The Hideous Portrait: An Artistic Journey,
warts and all.

And here we are ladies and gentlemen: After a very productive day, I feel, completely useless. I feel as if I haven't done anything worthwhile, neither in terms of quality neither in that of quantity. It doesn't matter that I tried hard, it was a difficult painting topic, I did my best and sacrificed all my free time. Nope. What matters is that Today I just did a meager single painting (and even that was cut early) and not 4 or more like yesterday. It's very disappointing. Very disappointing this tendency to transform every fluke into a flag to be upheld. Drawing two days in a row translating into "I need to draw every day or I'm nothing" and doing two pieces in one day translation into "I need to paint two pieces every day or I'm nothing". I feel tired. I feel angry, at myself. At least I can see that whatever the mechanism, I really would like to be able to paint more. That much I can tell. Up to that point, there is a purity, innocence. I, wou

What an unbalanced day! It was day off and was in desparate need of going out for a coffee or walk. Eventually I gave up. As the day progressed I picked up my iPad and started drawing and I was in one of those rare moods that I'd rather paint/draw that socialize. I painted until I could no more and then I stopped. A few hours later, my desire to paint returned, so I picked up my (el cheapo) sketchbook and did two pieces. Results-wise, it's been one of the most satisfying day; I tried to pull horses from memory (has been more than 25 years when I last studied horse anatomy) but turned interestingly fine (not necessarily correct anatomically, but well enough that you get the likeness of a horse). What I'm most proud of today, I painting scenes, ie. narrative. A reinterpretation of Frank Frazetta's Moon Maiden & the Centaur, A scene at the amusement park (I love the way the couple is holding one another -there is some tension), various animals... I chaind princess and

Today, I feel productive. Or prolific, whatever. I stopped painting only because my back hurt. I was so in the moment, full of tension (be it excitement or stress, they smell the same in the beginning) and had to stop.  It's not uncommon and I'm not sure if it's psychosomatic or a physical ailment. In any case, I'm happy with what I did today. First of all, I did an imaginary landscape with shades of red and a bit of of colors. Towards the end, I tried bringing some more definition to the trees on the left, and I fell into my typical bane - The last few strokes, trowing the piece out of balance. Suddenly I had off-center elements with much finer detail. I had to even it out, to save what I can. I added the tress and scrubs only for that reason. This ruined my desert landscape. Still, it's okay. I love the sky being darker that the highlight on the mountains (though in theory it can't be so). I like the mountains, and the foreground rock formation. Though I feel

Today I started early doing some postures. I don't feel too well with my postures; they feel very stiff. Especially the female bodies. Nonetheless by the second sheet, I had some interesting outcomes - for a start beautiful female faces, always welcome. Then, a horserider, a chinese princess and a guy peeing. The second sheet, unlike the fist, has lots of interesting stuff. I feel I need to put more time studying postures from life... Then again, I'm divided between two different approaches in painting: a) what comes naturally and is easy (for instance imaginary landscapes using a paintbrush) and b) what I want to be able to draw/paint (ie humans, vehicles, realism etc). It's the choice between doing something beautiful and pleasant, yet not what you wish (consciously) to say and on the other hand that which you wish to say, but comes out stiff and most time after effort.

Today has been a productive day; In the afternoon at the park I had a few minutes to doodle with my favorite brush-control show-off. Later a crowd gathered for some open-air covid19esque union meeting, whereas other people were training in the stadium and I had the opportunity to do some figure studies from afar. I am particularly happy about the one group of people with the adults and the children sitting together; I like the postures of each of them, and the fact that there is a narrative in it too; it's not just random characters drawn one next to the other. Later in the evening I decided to paint a bit more since I could feel a measure of inspiration inside of me. My acceptance-seeking side decided to combine two things that feel easy and thus safe (and have earned myself some little praise): Alien landscapes. Part alien landscapes, part brush-control, part notan/high-contrast/noir/Chiaroscuro whatever you call it. It was very fun. VERY FUN. Creating a world, and depth by orig

I'm starting to get pissed off with my sleep issues. Some days I don't have the patience to sit and do a self-portrait when I'm sleepless. Come to think about it, I feel I've created another commitment for myself here. And this one too, is perpetual. Luckily I wasn't very strict with enforcing it in the beginning so I have those early morning that instead of painting a self-portrait I would journal or (like a couple days ago) I would doodle - automatic drawing. I should had done that today too; but I felt the guilt (is it truly guilt? or is it some other feeling? perhaps, fear!) that since I had already skipped last time's portrait, I was starting to steer away from "the commitment" of doing self-portraits and only self-portraits when I can't sleep. As if there is some rule on rationality to it. Anyway. I played quite a bit with the brush engine of Procreate and finally started a colored value sketch (aka rough painting) when I was ready to try sle

Yesterday I've spent some time reading and watching youtube videos about Frank Frazetta and remembered my love for loose paintings where not every detail is fleshed out. Today I had all this energy and motivation to pickup my oils again (after 17 years of literally not having checked whether the tubes haven't dried out) just to play with (soft/hard) edge control and loose brushwork. I could fell my body vibrating with the energy/desire. I have a very specific memory of such occurrences: The aftertaste is usually bitter disappointment where I realized it just won't come out of me. And even when it does (rare but happens) the excitement gets bigger and usually the next day, I hit the wall again and this hurts even more. I was scared anyways. In the end, I picked up my iPad and tried to do some hard/soft edge automatic drawing stuff; and while it wasn't completely automatic (I was exploring shading/volume) it turned out interesting. I have the bitter disappointment taste,

Yesterday I watched a video on Proko's youtube channel where he was interviewing a comics artists who apparently was important; I didn't know him, but I knew Kirby and Moebius, and he had worked with both. And he introduced an drawing/painting meditative/relaxing exercise that Moebius would practice: You empty your mind, and allow doodly forms to come out of it. Day and day again, and this is highly creative. I liked the idea since it promide unwinding, non-judgement, and more creativity and thought I should practice it. Today I woke up after 3 or 4h of sleep so I got up ready to do my self-portrait but I decided this might be some good opportunity to try out the exercise. I really like the end result. While I'd rather I was doing that with actual ink and not the ipad, it was very inspiring. Composition-wise I love all of them. Some of them are particularly impressive to me. The self-criticism goes to "wait, what? is that what you're going to

Ouch, tough day. Tough day, because after the extremely positive feedback I got a few days ago, and the realization that perhaps technique-wise I'm okay, it no longer being the basic hurdle in expressing myself visually, I felt it's finally time I start putting the heart in my work: The narrative. I mean, I've been doing it over the last few months, but as a bonus in my daily-practice; how about making it the center-point of my daily practice, and technique the bonus one? So it's been building up; the question "Am I good enough, to create a glimpse in a world? Am I good enough to narrate a story?". And at the same time, a fear would grow too, that "no, contrary to what people might think about me, I'm not good enough; decent craftsmanship comes out of as a fluke, an accident". Today it was finally the day to give it a shot; I had built up all this enthusiasm after watching a couple videos in world-building and creativity, and I had some very vivi

And here we have it, not too many days later; waking up after 3-4h of sleep. I decided to so some studies. I like the word "studies", it sounds as if you get deeper into something, that you are serious. At the same time, I hate the work. I always hated the idea of repeating something twice. Same vacation destination, same movie twice, same book twice, same course twice, same painting theme  twice, same lecture twice. It feels that I'm incompetent not being able get something right the first time. Then again, I'm learning ways to cheat it. Practice perspective multiple times, but spice it up. Anyway, these self-portraits are a very peculiar thing. I haven't been repeating things other than exercises like the aforementioned. And here I am, still drawing the same torso and face, same hour of the day, same spot. Today I wanted it to be some quick value sketches. I tried approaching measurements from different angles (haha - haha, get the pun?). I'm quite satisfied

Beasts, beasts, beasts. So what is this? It's difficult to find something that I like here. I'm sure it's not because of the artwork, but my general frame of mind. I should (and could) be happy about lots of stuff: The purplish tone of the underneath the beast, compared to the greenish landscape. The spikes at the back, with the white spotlights; the sky, the orange stripes on the body... So much more that I hate. I hate... I know I'm supposed to give the positive things about it, but it all looks so horrible that it feels like I'm faking it. So let's try and decompose all the negativity! The cloud are shapeless; true, they didn't turn out as beautiful as I had hoped they would; but they were successful up to one point, and next time I'll make sure and avoid the blue shadows on the clouds. The foliage is nice, but to homogenous, not much variety - I overdid it; I could had put less trees, or created more variety, but then again, if you look at one at a t

Another day that my sleep was cut short; As soon as I realized that I wasn't going to fall asleep again, I got up and sat to have another self-portrait. It's very motivating knowing that at least I won't have to paint late at night. I picked up the iPad (though I wished that I had an easel and actual colors next to my bed - still dreaming) and decided to do a bit of warm-up sketches first. Yeap, these sketches were a warm-up. I'd consider them finished though; I don't much understand the concept of warm-up if it's not about drawing perfect circles and drawing straight lines. Speaking of which, the iPad gives me the flexibility to rotate the canvas just like an A4 page which took me 25+ years to accept as not-cheating. In this case however, since I'm drawing from life, I can't rotate, which makes me feel that this is an actual painting, just like on an easel. Yes, I still feel that painting in the iPad is cheating (meaning easier) - a remnant of my childh

What about today... I had a little less than an hour between two obligations and as I was waiting in my dad's office I decided that I could make use of the time (and perhaps free myself from past-midnight painting). I took out my sketchbook, brushpen and fineliner and started sketching the sculptures in the bookcase: My classics time. Perhaps over these 40 years, I've done that 10 or 20 times. Now that I've studied the gestures(posture),skull, human anatomy and planes of the head, drawing the sculptures has a totally different meaning: It's no longer about measuring analogies  between primaries; it's about measuring the deviations from the standard head! It's a completely different process; Like the taylor, I can note down 5-6 numbers and that way reconstruct a shirt! Anyway, it was fun. Not that they turned out good, but at least I was enjoying it. Never had I realized that the Venus of Milos was so sexy. I enjoyed giving her a swimming suit and a beach at the

Today... Today I didn't go out. I didn't find the time; I was locked down at home waiting for a work-call that came too late only saying "let's leave it for tomorrow". Very sad stuff. I knew that I had lost once again the opportunity to try my new watercolor paper. At home I could feel the discomfort in the thought of touch watercolors again - what's the point if I'm not painting plein air? My mind could barely recall all those time that I just doodle in my sketchbook and then water-color them. Come to think about it, I was played; next time I'll just open the sketchbooks and see how I've been using watercolors so far. Anyway, I took my watercolors out and put them on the desk in case I decide to use them. I had started doodling with my fineliner and brushpen when my brother called. I decided to make it an absent doodling session. I don't do that too often, but today I did. I started stacking objects in space; did some uninteresting characters.

Ah okay, I was just watching the trailer of the 1983 animated film called "Fire and Ice" after watching James Gurney's latest youtube video (such an awesome guy, teacher and eye) and the title fire and ice just came out of my fingers. Today I was hoping to work from life perhaps a watercolor painting at the Marina but I was so busy with work that I doubt I even had the opportunity to glance at the boats for my 3 hours stay. So here we are again, drawing late into the night, which is not the worst thing that could happen to you. So today I draw(?),sketched(?), rendered(?) a few figures. I like the postures, thought a few are too stiff (particularly the last girl, where the posture is horrible). Things started getting interesting when I started rendering the heads and I'd say the highlight of the day has been the witch with the fluffy robe casting the spell. I love the design, shading, and dynamic posture. Even the hands look good! What am I saying? Even the zapping ene

I'm happy about today's painting. In itself, it's a successful one; the composition is nice, the depth is there, foliage has been improved, the lightplay is there; It wasn't like that when I was about to decide putting my brush down. At that moment the background was light, empty; not accurate enough and color palette was not as intense, neither full of blue and warm tones as "reality". But for a change, I decided that despite my commitment to reproducing certain aspects of reality perhaps a nice painting was even better. So I just let it go. I put my paintbrush (brushpen) and called it a day. I prefer to paint from imagination - I always did; yet when I choose to paint what I see, I've always felt the obligation to reproduce what I see, even when the end result would suffer. Suffer by perhaps an unbalanced composition, uninteresting topic, or by merely my lack of technique. It took me all these years to allow myself to remove items from the composition th

Today I managed once again to paint early in my day; which was a huge relief since I had my evening free. I was down at the moat in my town sitting by a bench fitting fighting the flies, when I decided to take out my notebook and watercolors. I haven't been good with foliage and even more so when trying to paint in the additive manner such as that which watercolors require. I was hoping to make the foreground sprouting leaves stand out but I feel I've failed. However there is a lot to like about this painting (after all this blog is a reminder that I should celebrate the small victories; and an ongoing attempt to discover the beauty in my art). I like the foliage; It's been better than before and the background foliage is good overall. Particularly the one on the right. I like the contrast between foliage and lit background (in the middle particularly) and some leaves have a certain degree of translucency. I also like all these shades of gray - from bluish, to green, to br

What can I say... I'm satisfied; I wasn't planning on putting any effort and I didn't; probably this is the quickest I've done in a long time. I started with a sloppy page with doodles using my brushpen and then I moved to the fineliner and did some perspective, and lite rendering. Yeap, for marketing purposes I swapped the order, since the colorful one looks more attractive. First of all there is some sense in worthlessness lurking at the back of my mind. Has to do with the code I wrote today; things I've heard; but I can see it my art as well. The jittery lines in the perspective composition annoy me. Or the torsos I've painted... I somehow subconsciously decided to prove myself worthy after hearing a friend say he studied these early. So what do I like here? I like the perspective. A lot, i tried to follow my sense of 3D space, not my understanding of perspective. I feel that I did a good assortment of boxes freely oriented. I like the forms, the shading and

I got a bit stressed towards the end; It was 2am and I was still working; so I rushed it all towards the end. When I put the brush down I was tense. At least I had finished painting for the day. A part of me is instantly judging - you can't call these sketches paintings; and could be true. And the other voice says "what makes you think that spending 30, 60 or 120mins doing lame sloppy sketch will help you improve, that these will amount to anything?". I don't know, perhaps it's futile. Perhaps I'm even moving in the wrong direction. Thank god that today this is merely an idea; I'm too tired to even believe it. So what about today's art. The vehicles. I have 9 LEGO pieces on desk that were found in the trash of some friend and I keep combining them into different spaceships. I wonder if there are any concept artists/vehicle designers out there that use LEGO as brainstorming idea; I mean why not? if silhouettes can work, and inspiration by everyday appli

A beautiful day after a difficult night. I went out after quite some time to clean up my head and mull over the difficulties of the last 10 days. The weather was beautiful and the park that I used to hang out last year was so pretty and open. While I enjoyed the openness of the view, I decided to paint details; a part of the stadium as seen through some tree-opening, some ruins lying in the open grassfields. I enjoyed staying out so much (actually I was afraid of getting back home and getting hooked and obsessing over work for one more day) that I stayed out for two pieces, not just one. I wasn't very happy while making the first one; at the end I decided to call it a day because I was tired, while still feeling that the trees were too dark/heavy compared to the rest of the composition. Normally I'd have to work and darken the tones in the rest of the scene. I was too tired and lazy. But now that I look at it, it's just fine like that. I like particularly all the shades of