Just FYI, I'm not getting much of anything done/online much at the moment because my laptop got stolen a week and a half ago. Yay. Life is cruel.

That means I officially only have one painting of Tom left unfinished, because the others are no longer with us. Also missing at least three unrelated painting and a lot of work for my blog/book/business and my resume and some stupid writing stuff AND my tablet.

My life was practically breaking laws of physics with its awesome; something had to give, right?

So, in case you haven't heard. I met Tom Smith this Friday.


I have one massive painting that just needs a few hours more, and then I'm done. I'll probably draw him occasionally, just because it's easy. But I'm not doing any more projects or studies.

I had expected that seeing him in real life would give me new information, or potentially raise new issues. But I only saw exactly what I already know. I can't necessarily draw it all completely right, but everything I know empirically was proven correct. There's still mysteries to be solved, just not with this man's face.

Also, he's a real person.

I have a variety of general problems with my art to solve. So I'm putting all my passion into my blog and future portrait/face mapping business. YourFaceisPretty.com

Tis a resource for other people who are interested in portrait art. Or the artistic process. Or are Alfi stalkers or friends. Mostly the last one and mostly the latter at the moment. I'd be okay with a couple kind of chill, non-aggressive stalkers, though. I'll be taking applications for the role until the twentieth.

I just missed two posts while I was up in Seattle for Editors' concert, but I'll catch up tomorrow and we'll get the businessy part up within the week. Mondays and Fridays. Yes. Shameless plugging.

First off. I'm trying to blog my discoveries of the face and The Pretty. Ulitmately, I want to write some sort of artist companion book. Not a how-to. I'm not that good. But a sort of publications of my discoveries, in a way that would have helped the me of five years ago. I'm not very good at sticking with things though. (Exceptions: Tom, theater). But there are enough times when I feel the need to monologue about faces, I think this might eventually work.

Point being, it's total Bull, and it makes no sense but if you want it here: [link]

I need to force myself to post once a day. About SOMETHING.

I LOVE technology. Any one else noticed how youtube videos are suddenly WAY better quality?
Well they are! I stumbled on one of those profession videos of an Editors show, and OH MY GOD CLOSE UP SHOTS! And near normal light! Ambers and pinks with a little blue. BEAUTIFUL LIGHTING.

I could not believe how much of the little details I got right! It's kind of terrifying.

I'm working on putting together some reference for some sort of smallish, but super grand painting for Editors. They give me music, I want to give them pretty. I'll meet them or die trying.

I took like a million screen shots (I now have 240 references of Tom D for you Editors fans (because I know at least some of you people who are watching me, are in in for fangasms ), some highlights:

[link] -- Ed. This is so getting painted. Love the shadow down the face.
[link] -- Russ. Fun angle, and I LOVE back lighting.
[link] -- Tom. Now imagine this, in oils, and ten times better quality. This'll definitely be a contender as a reference for whatever I'm painting for them.
[link] -- I think I had a heart attack when I saw this shot and the frames that followed. SO MANY QUESTIONS ANSWERED! Now if I could only see the other eye... it's funny. I think I have twice as much information about the left side of his face as his right.
[link] -- Call me creepy, but there's more info on his lower lip in one second of this video than in every picture I've painted combined. I've been guessing on texture and such this whole time.

That's all I've got. The end.

I would have liked to do something really awesome for November twenty-somethingth, the day I first watched An End Has a Start and started scribbling Tom, but really epic stuff takes even longer than before.

You know what's sad? I've got this really lovely painting I'm working on, but since it's in the proper resolution for printing, the resulting image will be--get this--FOUR BY THREE INCHES. The bloody thing is twice the size of my screen, but it only prints as a half sheet.

D: GAD.

I was talking to my friend's father about this. Rather, I mentioned it, and he talked at me. He said I needed to do vectors, so it could get super big without getting pixelly. I resisted, because I kind of hate vector art. It's just tracing with uber tools that fix everything and make everything look plastic. And edges aren't always crisp and perfect. I know there's blur functions and such, but they still look so... planned.

Anyway, I decided to try it anyway. Because... why not? So I'm trying out Illustrator. I'm not really digging it. On the one hand, it makes everything look really crisp and intentional. On the other hand, the computer's doing ALL of the work. Pressure sensitivity's out the window. It smooths all my edges out automatically, so any small about of variation in stroke quality I had is out the window. You can't even see the difference between touchpad and tablet. And it doesn't have just a simple little 1 pixel brush. Fucking calligraphy brushes is all. And untapered round things. Okay, probably, I'm just not seeing it.

Mostly, I need control over line weight. And I don't want to have to go through twenty menus to get there.

I do not think vectors are the path to The Pretty. But eh, if I can get this up and running, it might be the path to making some cash off some of this.

Four common, legit (ie, not just me ragging on chibis), tricks people do use in art that don't sit well with me. I'm not judging the effect as bad, I'm totally down with the use of all these. I'm just learning what's aesthetically pleasing to me.

4.
Specific desaturated areas with bright spots of isolated color.
I'm mostly thinking of the photo manip technique. I use a hell of a lot of black and white myself. But separating just the lips, for instance, looks odd to me. It feels broken and full of edges.

3.
Poetry in paintings.
I use a bit of this myself. On occasion when I'm just watercoloring my heart out. But in the end, when I'm looking at stuff in galleries, I never feel very drawn to things that scream in words. I want a slower build in tension than just a single scream of what the picture is about. I'm down with it. But I don't really -like- it.

2.
Intentionally shoddy craftman-ship.
There's a point where stylization and that kitschy thrown-together look... gets really old. I've been seeing a lot of plush sculptures around town lately. Most of them look like a good strong tug would pop those sloppy stitches. My inner techie says it wants things to look secure. Or at least... intentionally fragile. If that's what your going for. It's like having a piece of broken glass on stage. It makes me nervous.

1.
Fish-eye lenses.
Why? One. Distortion. Two. It's all up-in-my-face-ish and invading my happy bubble. Fish-eye lenses feel like molestation of puppies.