raw nose

margot says i need to find a way to make it fun again because otherwise i'll graduate and i won't want to draw. i know this is true. but for it to be fun, there needs to be less thought--more intuitive, because she is right again, it is a strange sort of fear that manifests as procrastination. but now i am afraid, because my degree project is the actualization of my progress towards this goal, and it is nothing like anything i have created that i would show people, it is supremely imperfect, and i'm dreading standing beside this strange bulky set-up--an element of a larger element of an installation, an appendage.
an overhead projector, a sketchy ink and pencil, a collection of watercolours and writing.

Psychedelic poster art was my first influence, and remains my main inspiration, and if i can approach an assignment with the mentality of poster design, it feels as if there are infinite creative paths, and i can draw the imagery that i love and the colours are so fun to mix, and i can experiment inside of them while i am painting.




Problem: the center bird. there are too many birds. i need to depict crows. i had a Yaqui symbol in the center in the original sketch, but it bore too much resemblance to the iron cross, and i cannot find any further Yaqui iconography anywhere on the web. Andy suggested molding it kind of to a heart, but that doesn't really have anything to do with the book, and yeah, i do think that's a little cheesy. suggestions?

so for now i'm just going to paint everything but the middle. i'm painting the organ pipe cacti right now.

ain't no easy way

i'm screwed on cupcakes, though.
i'm also getting less sick

psychedelic skateboarding

Thanks to Arthur magazine, I've found out about Richie Jackson...

Some of you may be wondering what skating has to do with psychedelics, other than the fact that skaters are usually ADHD compulsive danger freaks who like drugs among their many other vices. However, there is one skater who has taken the psychedelic vibe to a whole new level, Richie Jackson from Australia. Here is a clip from a recent interview from Transworld Skateboarding:

“I believe in psychedelicism. Not just psychedelic music, but everything. A psychedelic experience is characterized as the unveiling of perceptions previously unknown — the brain unfettered from its usual constraints. To me, it’s all there is, and certainly all that’s worth doing. I find no worth in that which doesn’t surprise. Anomalies, irregularities, deviation from the common rule — that is all I will ever care for.”

wild child

there's nothing like coasting home after midnight, a blues program on the radio, no commercials--pigs don't scare you because you've got nothing on you...just this magical dazed coasting. exhaustion like thick glasses
except with that weight inside your chest of the impossible week. i'm slipping back, my priorities are getting tired. i miss my rock and roll.
king khan & bbq show
darker my love, viva viva
bill kirchin
coyote kolb

i'm sorry.
i'm too worn-out. i know i can't lead these two lives right now.

It's the first Advent tomorrow, my parents gave me a gigantic chocolate pretzel, and advent calendar with chocolate behind the doors, an Entrance album ("Prayer of Death," which includes liner quotes taken from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Uwais El-qarni [a Sufi mystic], and James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time), and my mother gave me her old motorcycle gloves!

Anyway, "Prayer of Death" is kind of all about death, and, being artists, we're probably all kind of healthily (or unhealthily) obsessed with it. I love Guy Blakeslee's lyrics, they are rambling and passionate and honest and reflective and powerful. They are complete on their own, yet fit into the structure of the music in such an unexpected way. Right now I'm feeling way more inspired about music than about my art. I dislike everything I'm drawing, except the Don Juan cover. Everything's from this photographic reference and it just looks so fake, it makes me ill. The things from my mind freak me out too much to draw, it's shit. fucked-up bodies limbs and patterns that don't make sense. i don't have a cute cartoon-y style, just freak disjointed rambling line experimentation. i hate looking at it or drawing near it. i have to skip a page in my sketchbook.

i want a wild man for the winter

let's get together tonight

C'mon Everybody
Eddie Cochran

I've been really getting off on old rock and roll this year.
Link Wray, Dick Dale, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Wanda Jackson, Ernie Chaffin, Gene Vincent, Bill Haley, Carl Perkins.
It's attractive to me because it's easy to dance to and it's pretty badass in the context of its time.
I still don't like Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis and nothing's gonna change my mind on that.

By Thursday I'm usually completely worn-out. Wednesday is my break-down day. Last week was pretty bad in Advanced Drawing. I felt really guilty and so much of an under-achiever and then Margot yelled at me and I started crying in class and I just can't wait until all of this is over. Maybe I will stay in Boston an extra day over Thanksgiving break and try to catch up for those two junior classes. Last Thursday my mama came down to visit me after class and we walked around the North and South ends and Chinatown. I revel in the real dirty, gritty parts of cities and she hates it, but I still went the same way I normally do, down that loading area, stench of fish and garbage, concrete so filthy you wouldn't want to pick up a quarter if it was there. We went down into the Channel Cafe (positives: really pretty, well-designed, has live music and a gallery! negatives: does not have any liquor other than beer and wine, is expensive, is out in the middle of nowhere) to check out what was in the gallery but what we were REALLY in the area for was the ICA. The Tara Donovan exhibit was amazing!
It was a total visual trip. I was like, WHY IS THIS BLURRY??? It shouldn't be blurry.

All of a sudden I'm having trouble with the Johnny Cupcake's design. I don't like his line and I really don't want what I think is cool to be sold to the people that buy his stuff. How bad is that? Yeah, it's bad.

me in a year:



i can't get over this.

i'm sorry.


I got a squash court for the senior show! I feel good about degree project. I'm havin' fun, baby.

shake shake

This was my first monochromatic piece and I'm still not sure how I feel about the colours, it's so alien to work that way.



I don't know what sort of music you guys are into, but I love dron-y shoegaze-n-roll psych and one of the best bands out there doing it is The Morning After Girls.
This is a segment they did for a radio show, it's quite long but if you don't have time to listen to all of it, go to the middle and listen to the song because that one is really beautiful. I wrote them this a while ago:
i was putting together a short (there are four) list of songs that are currently, purely auditorily literally turinng me on and getting me off
and you've got two. so here's what i think
Lazy Greys: breathy count-off ...3, 4. the bass line is so interesting, i imagine it is fingers flickering over your warm skin and a body rolling around with you coming in and out of you, the reverby guitar i'm a junkie for is like the feeling in your throat you get when you're real turned-on and kind of nervous and the vocals are the way you breathe in when someone touches you just right. the harmonica is you trying to control yourself.
i can picture how you would play this, it's slow but i don't think that's less sexy, i think it's more because of the passion you can put behind everything. it'd be like grinding yourselves into your instruments, it's a total seducer song, i'd love to listen to this and panther-seduce someone
and Run For Our Lives i would just have a lot of fun fooling around with dancing to that live. the guitar makes me move and the bass line is such a perfect backup to fall onto plus the tambourine's has that killer backbeat that's the easy way
yeah!

you can find those two songs on youtube.


ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOTE:
Stop looking for approval in others.


As Mavis Staples would say, Respect Yourself.

(from Wattstax)

Detour semi-final

To Do:
darken shadow for car
define top right fight scene
bring over atmosphere to reclining woman

anything else, sugarsugar?

Okay

Andy Fish has inspired me to do some self-reflective contemplating through his post on his art school daze and the e-mail he sent me.
I'm a very passionate person, but this passion can progress or regress in the same intensity, especially when fueled by negative feelings. It gets dangerous so fast. If I feel like someone is challenging me in the slightest, everything goes to shit.

she gets off baby off baby off baby

I SPENT 6 HOURS ON THIS! you fuck
I deleted it off the UCF site because someone's comment made me really violent and I needed to prevent myself from attacking his passive-aggressiveness and insulting his manhood in what would have been a tirade that sealed my fate as a non-illustrator. Look, I can't work with your deadlines, I can't make myself do what you want. I'll get it done, no question, don't start lecturing me. Oh my god. If he has the actual huevos to bring that up in front of me, he's going to get it. I hope he doesn't because it's going to reveal my incapacity to be professional. Whatever. I have issues with passive-aggressive people. Don't fuck with me.

this is how i feel.


RTX is such the perfect soundtrack right now. feedbackkkkk distortionnn howling guitarr in distance, coming together, socking you in the face with building drums THEN weird metal tone " Well I'm the garbage collectorRRR *metal double
okay.
ciao chiquitas and chicossssss