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

I hadn't thought that I might choose to paint on the ipad to avoid the hussle of photographing my art. But today that was the primary reason. I resumed work on the underwater kingdom painting further refining portion of the painting that didn't look too convincing. The piece has reach the point, that the illusion holds strong so now I can use my natural intuition to further refine it. Something tells me there is no end to that. The more refined it gets, the more I'll be trying to make it like reality. Anyway, thus far I focused on cleaning the original brushwork (from before upscaling), adding some more nuanced and exotic lighting, improving the surface textures/glossiness (today I feel like I took it to a new level) and I also tried to improve the local contrast of certain segments of the piece. Of course (I'll say it once more) it's very regretful that the overall piece wasn't strong, because micro-adjustments can only take your this far. In any case, it'

I know now that I can't be scanning everything I do. At days like yesterday or day even photographing them is impossible. I just do too much. I could of course slow down and be more meticulous in my painting or I could accept that not everything will be digitized. Today I worked a lot with ink (the rotring, the cheap one) and then I moved to monochrome watercolors! I mean, why limit myself to black ink? It was very enjoyable; I did some sketches of my mother, some of some TV personas and then I decided to do 5minute ink (watercolor) studies of postures on quickposes. Fairly enjoyable overall and I did something that also feels like studying; pushing my skills a bit further. I also allowed myself to use plain photocopying paper instead of the sketchbook. In retrospective it wasn't a very good idea since the paper is too weak and the wetness just ruins it. And then I can't even scan it. Maybe I need to find something better than the sketchbook paper, but not too expensive; I

Today I finally photographed and fixated the heartmonster (the heart of the heart without a heart) and did some sketching using my backup (old) pentel pocketbrush. I refilled it with rotring drawing ink and seems to be working fine. I don't know if it will clog eventually, and flow is not the best but so far so good. I don't know if it was the novelty but for sure I did some satisfying sketches; from landscapes, to characters, to machiens, even the simple ones turned out good. Perhaps the thought of cheap ink was very invigorating! I'd like to focus a bit more on studying the head again and doing some sketches from life. Overall I'm satisfied and inspired with doing more ink drawings. Now I'm going to run an experiment: I found myself really resentful that it's 4pm and I'm still cropping and editing the sketches from today so I won't continue and won't upload them today. I'd rather get some entertainment. Here are finally the scans, though I'

Today was a boring it terms of creativity day: I resumed work on the heartmonster, and the conceited buddha, did some perspective studies, a bit of doodling, some 3D sculpting and a bit of overpainting for my latest watercolor piece. It wasn't bad in that regard: Did lots of artistic work, albeit not much creative stuff. If I keep something about today, that should be that I did some studying (perspective) which I haven't done in quite some time. I also like the two female faces that I doodled, and I'm glad (I think) I finished the heartmonster! Time for rest!

Today I resumed the blue piece from a couple days ago; it all feels very drab lately; I'm stack with half-assed attempts at pieces and I can't get myself to start something new. Today I worked a bit with watercolor washes and overlaying colors but I'd say the greatest victory of the day was following my impulse a deciding not to paint the heartmonster piece despite the weather being good. Other than that, my inspiration these days lies in things such as VR doodles and not watercolors as much. I need to find what works for me better, I'm loosing my touch.

Today I (thought I had) wrapped up the heart monster but there will be a few alterations next time I work on it. I also advanced a bit the Conceited Buddha. I am very happy that I am moving towards freeing a wooden board since all this time I'm stuck unable to painting because of the silliest of reasons! It's funny, but true. Later I did some VR sculpting which is very taxing for my body; I have yet to understand why; there is a slight chance that it's because the headset is heavy and it might be forcing me to compensate slightly with my posture? I am not sure. Anyway, I enjoyed the process and I'm glad I have the opportunity to work in VR. Overall today had been a very creative day. If I am to keep something other than that I have painted once again, it is that I am improving my pastel color mixing skills; not blending, but mixing to produce new hues. Time for rest.

Today I also didn't manage to finish the watercolor piece and decided that I wouldn't push myself and work it another day. This is again a very positive thing since it's not something I'm accustomed to! However, the other piece that I left unfinished has started coming off the woodboard plus I don't see mysef picking it up anytime too so I'm not sure this is a way I can work with such pieces. In any case, for now kudos for breaking the habits; we'll see in the future if these were good habits or not. I liked a lot working with a single color and the forms that came up were very interesting! Very soothing aswell! Time for rest.

Today though I was planning on doing something other than sketching I didn't have to opportunity, so here I am, sketching again. I did 14 sketches with my brushpen. These were not the most successful ones, but I did a lot of good things: Some postures that I likes, interesting props, good hands, I did some observations around me and created a light/dark piece, a bit of narrative too. I enjoyed letting loose, and some of it was completely subconscious. I also did two female portraits that I like a lot; though not perfect, they have a certain charm. Finally I did a bit of nice smoke. Instead of photographing them, I scanned them with my new scanner. Took me a lot of time and I am not too happy with the results but I don't know if it were slower that using the camera and then editing the images. Actually, it might had been; but with a little overhead I did a final scan. My god, my work feel a lot when it comes to scanning it, but not enough when it comes to consuming/posting/curat

Today has been a crazily productive day! I blame the materials, they were so easy to handle. I had this feeling that I knew how to use paints, but everytime I was using paints in real life, my sense of how the materials should behave, clashed with the actual materials. As the years went by, I attributed it to insufficient skills and probably too much time painting digitally. Today I was gifted an amateurish kit of watercolors; paints,brushes, palette and sketchbook included and was blown away by how it was performing. It was as if there was a direct link between how I wanted to paint, and what the paint would perform! I started with a tinly blockish landscape, then did a spaceship and finally and cat driving and a phage-vehicle! Today was rich in positive things: The performance of the materials is one, the fact that I had probably the greatest fun painting in ages (perhaps 20 years?) and more things, equally important that I'll have to start a new paragraph to describe! I think th

So today I worked a bit on the conceited buddha and later I had the energy to start another watercolor painting! I was working loosely with lots of water so I had to wait big intervals for it to dry. This was something I don't often do; What is even more surpirsing is that I reached a point late in the evening that I was very tired, and decided that I will put it aside for the day! That's something I haven't done before with watercolors, so it's very exciting! At the same time, I resisted the urge to just sloppily wrap it up since it felt that I would be ruining it! I'm proud of myself. Not that the piece is great but it's nice to see being able to slow down. As for the piece itself, and its merits, I like the boldness of the strokes, the use of white, and the fact that for once I did a vertical composition!

Today I just did doodling. I was so sleepy however that I almost dozed off while doodling. Well, I did doze off, but I stopped doodling for that. I filled two sheets, and I'm pretty happy about that; I like the anatomy, the perspective, the brush I used and I even had enough piece of mind to slow down, relax, and finally try and envision what I'll be doodling. Didn't go all that well, but it was a step in the right direction!

I was expecting for this to be a great day for painting but it didn't pan out! I'm a bit worried that this isn't the first time this has happened, so I need to be a bit more vigilant. I spent quite some time photographing the venus piece, then did some additions (I doubt I did more than 20 or 30 pastel-strokes) to the heart monster and was expecting that I'd do some new piece but instead the day got wasted in editing mosaics of my photographed and scanned pieces. It's a very tedious process I might have to relax a bit about archiving; it's not very practical spending days to photograph a piece. Anyway, what has been good about today? For a start I'm feeling that I'm ready to empty two woodboards which is going to allow me to start new pieces; I'm pretty excited about this, I've been dying to paint something new, big and loose! What else? I am afraid I can't find much. Well, I did work a bit more on my pastels technique, I got inspired to keep

Today I decided that I needed to slow down a bit and therefor did some doodles with graphite!The highlight is of course that I did work, I certain things such as the figure in front of the curtains! Plus I like that momentarily at least, I did use the pencil as ...pencil! Time for rest

Today I was in a special mood, confident to resume any of my pastel pieces. I started with the Venustrap but realized there was nothing left to do (this is one of the pieces that matured while I was looking at it). Then I picked up the monster in the caves and kept refining it. I feel now that I could benefit from paper with better, less "repetitive" texture. For my next batch of orders. I also did some 3D sculpting later but nothing to bother exporting. I'm happy that I'm about to wrap up two pieces and move onto something new! It was about time!

Seems that lately, every day is a special day. Anyway, today I was planning on doing some watercolors or gouache, and wanted the space for myself so that I can concentrate only to discover that I had compnay. My plans for concentration were ruined. Eventually I accepted (that is a step!) my fate and decided to doodle casually while speaking since I couldn't do anything else. At that moment I dicovered an inexpensive LYRA "graphite watercolor stick" that I had bought some months ago and thought why not try that? And so I did! I'm glad I did because the material is amazing! Inexpensive, expressive, intense, easy to use, clean and a beautiful mixture of wet and dry media! I'm totally sold though I'd rather not focus on black and white paintings. In any case, I'm glad I discovered this new tool! The piece was a "failure" from the outset; I could hear my thoughts saying "nah, this isn't going to turn out into something I can put on instagram

I always cherished Donald's trusty car - 313. And I just realized that I have an antiquated, falling-apart car just like donald duck did. I wonder if there were some subconscious choices made here. Anyway. Today I did another Gouache piece that I'm "somehow" satisfied with. I don't know if I like it very much aesthetically, I don't know if I find it "intriguing" artistically, yet it's rich in color and strokes and I'm proud of both the emergence of something that I might call a style and my overally use of color. I'll have to let others judge whether this is a piece with any soul in it. Overall I'm glad with my technique today, and (of course) with the fact, that I did another complete painting which is not to be taken granted! Finishing a piece, really takes some stress off my back! (Which is not healthy in the first place, but for now I'll take it).