemate, where I can't move the picture forward without somehow damaging my favourite part.

Thankfully this one went quietly, though before when I had been pushing it to be a young female with four eyes it had rightly argued. You can still see traces of this in the earliest image's luscious lips and the thinness in the face.

This work is titled The Swimmer and as I said before was on display at Monstrosity Gallery's Portrait exhibition. During the show there was an artist talk and small get together over some munchies. A video was made of some of the artists (me included). Hopefully this video will eventually see the light of day and you'll be able to hear me describe some of the thoughts that go into my drawings.

Experimental portrait

I've finally worked out some sort of routine/area for my art making at home! Losing my studio space at University was sad sad time for me, and to help me get over it I snuck back into University and decided to use some unmarked territory as my own. Alas all good things must come to an end, and I am now resigned to working at home.

After a few trial and errors I have finally found a way to fit my messy practice into my small apartment. I will post hilarious images of my canvas' sitting on my bath tub later. At the moment I am jumping between my bedroom, living room table (aka easel and stool in one) and my couch side table depending on the medium I am using. And at the moment I am using a few. After countless arguments about the benefits of working charcoal on paper VS canvas I have conceded to see how the other side lives. (The other side lives in a sucky part of town. Canvas all the way.)

I will admit that a deliciously smooth surface does await the paper user, but so will large framing costs.

Paper has been very friendly towards inks however (though I've used those with canvas as well) and I have been playing around with mixed media especially after being inspired by Matt Huynh work and solo show (happening on the 1rst of June!) I've posted my favourite piece above, it's a mixture of inks and acrylics on paper.

More floating heads

More displaced heads for the 2009 journal. Not too many of them because I managed to move twice and still find myself under the intense flow of the 24hr Starbucks aircon. After a frappacino (a bad one! ...have no idea how they can do that they measure it all out in a cup) well, ice, air con, nighttime, I ended up being too cold to draw. A strange feeling to have in Singapore.

Still managed to get a few down this time combining my ink pen and biro to have nice strong lines and subtle shading. My favourite is the girl at the top, where I think the double combo of pens comes out the best. In a couple of the others however its like a bad DC and Marvel crossover. But some crazy people enjoy the Universe crash so I hope there's a floating head here for everyone.

More ink pen!

Here are a couple of displaced heads snuck into the remaining spaces of my moleskin. There are bizarrely spaced empty pages between to do lists, diary notes and sketches. Perhaps I left room to write down a memorable event or maybe I thought I needed at least one or two full page spreads to adequately caption the previous image I had just spent several hours drawing in an attempt to have the picture say the 1000 words I didn't feel like articulating.

In spite of all the leftover space, or perhaps because of it, I jumped the gun and bought a new sketchbook. I promised myself that I wouldn't open the plastic until I had saturated every last available space in my old book. But the promise is growing thin, and as the allure of breaking the seal and smelling the fresh virgin pages calls I am starting to hurry through the awkward process of filling up cracks in my 2009 diary.

Hence the floating heads. They are a fun challenge whenever I am a little too tired to do a full scene, or when one will simply not fit onto where ever I seem to be drawing. But hopefully they will retire with the old year model soon and before the new month waxes over I will start on new and exciting full bodied and unrestricted images.

Printed portraits

I've been doing a few etchings recently to make use of the printing studios at my University before they close down for the holidays. As you can see it's mostly experimental stuff, not the usual tightly and neatly drawn etchings I'm used to doing. These portraits are sort of overflow inspiration from some of my charcoal work which I hope will be finished sometime early next year if I get a studio space. Otherwise will update you with a few close ups and process works as I go along.

new faces on the block

I have various conversations about art and whatnot with my friends who are in the similar field. Nicky O'Byrne in particular. We have both decided that majority of our people end up looking the same. Caucasian, young and fairly good looking. For me I can trace this back to my first attempts at drawing: which was copying from comic books. (Pre-Jim Lee, Essential X-men sort of stuff.)

Now I'm not blaming comic books, I love them too much. But I do get used to a particular way of drawing and/or making art. And I get lazy and repeat stuff I already know and am familiar with rather than trying new and possibly bad things.

So these are some attempts for the new and unfamiliar.