Sinclair

Sinclair.  This has been done for a while, just realizing that I haven't posted him yet.  Got an art deadline coming up on the 1st or 2nd of July, so I'm actually getting some things done/organized.  I'll be posting them soon.  Interesting times, to be certain.  A few songs that are helping on me along the way.


 MMOTHS - All These Things
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkrTL62CLCA

The Dears - Omega Dog
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw3ruwwewFo

Young Wonder - Tumbling Backwards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGh2-Oxd8tU

 Santigold - This Isn't Our Parade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvVZi47gAqU

Seward

I just went for a run.  I run most days actually.  Today, I saw some very interesting folks, got to watch some sort of native drum dancing ceremony, which was awesome.  Had a nice view of the Mississippi pretty much the entire time, and to top it all off, a guy cruised past me on a unicycle during my cool down.  I love this neighborhood.

I may have shared this already, not quite sure.  Either way, I'm posting Ridiculoid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj9Vqrm5ytM

Cleo

I met this person a while ago. They burst into my life, out of nowhere, out of the blue, just showed up and started making me see things, realize things, started teaching me things not by trying to teach me things but simply by being themselves.  I've seen a depth of beauty, capability, grace, forgiveness, and charity in this person that I literally did not know was possible, an energy, an inner light that just permeates into and through everything around them.  Having the knowledge that there's a person like this living is so inspiring, so motivating.  This knowledge has been consistently allowing me to see more ways of improving my artwork.  It's like its increased the amount of beauty I can find in everything else, and, in the case of my birds,  if I see my work lacking beauty, this persons influence in my life gives me a vision of how to improve it.   The more people like this I have in my life, the better.

 Here is the evolution of Cleo:

 

 

 

 In preparation for the next showing of my birds, I'm considering a lot of my older work again, and with some I've been able to go back in and improve them.  Cleo's starting to pop out a little more, starting to look a little less washed out and a little more vibrant.  Also I realized this morning while walking to work that I have 18 of these birds now.  More to come, and a song to fit my mood:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fle-zebSXNc

Snake Logo Design

This is the evolution:

It's a great feeling to have arrived at the final product that I did.  I've got little logo design experience, so it's been very interesting to walk myself through a different creative process, one that I think will benefit, will grow my process for creating my own work.  The logo was so getting so complex, so detailed.  My personal work has been highly detailed lately, and I was using that in the logo.  I was trying too hard.  There was a feeling of being stuck, feeling disinclined to begin the task of deciding what was important and what wasn't in the design, but I ended up having fun with it.

This is an excellent song, and a very entertaining music video to go along with it.  The story is funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL9ypNz9-mM
  

Chicken

Work in progress

I think that it's time that I pause my current project and start a few new ones.  I've had this drawing as my main focus for several weeks now, and am finding my progress to be slowing down, and if my drawing is anything like the rest of my life, which is most certainly is, this is a clear indication that I need to put it down for a short time, focus on other things, then come back to it with a renewed desire to see it through to completion.

I think this is my best work, in terms of execution/craft, and in terms of embedded personal meaning.  There is still a nagging feeling that my work needs to communicate something more, and do so clearly.  That is something that cannot be awakened before its time.  As a friend told me not so long ago, "just be patient, the meaning will come."  We aren't obliged to know everything, and until this new focus becomes clear to me I will gladly keep making birds.  I'm thinking Sandhill Cranes are next.

snake logo

I'm loving the book Siddhartha.  I wouldn't say the book has changed me in any way so far, but it's a very inward focused, spiritually centered book, and for those reasons I am able to relate to it on a very personal level.

The peacefullness that comes out of the empty heart.  The fact that everyone takes and everyone gives, and that is how life is.  The fact that other people are not here for our amusement.  The drive to experience everything, primarily myself, deeply and passionately, and yet not be mastered by anything.



Logo

As I learn from everything, and contemplate, my art continues to develop.  This is the third draft of a logo I'm designing for a friend.  It's come a long way since the initial sketches, and is going to be a great success when finished. 

This is what I'm listening to right now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4jj7LtrGzc


Here's the final version of this third draft of the snake logo.  Got some last second feedback from a fellow artist recommending I add some red to the compass, which turned out to be a great suggestion.  I'm not totally sold on the green, or the scales for that matter.  I think if I did one more draft, it could pop even more than it does now. 

feedback is encouraged!

Are ya down?

Recently I've been pondering my relationship with hip hop.  Just like all my relationships, I want this to be a healthy, fruitful one.  Reading through the book "Can't Stop, Won't Stop" has been a huge catalyst in bringing so many different things to light for me, but with this new information has come a flood of questions.  All I know is that at this point hip hop is my favorite genre of music, and that's where it stays.  I respect hip hop.  And apparently it shows.

A guy yesterday, while I was waiting for an elevator, looked at me and said, "Ya down wit da Wu-Tang?"  I was distracted, on the phone when he was trying to talk to me, but after I hung up I turned to him and asked, "Why did you ask me that?"  He smiled, and said "You look like you's down wit da Wu-Tang." I nodded my head in the affirmative fashion, slowly.  And now, I'm thinking instead of trying so hard to define this relationship right now, I should just learn more about it, grow in it.  I can't force the understanding to come, no matter how hard I might try.  In any case, yeah, I'm down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m148vZDwJA