High Contrast Grey.

For my comics class we have been assigned to make a short comic about an object that means something to us. Since I came to France with just the basics I thought that I would do it on the little Tintin figurine I used in my architecture class last semester to represent me while I am roaming the country of France taking photos.

Continuing down the long path of getting this painting’s line work before the paint done. There are so many little details to do that it is getting a bit tiring that I can’t just jump in with the acrylic paint right now.

Establishing the figure.

He feels a bit emotionless right now, and I am not sure if I am wanting to play that up some more, or to add some emotion to him. I’m thinking I will try to give him some heavy eyelids to play up the drink in his hand.. hopefully that will give me the emotions I am looking for.

Initial pencil sketch.

To make the angles less harsh for the perspective I nailed a string to my wall and have been using that as a crude straightedge. It seems to be working alright so far, except that everytime I need to put something else into perspective I need to renail the picture to the wall.

Continuation.

I saw the usage of a thin white line recently and I thought I would give it a try. It seems to have added a much more illustrative look to the piece, so I am not too sure how I like it or not.

A new painting for this weeks painting class. It took me forever to start this one because I kept having ideas but no form come to my mind. Finally I just took one of the photos from my inspiration folder and decided to use that as a figure study which I will then mutate.

My plan is for war paint, piercings, and tattoos to blend the old photo with new details. A bit cliché, but I can see where it will evolve to.

I have come to see that in my painting classes here in France that the French are all about concept, so as I try to experiment with mediums I am running into not having an answer for when they ask why.

A painting of Jessye drinking wine from the bottle in our Parisian hotel.

Hopefully I will be finished by this Thursday for class. I am wanting to do something with the background but I am not too sure what. Perhaps some patterning and playing with painting and then wiping to build up layers of detail.

Oil on cardboard. I have been loving this pairing since the cardboard soaks up the first few layers of oil paint I can lay down some nice intial rough layers without having to wait forever for it to dry before continuing on.

I haven’t painted anything focusing on the figure for years and after reading a quote by Toulouse, which seemed like a copy of something said by Courbet, I thought that while in France I could paint things that I have seen instead of imagining places comprised of things that I have seen, but don’t actually exist.
This painting is of a photo I took during the Balkan music at the bar night, but the photo didn’t turn out due to the low lighting.

I have finally finished painting in all the books in the bookcase. A slow process, probably made even slower by me wanting to mix a new color for almost every book, instead of making random books the same color. I never left the apartment Friday..

It is insteresting seeing how long I can hold back and develop a piece now just with the watercolor and not having to add in the ink just to make it feel complete.

I wish I could remember the name of the bookstore from my dream.

My painting professor asked me a question the other day, which was something along the lines of, ‘why are you so attracted to painting these things in a beautiful nostalgic timeperiod?’ It took me a while to translate and figure out what he was asking, but once I understood I didn’t have an answer in any language. Instead I thought about Midnight in Paris and the similar question it poses. The past is never as beautiful as we want to imagine it being.

Last time painting at the Butterfly all day before moving from Missoula.

Experimenting with different mediums to create depth.

This semester has been so crazy in the amount of work that I get assigned plus all the extra work that I do, like the clubs that I am in. I think that I will finally be finishing up this lady with the big hair soon, seeing as how I have added all the Baroque forms to the background and all that I have left is the fan to put in her hair and add some more detail to her hair. I hope to use this painting in the upcoming juried show on campus, but I am not sure how many pieces we are restricted to and if it is only one I might be putting up the absinthe bar painting instead, with a different frame. I love the frame that it is in, but I am sad that it has a slight curve to it. Oh well, I guess that is what happens with a $5 frame from the back of some antique store..

As for the sculpture, I am hoping to get this finished by Wednesday for class, but thankfully we have been given an extension to Monday due to the project beginning a day late. I am still not sure how to connect the cherub back to the base, but I will hopefully figure out something.

It has been a rather lackluster winter session, in terms of working on art. Although it seems that Billings always seems to remove any inspiration or desire to work on art, I have since come back to Missoula to become distracted by a redhead.

A pleasant distraction.

I still hope to finish at least one of these two paintings before the end of the break so I can display them with the artwork of other members of the university artist collective. I am liking how the street scene is coming out. I seem to have a better understanding of layering every time I paint another watercolor, which is really helpful with trying to achieve a night like atmosphere. I seem to have misplaced my ivory black and had to go and buy a new one from Michael’s. They were locked up but I slipped my hand into the side of the case and retrieved the tube of watercolor. Part of me felt like just walking off with it as a repressed anger to the frustration of working there back in the day, but I suppressed the desire.

As a gift to myself over the break I broke down and bought the bottle of absinthe I have been eying via a liquor store website based in New York. La Charlotte with a slight green tint only from the herbs and no additives. Quite delicious. Although it doesn’t seem to soak into the sugar cube as nicely as the last and makes lighting the sugar cube on fire to caramelize the sugar a bit more difficult.

The universe decided to give me an ironing board (read as adjustable table for the living room that is long enough and skinny enough to function as a couch table) for the holidays. Shortly after making it to my apartment it was covered in artworks.

C’est tout.