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

Let's see if today I make it to watch a movie! The day started with an early insomniac interruption (clearly anxiety-related) that I decided to make use of and paint something freely (and free from thought) with my left (non-dominant) hand. It turned out beautiful! It started very automatic though as it started become something, I switched over to decision-making; but nonetheless, even like that it was a beautiful thing. The jitter of my left-hand created characters; at the same time, I haven't been more excited with my color-mixing abilities, I kept and kept doing the right choice (I think I've only undone 3 tops 4 strokes). It's obvious that I started recreating in a sense the sloppy watercolor from yesterday (that I copied from the first page of google image results) but the scene was much more alive, and the colors... And the composition too, is probably among the best I've done! The second painting (or drawing? after all it's all mere lines - the classic pa

Another day struggling to do what needs to be done; I finished the posters and hopefully won't need any revisions. I managed to do some posture practice and now I can finally head to bed. I'm satisfied with the poster designs. Posture practice was good. I like the small silhouettes a lot and the athletic ones are quite dynamic which I am happy about. Switching from the design to gestures was very difficult and I can see that right now I'm very reluctant to do more analytic drawing work! The mere thought of any more drawing practice, is cause my gag reflex - which is a sign that I've had too much for now. I just remembered I did three watercolor wishing cards today (during my lunch break) but was in such a rush that it feels I did it years ago. Funny how I forgot about it, probably the highlight of my artistic work today! While the two designs were very derivative and pretty much copied from the google image search the third one was not only interesting and original but

  So this it, I've broken my daily practice streak! I've been so busy today that I didn't have the time to even sketch a couple of doodles, let alone postures and it's already 6am. (of course bed can wait for blogging, but not for sketching). Anyway, today I spent the day doing design for a poaster, trying to balance text and artwork - my mind is mashed potatoes... sleepy... zzzz

I don't think I've been that exhausted in months! Today I got up by my insomnia and instead of drawing a self-portrait or anything, I did some brainstorming on what I could present in an exhibition that I had until today to submit my proposed artwork. I went deeper into the philosophical aspect of what I was going to say and managed to get a direction towards some practical way. Eventually I spent many more hours trying to make it work but didn't come up with anything. There is a big chance that in part this is due to the tiredness. After a lot of turmoil I've decided to not take part (I had wanted this year to take part only if it comes effortlessly, not through force). There are a lot of painful things about the decision; the FOMO, the feeling that I'm not doing my dues for an artistic path, the breaking of a streak (I took part in both previous year exhibitions). Additionally feelings that I'm disappointing certain people around me, and a fear that I'm

  I think this is the closes I've been to "blowing" the streak.  Or maybe not. Anyway, today I forgot that I had work to do, and get up early and as a result I had to do a very short daily practice; namely only some 45sec postures and a couple 2 minutes ones. The good news is that they are starting to come along, without using a skeleton; apparently 45secs are a stretch for doing full postures (as opposed to minimalistic gestures) but even like that, it's almost... there. Anyway. I like a lot about them despite being incomplete whereas the minute one are very nice too. I'm starting to grasp the legs, next goal, the arms!

Not a jedi trick. Last few days I've been spending a lot of time designing and little illustrating; my brain feels tired by it. Today I only got the time to do some 45minutes of posture studies, really interesting; it was some guy in an atelier dressed as a cowboy and was changing a pose very 2 minutes. Wish  I had found it much earlier. Much more interesting than my quickpose photo-session too! For now I'll call it a day and head to bed

So here it is! Today I started early doing some gesture and posture practice which was quite successful (in the everyday sense); the level was consistent. I was even good at doing the ellipses on my ipad's display something I haven't been practicing much lately but it was a good day in that respect too: I managed to do with my shoulders various sizes of ellipses from 5mm diameter to 5cm, on my 45degrees inclined stand and towards the end without even pivoting (touching) on the device. Anyway. Later on I worked some concept thumbnails on the poster for the exhibition which I got really stressed about but now that I see them they are fine; perhaps not the most inspired and perfectly balanced posters, but time is very limited. I enjoyed using a friend's dense and illustrative work for the posters. Eventually I didn't have the time to work more as I was planning but at the end of the day, I've done enough for now.