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

Today I resumed work on the strange inner landscape and later started a new piece since I was tired of the slow grind on that (and other pieces). Unfortunately, despite my initial decision to stop working my pieces over and over again, I still do it; Currently I have 6 half-finished pieces; never been this many! In any case, I think it's time to move on from my "inner landscape" and perhaps a couple more of the open pieces. What went well today? I like the level of refining I give to the inner landscape piece; I feel much more competent with pastels lately. I'm starting to give them a painterly feel. The next piece started again with a quick sketch. I like the posture, the strange symbols, the shapes, and the giant cat. It has very beautiful colors. Looking forward to further defining that piece since it's already incomplete.

Today I did some further painting on the strange inner landscape painting. I had the chance to practice a bit switching to a "less precious" mindset. It was a low-consequence piece so it was relative easy but challenging enough. I also enjoyed overworking the dry(er) underlayer and started observing how some colors are more easy to mix. I like how I'm practicing rendering on it. Later I resumed work on the VR sculpt I've been working on. It didn't turn out as wow as I would had hoped. I don't like the face and the ground all that much.I don't know why I don't want to put the headset on and do a few changes. There is a deeply held belief that altering something is sacrilege. No matter how that something is wrong or ugly. I'm first realizing this as I'm writing down. "Correcting" something spontaneous is sacrilege. Funnily, I've been working days on that piece, but that doesn't thwart the spontaneity. Deleting a stroke right a

Today I had a much wanted relief. I also had a very relaxed day but that was mainly because I was psychologically down and I hadn't slept so I could only take it easy. But in regards to painting, I went at the beach and sat there. After some time fighting with the "need" to be productive and paint something from life, I decided to completely blow it and instead do childish stuff. Not instaworthy, nothing, just simplistic fun. I'm very fond about the two pieces that I create. I like lots about them; from the naivity, to the use of colors, to the shading, to the texture on the turtlue... To the depiction of the entering soul into the body. All was nice! And was relaxing and fun too! And definitely these are two pieces that I might post on instagram; they're not bad. Time for rest.

After yesterday's rough patch, I woke up today and went on to painting, doing sculpting and the rest of the chores. I did it out of a place of tiredness; This isn't the worse way of doing things, it's not the best either. I was too tired to try and fight it so I did what I found easiest. The despair is there (though in the background, I'm too tired to bother) - the future looks completely opaque but at least there is not struggle in the present. Only mourning. Regarding the piece, I am not too happy about how it turned out; It became too busy in the central portion between the sage and the sleeping woman. Unfortunately I feel (perhaps it's the despair speaking) incapable of the making something good with this region full of hairstrands. I don't feel very competent painting hair. But it's been practice nonethess so that's something positive. Other parts have been more successful too: I spent quite some time visualizing color variations in my head (I'

Another time that I feel I've almost blown it up, and I'm too tired to care. I did VR sculpting today but I won't bother exporting it now - I'm too tired and too frustrated to bother and it's already 5am. I am drained. I am at a point that I can't see myself painting. I'm trying to remember that there is "fun" in it, but I'm blind to it right now. I'm overwhelmed by the expectations of sustaining my instagram presence, the expectations about growing, the psychological investment in making it something that financially sustains me, the despair that yells "this doesn't seem too possible" and on top of that, the simple, but debilitating rule, "paint every day". It hurts so much. It's silly, I could simply draw a line and call it a day. But the sense that I am not free to do something else today, that I have to do it, hurts a lot. And I'm overwhelmed as f__k. I have to do a couple things tomorrow and I want to pu

Today's work has been a deviation from what I normally would do: I started an elaborate sketch of heads. A very design-ey and illustrative work (I'm ashamed of that!!!) but it's coming out nicely. I think in part it was prompted by yesterday feeling so incompetent. It's sad how easily I am being swayed. Anyway, Lot's to like about the piece today: Good skull anatomy, nice shading, good composition. I also like that the top-left head is prolonged something that I create very often and feel shame about. At the end of the day it's not imcompetence: I can still do well-proportioned heads, but for some reason these keep coming again and again. What if this my personal touch and all I have to do is accept them? Today has been a step in that direction. I also liked a lot that I approached oil pastels in a more etchy style - thin lines one next to the other, creating the sense of color variety and withouth oversaturating the paper so early in the process. At the end, I

What do we have today? A very, unproductive day. It was a very busy day, and I'm happy that I'm being kind enough to myself to wrap up at this time (it's midnight) and do something more fun)... oh okay.. I just said something more fun that drawing. That means something. It means that I'm already way into "chore" territory. I have to be careful. Anyway. Today's doodles were very tired thought there are a few things that I like; a couple faces, and some patterns. I also got test "chalk pastels" that I got in lidl but they were horrible. Not only is the "chalk" giving my unpleasant shivers down my spine but I don't see how this material is any good. Then again I did use it with water and like the graphite or the watercolors it was very interesting so I might using like that! Today I'll dwell a bit more on the negative stuff. I saw some students work that was so good that I suddenly felt very insufficient. I also had a few more to

Why do I even bother giving names to my posts? They rarely have anything to do with the artwork lately. In any case, I'm starting another entry mindful of the fact that this year is coming to an end. It's funny when I started I started without knowing how long I would go on (I'd even complain about it for quite some time). At the time I couldn't see the urge to keep doing the challenge subsiding. Eventually I gave up the notion of giving up. And here I am, finally ready to move on. I'm not sure if there is a lesson here about not worrying too much about obsessiveness since (even that) runs out eventually; I'm not sure I would had decided so easily to stop had it not been for my instagram account needing so much energy. In any case, here we are today, Two weeks before the end. Today I kept working on the last painting. I don't know if this painting will "take off" (perhaps not) but there are some good things that emerged today: I did some more ex

Today's piece has been another new start. I enjoyed a lot working on it, and while I don't enjoy the end result as much, I still have hope for it to reach some intriguing state. I like lots about it: The fact that I started with dark paper but made it light, how I built the forms (I did some extensive sketching that I built into solid forms) - the palette (oily colors, with ochre undertones) - the volume of the branches and the challenging overall composition. In genera I like it a lot for what I did while painting. And what is more: I love the fact that I tried yet something different!!! How cool is that being able to explore new worlds! I hope I never lose this!

Today has been very inspiring. It was a frustrating day and I almost gave up painting in the balcony. In retrospection this was possibly to trying to photograph the last piece (Fortification) which caused me a lot of backpain which in turn caused me a lot of short temper. Not that the day wasn't frustrating already. However (and I'm not sure how this happened) I found myself painting! I decided to start a new piece and channel my frustration and this piece emerged. This is probably one of the dearest ones. I don't know if it is something I could ever sell, but to my eyes it's intriguing. I don't know why I choose the poses that I do. There is something to it however. The palette got me excited, and the freedom to do something "mediocre" was very welcome after working on the same pieces! I (think) I've made up my mind that I should be less involved in perfecting my pieces which in turn makes me very careful and thus un-creative and focus more on gettin

Another day that I won't be posting images since they are so hard to get out of the headset. Perhaps I'll update them all together nextime I connect the headset. How has it been today? A practice day. Anatomy practice. I did mostly sculpts (I find this a very interesting tool) not sketches. I'm seeing that my brain was used to learning by sketching so now by sculpting I wonder whether I'm retaining the same things. Regardless, it's a nice experience. I also wonder if there is some established practice where people sculpt from life as a studying/mnemonic tool. Today I feel I've solidified a bit more understanding about the body; things that I already subconsciously knew have now started entering their box. I'm looking forward to getting better at it. Time for rest.

Today I took out my pocketbrush (unfortunately the rotring ink is not good fit, it's drying and wearing out the hair probably due to low fluidity) and my watercolors and did sketching on cheap paper. I'm enjoying this process; it's always very rich in productivity, low on risk and usually produces 2-3 good instaworthy sketches that will allow me to do filler posts. Today's work was mostly figurative. I'm quite satisified; seems that yesterday's studying of the Discobolus wasn't useless and I came up with more understanding of the body. I believe that if I keep doing it, I'll build a good understanding of the major muscles, and boney protrusions of the male body. I was also feeling in a very dancey-mood, and I was trying to create postures pushing the human body. While many didn't exactly work out (eg. my Icaruses) I still feel they were almost there. Not in terms of results (this was very off) but I could feel that I missed something minor that I&#

Today I won't be posting anything since my whole work took place in VR - It was study day. I spent hours (not proud for that) looking for famous sculptures and reading their history and then went in VR and studied the Discobolus by the sculptor Myron. It's funny, I never really cared while I was studying about ancient Greece at school, but it suddenly falls into place. In any case, I did a few posture studies in VR and even a couple rough sculptures of my own. I'm not proud of anything but it's a first contact with the topic of ...serious anatomy. In any case today, I did study, I did invent some new studying methods, and also built a lot of inspiration and admiration for all the famous sculptors of history something I hadn't related to. Time for rest.

Today I painted only for a little but had to interrupt early to drive to the supermarket. I was planning on continuing in the evening but never did. I'll call it a day though and let it at that.So what did I achieve today? Well, I made the decision to be less precious with my pieces and try and wrap them up earlier. Unless the piece is in a half-finished state, I'll just give it an extra session of finetunings over glaring issues and be done with it! In that spirit, the castle piece is probably done. I'll have another look at it tomorrow and if nothing needs to be done, I'll wrap it up. I enjoyed a lot the coexistence of graphic (flat) realism, impressionism and motifs on the same piece! Time for rest

Today I took out the conceited buddha piece and resumed working on it. I'm still thinking yesterday's(?) realization that I'm spending too much time "micromanaging" pieces because I'm too afraid to work freely on them after the first day. Perhaps this will change as I grow in experience. At some point I had decided that this refining touch was a desirable stage in making paintings, but now it's 20% painting, 80% refining and I wonder whether I should proceed like that, or cut back to earlier times where I was finishing a piece in a single day. Or a mix: Finish the piece on the first day, and revisit it for a short refining session. Then again most of my painting benefit from the extra work. I need to study the process pictures that I make more systematically and see if this applies to the majority. In any case, today I was more calm compared to yesterday that I was completely disillusioned by instagram. Today I was feeling sad and stopped painting because

And here we are today, feeling down. Today I resumed painting on the latest piece but did only minimal changes. I neither had the mood, not the confidence to work freely on it. I work less than an hour which is rare but it felt like an eternity. I'm starting to realize that the "first session" is always a breeze. The subsequent ones, due to the lack of confidence are always slow and tiresome. It's not because I'm not in the mood to work on the piece, but because I lost the confidence to "challenge" it and instead I'm focusing on minor fine-tunings: How would it be if I wasn't afraid to mess the piece up, just like the first days that I would rework large portions of the painting without worrying? Interesting thought. I'm glad at least that I've disovered it. I also fixated the other piece, did some sculpting and now I'm going to sign the fixated piece. Or maybe not. I'll do it tomorrow. Better rest. After all today I skipped insta

I did something really "radical" and fascinating today: I used the mental notes I was making yesterday while painting the fortification at the moat to build the scene out of memory filling in the gaps with imagination. This was I wasn't bound by what I was seeing, and at the same time, I didn't have to improvise - it was like having worked out a few chords, and improvising on that! This removed a lot of the stress - painting what you see, thinking of something new, and allowed me to create something new on the scaffolding. I'm starting to suspec that this is the way most people paint plein air and the reason why people do studies (of things other than generic anatomy). For me it was something new. I don't know how I feel about this new approach, it's relaxing though and on a level allows you to do something "original" while at the same time build on (and reinforce) previous knowledge. So it's good! In any case, I'm pretty excited about t

Today I was outdoors and my legs brought me to the moat. It's a beautiful place but I don't go that often since I am under the impression that the moat is not so sunny. Big mistake! Anyway, today I found myself there, have the opportunity to paint a new landscape. I did a watercolor piece that has some good qualities; clarity is not one of them to be honest. What do I like about it? the brights are bright, and the tree-trunks are ok. I also like that I did try to build the 3D space (but don't feel I succeeded). It was admittedly a very difficult scene and I was fighting with time; the sky was moving rapidly and the light-shadow play was shifting completely. Here I am making excuses. Apparently I don't feel like a failure. Well... The piece is not a very succesful one, but again, it has lots of positive traits. And for an unsuccessful one, it's amazing! A big step forward. I also enjoyed that I got to do some intense practice. The second piece was a quick sketch of

Today I pretty much didn't paint: Instead I devoted my time in VR sculpting. It was very enjoyable, and a real break from the escalating pressure from the days before. Though I've told myself that sculpting now counts as painting, I still felt the compulsion to draw a doodle on paper just for making sure I'm still performing the ritual.. This is turning into a psychosis. Anyway. The sketch is nothing, it was doodle based on the sculpt and I won't even upload it here. It wasn't good. But I liked the left hand, and I found funny that I was copying my own art! With the sculpt I'm truly pleased. I haven't had fun in a long time which show how overwhealmed I've been with instagram. I also got to play with pseudo-shading in 3D and creating relatively fast cartoony sculpts. I also enjoyed a lot the design that I came up with! Finally, I liked the palette that I created a lot, and I even revisited it lated to improve the composition so it's even more appeal

Today I spent the daytime photoshooting the pieces that have wrapped up and by the time I was done, my back hurt far too much to be painting outdoors. I did some indoors photoshooting and my instagram post took also a lot of time (something tells me that I spend close to 2h picking the right painting, crafting the text, and preparing the images). As a result I accepted that today I wouldn't be painting and call it a day off - a mere doodle would had been enough. But I ended up doing lots of doodles which I'm happy with since it came out of nothing. I enjoyed today's work - the fact that I practiced bodies, heads, lineweight and all that with ink was very nice. Plus, I've switched to loose paper sheets which is a bonus! I'm also happy that I didn't stress out, so I feel more able to appreciate the fact that this is 26 posts from the last.