Goals/Projects/Etc. in 2010

Currently working on:

• Memoirs Writing Class (Writing the story for issue #1 of "Geli Girl" later to be illustrated.)
• Putting together and laying out all the notes, sketches, etc. that I've been making for "Geli Girl" since 2005.
• Trying to learn, discover, re-fine illustration techniques for comic illustrations. (Trying to learn how to work bigger, shrink it down to size, scan and clean up on the computer... etc. In my last three comics I drew the originals on 8 1/2 by 11 watercolor paper. I then xeroxed those to make copies. I would then feed those copies into the xerox machine to make a booklet. Then end product is the comic.)

Goals/Projects/Etc.:

• Using my AmeriCorps Education Award for Summer or Fall Continuing Education Classes at College for Creative Studies. (Still contemplating whether to go for the Web Design/Graphic Design Dual Certificate or to take classes that will further enrich how to do graphic novel/comic book work.)
• Illustration project/collaboration with a singer/songwriter that will come out in September. It's a book of haunted stories! (Details TBA.)
• Still being discussed, but I might be illustrating a book of Armenian tall tales.
• Apply for Xeric Grant at the end of the year.
• Finish Geli Girl.
• Find a publisher.

Shows coming up:

• The Woods Gallery in Huntington Woods (Nov. 19-Dec. 28, 2010.)

Trying to find the means to afford:

• new, updated business cards
• new pens, brushes, and nibs (my old pen & nibs are worn out)
• new ink (b+w, colored)
• drawing paper for comics
• renew host for website in July

Self-Portrait 2010 in Progress.

After having not created a self-portrait since my freshman year as an undergrad in art school (1998), I picked up my drawing materials last summer and began the ritual of having to do a new self-portrait/s every year.

Recently, I was invited to Allison Graw's "Art Party" where every month other kindred souls got together in The Graws basement to do whatever your creative heart desires. Bring your own stuff to work on or use whatever supplies that are on hand at the art party (acrylic paints, papers, thrift store artwork to paint over, pieces of wood, etc.)

I decided that at these art parties I will do this year's self-portrait. I chose a picture with a frame from a thrift store to draw over.

I started sketching out with pen, and then crayons...

I am liking the background colors from the original picture on my drawing...but after an hour and a half, being hungry and now wanting my own art supplies (since I was using Allison's) called it quits for this session.

During next month's session I plan to continue working on this with arcylic paints. I need to paint over that little splotch over the nose... make it bold, create texture...

I'm looking forward to seeing how this will turn out.

Some of the work created at the art party, lined up:

On a side note, a girl named Sadie who is currently on a huge mimosa kick, brought a bottle of champagne to share. I am grateful for the mimosa and to meet this group of wonderful individuals.

Simone Weil on "Beauty" from "Gravity & Grace."

Every other year around this time I pick up my favorite book "Gravity & Grace" by Simone Weil to meditate on.

Excerpts that I have been reflecting on from her essay "Beauty":

"Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right to the soul."

"A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is essentially anonymous about it. It imiates the anonymity of divine art. In the same way the beauty of the world proves there to be a God who is personal and impersonal at the same time, and is neither the one nor the other seperately.

The beautiful is a carnal attraction which keeps us at a distance and implies a renunciation. This includes the renunciation of what which is most deep-seated, the imagination. We want to eat all the other objects of desire. The beautiful is that which we desire without wishing to eat it. We desire that it should be.

We have to remain quite still and unite ourselves with that which we desire yet do not approach.

We unite ourselves to God in this way: We cannot approach him.

Distance is the soul of the beautiful.

Beauty is a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it.

The same with an affliction which we contemplate without drawing back.

A double movement of descent: to do again, out of love, what gravity does. Is not the double movement of descent the key to all art?*

This movement of descent, the mirror of grace, is the essence of all music. All the rest only serves to enshrine it.

The rising of the notes is a purely sensorial rising. The descent is at the same time a sensorial descent and a spiritual rising. Here we have the paradise which every being longs for: where the slope of nature makes us rise toward the good."

[*Descendit ad inferos....So, in another order, great art redeems gravity by espousing it out of love (Editor's note).]

Corkboard Notes (Inspiration, Encouragement, & Influences) PART 2

In continuation from my "corkboard post" last February... additions to the corkboards:

[click for larger view]

1. Ingrid's card for my 30th birthday.
2. Art Detroit Now's area gallery map & guide. Now living here for a little over a year now, it's time to see what's out there for me.
3. Program from David Kovac's "Fooling Buddha." David is both one of my favorite performers and people to talk to. I never walk away from him without feeling encouraged and inspired. Our mutual friend, Sandy had sent me a Christmas package with this program added to it. Inside is a personal note from David to me:
   
   
   
   
4. A notecard from Cristalynn. I haven't seen Cristalynn in over ten years. She and I went took art classes together in high school and in an impromptu reunion re-connected and discovered that we are leading parallel lives; being in transition living back with our families after being independent for 10 years, turning 30, and coping with the autoimmune disease lupus.
5. Again, my favorite picture of Lynda Barry working at her table.
6. An illustration that my friend Lisa drew of me drawing.
7. Ingrid's Christmas card featuring her cats (grrr...) and Kingston. (Grr... was in reaction that I don't like cats much, but I keep this card up, because Kingston cares for me.)
8. Jack Lipman. The first baby born of my close group of friends from high school.
9. A list of restaurants that my rheumatologist "prescribed" to me. Actually most of our conversations (after finishing up medical stuff) revolve around food and art. I find it amusing that he is also a foodie and started jotting down all these restaurants I have to try in the metro Detroit area.
10. The Night Move schedule. Good if you want to get crunk barhopping in Ferndale, Royal Oak, and Detroit. (Now that I no longer live in Chicago with all it's public transit and cabs; You shouldn't be driving drunk, Missy.)
11. Card my sister gave to me for my 30th birthday, created by artist, Ida Pearle. Beautiful.
12. Card created by Dawn Wheat that my friend Cathy sent me. Both close and dear friends of mine.
13. Card that my friend Roman designed and gave to me at my art reception last July.
14. Personal autograph from Food Network star and fellow foodie, Sunny Anderson. (Because I'm a Food Network geek.)

Another work-in-progress:

Penelope's process/medium/info.

Trying to challenge myself with watercolor pencils. It's strange. When I draw I like to draw at a more smaller scale. But when I paint, I need more movement. I want to paint on a bigger surface/canvas. I need to freedom of movement when I paint.

So this is new, to sort of combine the two. Still feeling it out and seeing how I like (or dislike) this medium.

Notes to Self: Tuesday, 03 November 09

I don't work in color as much as I used to, so it's taking a lot of time really getting used to it. It still feels natural, but I can feel myself rushing too much. I'm used to illustrating in black and white, and because I do it in such a sketchy style, because of the energy I feel when I draw, I find myself being too impatient with working in color again.

I'm trying to do these new pieces in one week. So, I'm not giving each piece the time it deserves; the focus and attention and thought it needs. But also, knowing my ways, I'm sure it will come out fine. But I know for future work, color needs more patience from me. It really needs to be lived out like my black and white stuff; but in a different way.

I added some colored pencils, went over it with more white ink and black ballpoint pen. I'm still not satisfied. Don't think it's one of my favorites. I guess I will give it a rest, work on another piece and come back to this one later this week. I can't quite figure out what's bugging me about this and why I can't turn it around to make it work for me.

Here are three images of a work-in-progress that I am trying to illustrate of a street corner scene in Detroit, Michigan.

Done so far in watercolor pencils, white watercolor paint, pen & black ink, white ink... I'm going to play some more with the white ink and colored pencils... see if I should later define some lines with a ball point pen or leave as is:

Another music video that inspires me to draw.

Had to change my workspace set up because the bugs are back.

Hopefully I can do at least one new painting before the end of 2009.

Today I prepared my workspace for a new painting series:

Color Experiment/Exercise

I just had an idea. (It's 3:16 a.m. as I write this.) Maybe just to get back into painting and drawing in color again I will take a simple photo of something or someone for reference. I will draw this image in pen and ink (black india ink.) Then make 5 xerox copies of this drawing.

With these five copies I will color one each in:

1. watercolor paint.
2. acrylic paint.
3. prismacolor pencils.
4. prismacolor markers.
5. crayons.

Just to get the flow, feel, and texture, etc. of each medium.

in color

My heart has been urging for me to paint and draw in color again. I already know exactly what I want to paint. But I will have to wait patiently, until I have income again to buy the art materials.

Before I moved back to Michigan last year, I was visiting one of my fave coffee shops, Beans & Bagels (Montrose location.) A local Chicago artist, Alice DuBois was displaying some of her artwork there. I really liked what she had to show and was going to buy one of her pieces, since she sells her artwork really cheap. But I have always been broke since I inquired her about the particular piece that I wanted to buy, which was like 40 or 60 something dollars.

I've been keeping track of her flickr and on her mailing list. I just wanted to post this image of her "corner of inspiration" that she has in her flickr account.

One of my favorite things to look at are pictures of other artist's desks, working spaces, art studios, offices, etc.:

An encouraging and heartwarming e-mail from David Kovac in regards to my surgery & artwork:

Hi, Angel.

Thanks for your message. I certainly wish you a swift and complete recovery. Healing, I have read, is really the only form of magic that comes entirely from within us. (As opposed to powers that move through us, but are not originally "of us.") Indeed, we missed you at The Magic Cabaret his past week. Sandy and Jen seem very cool. I'm meeting all kinds of people who know you, apparently. Popular you!

So. I just printed out a copy of your drawing (the one of you holing a pen and writing, with you in full view) and taped it to my office wall here in my U.V. apartment. Thanks for your work, Angel. Keep going. Sometimes I imagine drawings, like dreams, are bridges we build between the Earth and the Heavens.

Your Fellow Traveller,
DSK.

Illustrated Works

Click to see pictures from the opening art reception.





Click to see pictures from the exhibit at The Woods Gallery.

On Beauty and Being Just

Taken from the first page of Elaine Scarry's "On Beauty and Being Just":

What is the felt experience of cognition at the moment one stands in the presence of a beautiful boy or flower or bird? It seems to incite, even to require, the act of replication. Wittengenstein says that when the eye sees something beautiful, the hand wants to draw it.

Beauty brings copies of itself into being. It makes us draw it, take photographs of it, or describe it to other people. Sometimes it gives rise to exact replications and other times to resemblances and still other times to things whose connection to the original site of inspiration is unrecognizable.