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

  I resisted the urge of doing another "flat perspective" town, and instead started doing shapes. They I added a face and some animals and I wrapped up with circles. I like the overall composition regardless of the difficulty in making nice circles. The animals turned out good too, and the shading is not bad. The straightness of lines in the geometric shapes is pleasing. Time for bed.

Very satisfied with today's work. It's been relaxing and fun, and the result looks very convincing. This is some flat projection where the two vanishing points are at infinity. I don't even know what to call it, but it sure has a name. It feels satisfying using something as simplistic and naive and at the same time yielding such results. I live the shading, the planes. I had a bit trouble with the the road grounds and the cars but anyway. It's been fun. I also had the chance to indicate forms with negative space such as the mailbox at the front right, or the beams underneath the sole window at the top of the tallest building in the foreground. It's nice what one can do with boxes. On the flip-side I'm starting to worry that "I don't spend enough time working" (I've dropped down to something 1 or 2 hours) and no studying, just doodling and while a part of me says that's the best investment of my time, another feels I'm wasting time. Sadn

  Today I started even earlier than usual; somehow these days particularly when I draw non-human forms, I feel somewhat comfortable drawing while there are others in the house. What did I draw today? Something random in cyan ink (I now realize my camera colors are off - it shouldn't had been blue, but pure cyan).  In any case I started drawing squares and soon had some building, a wooden bridge, a giant eye in the sky. While I hate this random framing (like the kids who rotate their phones are 45 degrees and take photos like the boat is sinking) but It's a direct result of starting first box rotated! Anyway, I like a lot the shading, the simplistic boxy housing, the strange towers in the horizon and the spaceship! I even like the small dunes in on the ground. Enough for today!

Today I was able to start painting (avoiding practice and the iPad) early. I started randomly thinking that I should try and do a piece with shades of ochre but soon I started adding browns, and then decided to give a yellow and green tint to the background. Later on I added blue and a bit of red. This has probably been thus far the most successful palette that I'm managed to create with watercolors, in the sense that all colors are to be found, but I managed to steer away from a pure-Red-Blue-Yellow mess. The praying prophet (or is it shams tabrizi?) popped up spontaneously. While the framing is off (since the initial blob was up there) I like it overall and I find that the framing is challenging the viewer in a positive way. I like lots about this piece; the halo around the head, the translucent fingers, the angle of the head, the branches in the background... the vegetation is very pleasant and of course the palette; I love the palette. The second piece, has been a random doodle

So day #121. Issues still remain unresolved. It still feels futile and pointless. I'm going through the motions of painting however. At the same time it's as if some scab is forming over the wound. The despair is underneath, hope feels plastic; at time I tell myself, is there a chance that I'm already there? At other times the question whether I can monetize a bit of my art and perhaps monetization will bring motivation? At times it's more honest glimmer of hope that shines through - I get this momentary feelings that perhaps if I focus on one thing I might be "this close" to cracking it and making it into livelihood. We're almost there it says, come, but the effort. Then I remember to turn my attention towards the so-called "there". Where is there? It seems a desert, completely hopeless. Working on paper is so much more enriching. I still don't feel like "studying" though. I'm just doodling. Today has been particularly good for

Another day that I'm trying to take it easy; still not touching the iPad (the synonym of productivity and rigid practice). Instead I'm still doing watercolor exploratory sketches. I did something that came out as a Minotaur using payne's gray, and another one using my least favourite red (judging also by its unused tile on my kit), an interesting creature walking on clouds. It's so much easier when using one color and layering it for values. With the minotaur I like the background, the floor and somewhat the tones/values. I hate the short thigh and though I'm not supposed to write these things here, I need to get it off my chest. The second piece is much more interesting; the whole head full of branches is very interesting and I was particularly happy with the shading. The limbs are also nice and the tail is something new that hasn't come out of my brush before. I am starting to create a style with my clouds where I mix hard lines with soft washes. The sky wa

I'm uneasy; I'm not too happy about today's doodling, definitely not coming close to the pleasure I god out of it last couple of days. Perhaps it was becomes those ones were tones of gray and it's much easier to work accumulatively with tones rather with overlaying colors. In any case, there are some merits to the work today.  For a start, there is nothing glaringly ugly about it! There is a palette, despite not planning on anything. Then, the blueish sky and the mountains in the background have been both successful and fun making. I like that I managed to leave blue and red unmixed. Finally some of the buildings, are somewhat fun.