I am in the beginning stages of converting this blog into more of a website. I will be deleting this blog after I complete the change. It's under a similar but different name. Take a look:
....The ocean instills a sense of safety, with its flat horizon that allows humans to spot. Any oncoming threats such as lions or warriors, an unlimited supply of water that's so essential to life.
To the evolving mind, it's the cleanest savanna ever experienced.
There's no lack of clarity that we came from the ocean. 70% of my body is salt water. My brain is bathed in salt water. Even Neurons fire because of salt level changes in the brain.
"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."
-W.W.
It has been a dream of mine to be a traveling artist, sketching as I go, trading, and giving away work. I have been planning a bicycle/surf trip down the California Coast and beyond. I am hoping to use this opportunity to sketch on the road, exploring methods of recording and engaging with my surroundings via drawing. Stay tuned for blog updates or a link to a separate blog about this trip!
This was about two weeks of day and night drawing, erasing, drawing, erasing, etc. It is a beginners/rough cut but I enjoyed the process of learning how stop motion works. It takes some patience, letting go, and attention to detail. I recommend the experience!
Monday, December 9, 2013
This is a portrait of a Shipibo woman I met while studying in the Amazon. I tried combining photos I took with pastel illustration. This was done in response to my questions about traveling as an observer, student, artist, and foreigner.
In
Tim Cresswell's book, Defining Place: A
Short Introduction,
he explains that places are “made, maintained, and contested” out
of landscapes and spaces. Cresswell explains places as a pause
in space.
This resonated for me; making place is a subjective action, it is a
way of looking at the world, a perspective as well as a physical
object. Place became a defining basis to look at the relationships
between local and global, familiar and unfamiliar, known and unknown
as undercurrents of my motivations to travel. (This is an excerpt from an artist statement I wrote in college).
Sunday, October 6, 2013
More from the sketchbook:
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Saturday, October 5, 2013
Sketchbook:
Thoreau
Thursday, September 5, 2013
A study on barnacles
I
began drawing barnacles. Barnacles. Those stubborn oceanic organisms
that cover rocks on the shore, attach themselves to sharks and
plastic bottles floating through the ocean. Barnacles, the
crustaceans that compete for space and resist displacement. I think
of the relationship between traveling and identity as a positioning,
the pull of place, and the construction of the foreign. Barnacles
wash up on shore attached to pieces of drifting material. In their
mobile stage of life they are looking for potential places to be
mapped and named as home. They are not only signifying in themselves
but in what they attach to and how. I am experimenting with the relationship between barnacles, movement and
absence, found materials, and the variables of travel. Ulrich
Williams comments on the work of On Kawara, "...movement and
change are functions of our awareness of time, an awareness shaped by
a sequence of events determined either by ourselves or by external
circumstances."
(Excerpt from artist statement).
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Some Sketches
She had a tightrope walker's feel for the land beneath her. It's surface tension, the give and take of things.
-Tim O'Brien
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Thanks for all who came out to make it another successful First Friday!
Eleboard
Paint Pens on Surfboard
Eleboard Draft
Monday, April 15, 2013
And the animals continue...
Killer Whale + Panda = Killer Panda
Special thanks for this animal combination suggestion at First Friday!
Sunday, April 7, 2013
past works:
Locked and Loaded
Washing Away
If anyone needs some inspiration or just wants to check out some rad ideas here it is:
Thank you everyone for stopping by at First Friday! I was very excited to see such enthusiasm! As for the wonderful double-animal suggestions I'll be posting them soon...so stay tuned! Please post any others you would like to see. Until next First Friday...Cheers.