‘I’m a simple man. I like pretty, dark-haired women and breakfast food’.

For my Alex Katz styled painting I painted Ron Swanson and me dress as Ron Swanson because Ron Swanson is awesome. To make the painting Alex Katz styled I made it very simple; less shades of colors not nearly as much detail as I would normally put into a painting. I also used a large canvas and didn't spend too much time on it. To be honest Alex Katz is not my favorite painter, I think he's okay, but not my favorite. However, I did enjoy painting this because it was Ron Swanson related.

Here is some photos of my process:

Ron Swanson's face.

here I am. My hair is too big but I don't feel like doing anything about that.

Bring on the breakfast foods.

And this is as much as I will work on it.

"Just give me all the bacon and eggs you have. Wait, wait. I'm worried what you just heard was, 'Give me a lot of bacon and eggs.' What I said was, 'Give me all the bacon and eggs you have.' Do you understand?"

 -Ron Swanson

The Fall.

What I got from it was, how important telling stories and imagination is. Throughout the story, Roy and Alexandria created a bond, and in the end you might even be able to say that the story saved Roy's life. Also how you have the ability to change things (to a certain extent). During the story we see Alexandria putting little changes like making the Red Bandit to be Roy, putting herself in the story, and even saving Roy/ the Red Bandit from killing himself. This also can relate to how the film was being made. When Catinca Untaru made the mistake of reading the 'e' in morphine as a 3, Tarsem Singh used that and put it into the film, changing the plot.


I really liked The Fall. I wasn't bored at all. I thought Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, and the rest of the cast's performance was great and the whole movie was visually beautiful. So beautiful I wanted to paint or draw fan art about it.

Alex Katz (the painter).

Here are some pertinent facts about Alex Katz that I found around the internet (mostly wikipedia. I trust wikipedia. I know I shouldn't. But I do.)


- Katz has admitted to destroying a thousand paintings during his first
ten years as a painter in order to find his style.-he tried to paint “faster than [he] can think.” interesting because I took a lot of time thinking on those last few paintings I did.-got inspiration from kitagawa utamaro
-influenced by films, television, and billboard advertising, Katz began
painting large-scale paintings, often with dramatically cropped faces-After 1964, Katz increasingly portrayed groups of figures. He would
continue painting these complex groups into the 1970s, portraying the
social world of painters, poets, critics, and other colleagues that
surrounded him.-In 1977, Alex Katz was asked to create a work to be produced in
billboard format above Times Square, New York City. The work, which was
located at 42nd Street and 7th Avenue, consisted of a frieze composed
of 23 portrait heads of women. Each portrait measured twenty feet high,
and was based on a study Katz did from life. The billboard extended 247
feet long along two sides of the RKO General building and wrapped in
thee tiers above on a 60-foot tower. Katz was commissioned in 1980 by
the US General Service Administration's Art in Architecture Program to
create an oil on canvas mural in the new United States Attorney’s
Building at Foley Square, New York City. The mural, located inside the
Silvio V. Mollo Building at Cardinal Hayes Place & Park Row, is 20 feet
high by 20 feet wide-Katz attended Woodrow Wilson High School for its unique program that
allowed him to devote his mornings to academics and his afternoons to
the arts. That reminds me of STAC.

Some useful technical info
-To make one of his large works, Katz paints a small oil sketch of a
subject on a masonite board; the sitting might take an hour and a half.
He then makes a small, detailed drawing in pencil or charcoal, with the
subject returning, perhaps, for the artist to make corrections. Katz
next blows up the drawing into a "cartoon," sometimes using an overhead
projector, and transfers it to an enormous canvas via "pouncing"—a
technique used by Renaissance artists, involving powdered pigment
pushed through tiny perforations pricked into the cartoon to recreate
the composition on the surface to be painted. Katz pre-mixes all his
colors and gets his brushes ready. Then he dives in and paints the
canvas—12 feet wide by 7 feet high or even larger—in a session of six
or seven hours.


His style is very simple, but you can still tell who that person is. When I mean simple, I mean he doesn't use too many different shades of colors and details. I noticed a lot of bright colors. He also paints on a very large scale, which is why I will be painting on a huge canvas. I don't think I've ever worked on a painting this big (not including any sets I've painted). Alex Katz Also paints celebrities, like I will for my School of Katz painting. I paint celebrities a lot because it makes me more of a perfectionist about it. Of course being a perfectionist can get unhealthy, but it can also push me a lot to do better, and to make things right. If I mess up how a stranger looks in a painting, I wouldn't be as upset about as I would if it were somebody I know of. I've said it before but I don't want to put them to shame. This makes me work harder.

Not sure where, but I feel like I have seen this painting before. I'm pretty sure I've seen  a few Katz paintings in person before. It is of his son Vincent.

I think this one is my favorite. Not quite sure why.

I like the lines on the glasses here.

qvestions

PART ONE

1) You've worked on a group film and on your own. In which situation are you most comfortable - group or solo? Which do you work best in?
I think I'm more comfortable by myself but I do like to do group projects too. I like working groups because  it can have lots of cool ideas that come together, or it makes the workload easier. If you are in a good group, everything is a lot of fun and you can get a lot done. If the group isn't so good it can take forever to get things done and be extremely frustrating. I think I like working with myself because in most situations I get things done faster and I have control of what I want to do for the most part.


Both are good though.

 2) What did you learn that you expected to learn?
A lot of what I did was more for practice and getting myself back into painting. I had moment where I had to re-teach myself how to paint with oils. I did learn a little bit more about mixing colors.

3) What did you learn that you didn't expect to learn?  
I learned how hard it is to work with colors (especially skin tones) in comparison to doing a painting in Payne's Gray and Zinc White. I also learned that with paints a lot of the time it doesn't come together right away you have to build up all the colors and stuff before it really looks like something or good.

4) What didn't you learn that you expected to learn?
To be honest I didn't have too many expectations, or plans for learning that week. I wanted to get some paintings done. So I did that.

 5) Praise your amazing achievement and explain your brilliant plan for pulling it off.
These paintings are so good you can even hang them on the ceiling because it will be the first thing you will want to see when you wake up. If you need a self confidence boost get rid of all the mirrors in your house and replace them with these paintings so when you go to look at the mirror you will be like "DAYUM I LOOK GOOD" when it really just my painting and you should probably brush you hair.
My brilliant plan was to focus on not only accuracy on drawing, proportions, and on colors, and shades. I used my time wisely and paced myself so these paintings could be as fabulous as they are.

PART TWO


1) How much time did you spend working?
I spent all my time in STAC and even spent time at home working on it (thankfully that week I didn't have too much homework).

2) How much time did you spend thinking about the work - sort of sitting there and staring at it, or listening to it over and over again, etc.?
It was different for each painting. The first one I barely did that in comparison to the second and third painting. This happened the most with the second painting because I didn't know when to call the painting 'finished'. I spent a lot of time looking at it trying to find more to do with it but I couldn't find anything so I called it done.

3) How much time did you spend doing other stuff that seems like work to that make you think you're working but you're not?
Again with the second painting I did that when I wasn't sure what else to work on. I would add very minuscule details in hopes it will change how it looks so it feels done but it really didn't do anything.

4) How much time did you spend socializing?
I talked while I worked. I don't think it really got in the way of getting my work done.

5) How did you use your community?
People passing by telling me what they liked about gave me some justification.
Caitlin spent a lot time last year learning how to mix paints so she helped out with that, and she would tell me what looked weird or what I should fix. It's helpful because sometimes I don't see my mistakes right away.

6) Rip apart your awful project and how did such a disaster happen?
Oh god, the colors just look awful, a child could probably do better. It doesn't even look like the reference photos, if I stepped in paint and kicked a canvas it would probably look better than the paintings I did this week. A lot of it looks sloppy and not proportionate. The skin tones make the person look very ill or dead. I put shame to the people the paintings are of.   

7) You've completed a step on your path. What is your next step?
Try to figure out what I can do to improve and make what I'm doing come easier and look nicer.

Intentions.

After only using, pencil, charcoal, conte crayons, ink, and my digital art tablet over the past few months I decided to dedicate this week to work on my oil painting skills. For the first painting of Cillian Murphy I only used Payne's Gray and Zinc White oil paints to get comfortable with using the paints again. I chose that picture because of the good shapes and shades. Also because Cillian Murphy is my favorite actor. The second painting of Gerard Way to work on painting with more colors, learning to control the colors. I liked some of the shadows on his face in the picture so that is why I chose to paint that. Gerard Way is one of my favorite people but I don't draw/paint him often so I wanted to do that. Last one of the sad old woman was also for working on colors, mainly the skin tones which I have the most difficulty with. I got the picture of the old woman on google images (no she is not my grandma). It was a nice picture with good skin tones.

Overall this was for the sake of doing something I haven't been able to work on for a while, in hopes of learning and improvement.

Today I tried working on the painting I started yesterday. I mixed up some colors did little details but nothing too drastic, it pretty much looks the same as it did yesterday. I eventually didn't know what else to do but I still felt like I needed to work on. I didn't know where to stop. I spent a lot of time looking at it wanting to find something I could do to make it better but I eventually couldn't and had to call it finished.

I think tomorrow I'm painting an older person.

I don't appreciate the colors at the moment.

So today was much harder than yesterday for me. Maybe I have my days mixed up and today's blog post is about problems and yesterday's about inspiration.

What happened that was different from yesterday was instead if just using Payne's Gray and Zinc White I used a whole lot of colors.  I ran into a lot problems with mixing the colors to match the reference picture (it was Gerard Way today). It was aggravating having it not come together right away, I had to build up colors and colors and colors for it to kinda look human and somewhat like the picture. I even got to the point where I was so fed up with it I washed it all off and started over again (I have never done that before). I barely got anything done by the time school was over. Thankfully I didn't have too much homework and spent some time working on it more at home while catching up with my dvr (mostly The Graham Norton Show).

I don't think it really looks like the picture but it is better than it was before so I'm glad about that.

 I think I'll work on it more tomorrow.

So today I started painting for what seems to be months. It's strange but I had the issue that I forgot where to start. I slowly started getting into it, starting with a background or base color, and then everything came back to it's normal pace. Like I said in my last post painting people I respect is somewhat intimidating to be and also causes me to become more of a perfectionist. However I do my best to not let that stop me.

Today I did/started a painting of my favorite actor, Cillian Murphy

the lights in the room made it look kinda different and the camera kinda sucks but I don't know if I want to work on it more. I was just working on it. It started aggravating me, but I'm hoping I'll like it if I look at it later.

 I've seen him do many different roles (even playing a woman in a few) and each one he does very well. I also think it is kinda cool how he avoids the typical 'famous person' life style and rarely talks about his personal life in interviews. I'm not quite sure why I respect that so much. Maybe it is because it gives me the sense that he does acting just for acting not really for any of the other benefits. Watch movies he is in. He is great.

I painted him today because he's my favorite actor and because the picture had a lot of distinct shapes due to his intense cheekbones.

I'm going to have to decide if I'm going to keep working on this tomorrow or start a new painting.

Intention?

I intend on working on my oil paintings skills this week. I have not painted since last year in STAC due to the  fact I have mostly worked with pencil, charcoal, and conte crayons at FIT. I think I'll paint people I'm intimidated to paint. I get this thing when I draw/paint certain people that I respect that person so much that I get intimidated drawing them because in my mind if they happen to come out poorly that I have disrespected their greatness and I am a shame.



This could be the Sunday night anxiety talking but I fear that by painting I am not stepping out of any boundaries and I'm playing everything same. Yet I feel that is the best idea I can come up with by tomorrow. I have the constant feeling that everything I am doing is somehow wrong. Even if it isn't wrong know maybe a year from now it will be and I will want to punch past Sarah in the face. I am really trying to stray from these thoughts and search for my own ataraxia (Ataraxia is my new favorite word. Well maybe it is a tie with the word scooter. Not sure yet.).

7 questions.

First week of STAC. Glad to see all your lovely faces old and new. I still feel like I don't know all the newbies because I have been filming but I'm sure I'll get to that soon.
On to the 7 questions! Please excuse the highlighting I can't undo it for some reason.


1. What is the first creative moment you remember?

I'm not exactly sure what age I was but I remember dancing and singing some jibberish or something prancing around the room in costumes because my parent would play music. Mostly classic rock. The first song I ever knew the title to was 'Money' by Pink Floyd from the money sounds in the beginning. The concept of guessing song titles this way became rather tricky when I came across Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco. Sometimes when my cousin came over we would use Twizzlers as microphones and sing N'SYNC songs (we had a low budget). 

I don't remember when I started drawing. It was just something I've always done. I used to keep little notebooks and make up my own little creatures and stuff. 

2. Was anyone there to appreciate it?

My parents were. I don't think my younger sister was alive to bother me yet so I think just them and probably any friends and family we had over.

3. What is the best idea you've ever had?

I think my best idea was that I never stop drawing. Some kids play with paints and crayons when they are little and they little and for some reason just stop. Maybe it is because they eventually say 'Oh I can't draw' (I hate when people tell me this. It isn't that you can't draw. You just don't draw enough). Maybe their parents pushed them into soccer or something I don't know. 

Also this week I bought a horse mask and I feel it is one of the best purchases I have made  

4. What made it  great in your mind?

If I stopped drawing my life would be so different in ways I don't want to imagine. If I never stopped drawing I may have not been in STAC. If was never in STAC I may not be friends with the people I am friends with today and school would be so much more depressing and boring.

5. What is the dumbest idea?

One time when I was younger I was at my cousin's house and I thought it would be an excellent idea to dance to ABBA's 'Dancing Queen' on swivel chairs and of course I fell off and broke the two bones going into my wrist. This is the same cousin I would perform N'SYNC with.

6. What made it stupid?

A better question would be what did not make that stupid. Don't dance on swivel chairs. I know that sounds like a really fun time. It will be a bad time.  

7. Can you connect the dots that led you to this idea?

We are giggly children that did dumb things like that all the time.