Upcoming projects

I've got a lot of projects running through my head. I finished a painting of Edgar Allan Poe for my art class and now I desperately want to try out my hand in illustrating some of his tales. And I want to paint interpretations of poems I adore. Night Is My Sister by Edna St. Vincent Millay, for one. Sudden Light by Dante Gabriel Rossetti would look beautiful, too...

Christmas break can't come soon enough...but for now, finals are my last barrier. D:<

Long time no see?

College has taken over my artistic life. As I write this now, I should be using my typing energy on finishing an essay. But I just wanted to write a little because my dear friend Cheryl Griffindork mentioned it a while ago. :)

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about service. I am a Christian, but it says in James that "Religion that is pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows n their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." Unfortunately, I have been doing none of this. Keeping myself from being polluted by the world, maybe a little. I don't drink, I don't do drugs, I don't engage in sexual activity. But I do forgot to talk to God, and I do slack off in doing homework, and I do eat a lot, and I am generally a lazy, tired person. I believe these activities (or lack of activity) have been polluting my life.

And caring for orphans and widows? I have no time for it. That's what I've been telling myself anyway. So lately, I've been acting more. Friday afternoon I gave blood. Saturday morning I helped out in a community service project. It felt good to do something for once. God has given me this terribly terrific opportunity to broaden my mind, but that's all I've done with it. I've simply buried this one talent, scared that if I invest it, I might lose it. But now I'm trying. God, I'm really trying. I have this calling on my heart to serve. For the first time in my life, I want to look outside of myself and my selfish work, and to see others who have less.

I've also been considering artistic work for the church. My parents attend a service where an artist paints an interpretation of the sermon. I would love to do that, but I have some hesitancy here. I would also love to sing with the worship. But there's hesitancy here, too. Father, if it is Your will, take this fear of action from me.

August 12

Yellow is the hardest color to photograph. This makes my painting look painfully yellow...urgh. Without photoshop, I can't make it look any better. It looks amazingly better in person.



All my gray clouds look the same when I don't use a reference photo. Hmm.

August 11

Everything is waning to a close. This daily sketchblog won't be in much use during this next semester...hopefully I'll have time to sketch and paint my heart onto canvas, but I'm not too sure. Honestly, I'm nervous about my schedule, and how much studying I'm going to have to be doing. I'm anxious that it will be too shocking from my slow summer schedule...but what are worries but annoyances of the mind.? Worrying is meaningless. That's why I'm doing as much art as I can before school starts in about a week. I've found a fascination for drawing and painting portraits...

It keeps my mind off the fact that my best friend will be moving away. We've been through so much together, I've come to rely on her continual presence...this is going to be really tough.

August 10

Today, I thought about what I was like a year ago.

Last year, I was entering my last school year of MCC. I was entering my last year of high school.

I was tired of the same routine. I was tired of having to take another math class, and another history class. I wanted more of a challenge...the next semester, everything changed. My philosophy changed; I pushed to better myself day by day, I read the Bible with an entirely new fervor, and I yearned for knowledge more than I've ever wanted it before. I became who I knew myself to be. The beginning of senior year hurt and broke me until I had no clue who I was anymore, but after the daily pity-parties and personal beating, I grew into who I am today. I suppose we all have to go through some identity crisis in our teenage years. I always assumed I wouldn't have to go through it; I always assumed I was too smart to be caught in the cliche teen "Who am I? Why am I here?" trap.

I was broken...but then I was pieced back together, into a new person. I was unravelled; like an object made entirely of yarn, being slowly and painfully unravelled. Today, I am woven and am being continually woven into a new object -- into a new being. I strive to better myself. I study to not just gain knowledge, but to reap wisdom. My prayer is that I forget myself entirely -- I am nothing -- and that nothing stops me from racing after God with everything I have within me -- Thou art all. Right now, all I want is to become who I am meant to be.

"Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds." Hosea 6.1

August 4

Funny story...I spent most of my day trying to find the best lighting in my room to paint by. I spent hours adjusting the easel. I spent an hour or two struggling with the stupid mirror. I then spent two-three hours painting my self-portrait.

Was it worth it? I dunno...I like it myself, except for the lighting...and the hair. I mixed white into the brown so it's looking a little gray.

...yeah, it's okay.

July 22

I've been moving between computers, so I have no computer to plug all my photos into and to upload onto this here...maybe tomorrow there'll be new things to see. I've spent today doing the loads of laundry we had stinking up the bathroom, and varnishing dried oil paintings, and planning out various paintings.

Projects I'm working on/planning out...
-moon reflection on the ocean oil painting
-Heart Rain commission (second one)
-large-scale sketch in charcoal
-self-portrait oil painting
-cloudscape oil painting (I took reference photos today...the sunset was ravishing.)

I'm so ready to start painting. Sketching not so much. Details weigh me down a lot...

July 17

Excellent movie character.

July 16

I like how my thumbnail sketches make sense only to me.

July 15

I bought another artist pen today with an extra-fine nib, so I wanted to break it in. As vain as this might sound...I like drawing my face. For one thing, it's not awkward as having a model sit and pose for me, and I'm used to my face. I see it everyday; therefore, I have my face memorized...as creepy as that sounds...

July 14

To me, this painting screams amateur skill. Yay.
I've got other paintings begging to be let free in my brain...but first, dskgjalskegapiegf;lqwkaehfpa;heg[aoiweg;lWEHG;'laiehg;lag;ahrgko;i
ahioawe;iuwe4io;raio;aer;
oiaesri;haeshil;hl;agshl;dhil;adfoig;uha;eouigha;leiyta;iuhg;a
soudifhga;slidrugh;aleriht;auewgtapo;e;hfl;aivnryt ;oiwvejntrwl
evrsuhvnfnskljfhvbsaudhfvnslkudhlskg;s mv <-----my current frustration

July 13

Is it finished? Is it done? Why is the picture taken at an angle?

I'm not really sure either. It seemed cool at the time...which was very early in the morning.

To-Do:
-Water too blue
-Stilts crooked (I was really tired when I painted the stilts)
-Fill in windmill blades
-Fine-tune windmill tower
-Complete abandoned stump in foreground

July 12

Prettiest gray I've ever mixed...not too warm to look dirty; not too cool to look surreal. It's the perfect in-between.

Today I've officially started the windmill painting. It's going pretty well so far...not great, not horrible. It's "eh" because it's in the middle stage where I'm just getting all the values right. I hate that middle stage. The painting looks rudimentary.

On another note, I found out I can tell the difference between Titanium White and Utrecht White...and I've decided that I am a nerd with a precise eye for color.

July 11

11x14" Heart Rain as a painting...for the Johnstons. :) Thanks you guys! Once it's dry, I'll sign and varnish it and then it'll ship off to you. I've also got a CD of pictures of the painting process to send with the painting. This was a lot of fun to paint...I enjoyed putting color in the water where the hearts fall.

July 10

I've been signing all the paintings I haven't had time to sign before...so not much productivity...except I finished a commissioned piece. :) I have my windmill canvas ready to put the dark values in but - I have to be honest - I'm a little nervous about starting it. I've never seriously attempted painting structures before. :\ I just need to kick myself out into territory I've never traveled before, I suppose...

July 9

I've gotten into the habit of putting a bluish-gray wash onto the canvas before I start painting. Otherwise I put some heavy paint on the plain white canvas and you can see the white behind the paint...and that irks me. >:( It looks amateur to have the bare canvas showing in my opinion, unless you're Edvard Munch. Then it's just brilliant. :D Yes, art is that fickle. It looks good on some; on most, not. Art is this; art is that. You just can't put your finger on it.

July 8

I have a deluge of blog entries scheduled to be published every morning at 12.00 AM. :) The current day I'm writing this is actually July 6, and I've already painted the back-wash of this painting. I want to spread out the pictures/posts so this blog doesn't have 3-day intervals where
there aren't any posts.

July 7

I sat outside admiring the moon the night before last, and yesterday morning I painted it from memory. I think the colors are pretty accurate...

July 6

Thumbnail sketches, prepping the canvas, calculating composition, blah blah blah....

July 5

Sketched in, ready to go. I'm gonna put a nice back-wash on it tomorrow and get it ready to paint. :)

I've also got a 24x36" canvas getting sketched in. Gray skies, Dutch windmills, van Ruisdael-esque. Pretty sweet.

July 2

I want to paint. I'm dying to paint. I have some big canvas sitting right next to me...tempting me...
But first I need reference photos that aren't copyrighted to the photographer.

I've been listening to poetry. Oscar Wilde has some awesome poetry skills I never picked up on till now...

Look upward where the white gull screams,
What does it see that we do not see?
Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams
On some outward voyaging argosy,
Ah! can it be
We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!
How sad it seems.

July 1

I haven't updated in a while, and this picture is old.

Sketching has been put on a back-burner as I focus more on big-scale paintings of landscapes and clouds (the grammar of this sentence is so screwed up). I'm in the middle of a commissioned piece, and I've also been deciding what to paint next for my portfolio and, in-between sessions of planning out each reference photo, I've taken to reading. A lot of reading. More than 200 pages a day kind of reading.

I finished Dracula and read more than half of Farenheit 451 yesterday. Earlier today I finished Farenheit 451 and now I'm getting into Mythology by Edith Hamilton as well as rereading Paradise Lost by John Milton.

Yesterday was so gray and drizzly and PERFECT. I woke up early, had a cup of tea and dragged my blanket out into the sitting area with the biiiig windows to read my book. It was so relaxing. After these past hectic weeks, it feels so good to sit at home all day. I love to sit and think and study.

June 22

8-hour painting spree today. I started painting the backwash and dark values on it Saturday but I stopped when I became extremely depressed. Somehow I couldn't mix colors right and it was turning out more green than anything...and then I went outside in hopes of painting en plein air but that ended up looking like a three-year-old painted a tree out of memory so I stopped painting and went inside to drown my sorrows in Cherry 7up. Saturday wasn't fun at all....but today is so much better! I finished this painting and it looks awesome...and colorful! I don't paint very much with that whole color thing! I prefer muted grays and browns... :)

June 19

This North Sea (best sea in the world. It's gray and cloudy and cold even in summer. :DD) beach-scape took a total of an hour and a half. :) :) I'm proud. I paint gray clouds so quickly and delightedly, time just flies by. This is a 16x20" canvas
I'm planning a vertical painting of windmills and stormy gray clouds and a Dutch landscape. I'M EXCITED.

June 18

Completion.

I finished this painting June 16, 2009. :)

I'll be gone until Monday. I'm house-sitting. :D And I get to use the studio!!!

June 17

I had cropped a section of this drawing on a blog entry before (http://ktsketch.blogspot.com/2009/03/march-7.html) because I didn't like the work at all. Yesterday, I looked at it again and decided that it was nicely done. So now I release this sketch out onto the internet, with its reference photo. Yes, this is a picture of me. I like how it doesn't look like me at all. I think it's awesome how different lighting can change a face so drastically. :)

I found the perfect scripture for this: (http://ktsketch.blogspot.com/2009/05/may-21-slight-nudity_21.html) :: "Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears." Hosea6.4.

June 16

This is what I've got on the ocean cloudscape so far. It's getting there, slowly. I'd prefer it to be faster, but there's not much I can do with moving and all.

I'm trying to get the painting to loosen up. It's too stiff for my liking...and I'm blaming the digital reference I'm using. Daggum cameras and their color distortion. If I had pretty landscape to work from, I'd plein air reference everything I paint large scale. >:I
For now, I'm learning to gather inspiration from cityscapes to prepare me for my 4+ years spending time at Baylor.

June 15

Cheryl Griffin, this is for you. :) I'll give it to you sometime...I just wanted to put a digital copy on my 'puter.

June 13

1 Corinthians 13.12 was one of the verses for this years' camp at Dayspring...and it's one of my favorite verses ever. The imagery and hope in it is just so beautiful.

I understand a lot of ideas as seeing one's self in a mirror. Mirrors are definitely a frequent theme in my work...

June 11

I will be gone until Friday I think haha
I've done a little more on the painting but I'm still a little unsure how I feel about it. I think the brush I've been using is just a tad too big.
Baylor advising in the morning. I'm going to clean up the paints and go to bed.
I've been dying to paint but I have found no time to do so. :(

June 10

It has started. Now it's the waiting game.

I think it'll be fun having some of that lime green shine through those clouds. :D

June 9

Coming soon....

I'm painting the back-wash right now, and listening to Emery's new CD. Burgundy.

June 8

I have drawings that I need to put on the computer, but I'm too lazy to do that right now. I've got so much energy ready to unleash on canvas it's crazy. Tomorrow I'm going to do it...tomorrow I'm going to start an Impressionistic cloudscape on a huge canvas, and I'm going to start on a commissioned piece.

So yeah, keep updated. I'll definitely have pictures of my halfway-done projects tomorrow. But for now, look up Nicolai Fechin and drool over his portraits. I aspire to paint like him.

June 6

I like trees in foggy morning landscapes.

...But I've been dying to plein air again. When I was driving back from Galveston, I was absolutely enamored with the colors and shapes in the landscapes along Hwy 6...gosh, I only want to find some picturesque scene to plant my easel and let the paint flow.

I've been yearning to paint cloudscapes again. Less Expressionism, more Impressionism. I switch from time to time...it depends on my current mood.

June 5

Love of self burns within.

Bleeding hearts, eerie skeleton-like figures, minimalistic design, grayscale markers...my style is becoming more and more prominent in everything that I do.

Why have I suddenly become obsessed with depicting decaying love? I guess it's because I see so many people gripping "love" to their chests with so much force that it is squelched dry and left broken on the floor. What kind of love is that? It's false, and small, and can't be left alive. This "love" is love of self, and it burns within until there is nothing left.

June 4

100th post!! So yeah, I've been on vacation for the past week. That's why there haven't been any posts. :) I forgot my good artist pen for the trip so I had to draw this using a ballpoint pen.

May 29

I like stating things openly in my art because I rarely state anything bluntly in reality. I dance around stating something matter-of-factly because I'm afraid my words will be thrown back at me. And then sometimes I really don't care, and I'll be as blunt as my art is.

Norma jean has been rolling through my head today: "We're broken here; we're ruined here."

Too bad it's so horribly and halfheartedly drawn. :I

May 28

I found an old vintage photo and his face was interesting. I'm kind of proud of myself for drawing him with only a navy blue crayola colored pencil.

Is it weird that I find some people to have such interesting facial features that I have to draw them? :\

May 27

This is a birthday gift for my dear friend Jessica. :) Who doesn't look too often at my sketchblog...so I think I'm safe.

He himself is our peace. Eph.2.14

May 26

I'm full of cynical comments today. And I'm grumpy.

And I hate this picture.

May 25

I've been living in a daydream all day. I love it when my imagination carries me away.
And I've been addicted to this band called Headless Heroes. It's like their album is the soundtrack for my mind.

not a self-portrait btw.

Someone - somewhere - said to me, "Will someone - somewhere - carry me?" -Headless Heroes

May 24

I hate drawing on lined paper, but when you have the itch to draw, you just have to. Apparently my brain was trying to draw a woman sitting in a pond with her hair as a waterfall..... ? I was listening to Start the Machine by Angels & Airwaves -- awesome song.

http://fartappreciation.blogspot.com

Do it.

May 23

I'm graduating today. This is all I've got. :I It's not too good or original but it works

May 21 *SLIGHT NUDITY*

Look around you, and you'll see desperate faces crying out for something, anything. Anything to numb this constant pain and this eternal struggle. For many, "love" is their opiate. "Love" as in the shallow, easily replaced fuzzy feeling society thrusts upon each and every one of us. Who isn't pressured to find the love of their life? Turn on the television, and "love" is the dominating feeling. Only a handful of us see that this "love" is fragile. It simply can't be kept alive if we snap its foundation and try to nurture it ourselves. Love, like everything else beautiful and pure, decays in the grip of mortal hands. But still we all grasp for it, like children desperate for a new toy to chew on to rid ourselves of the aching pain that won't - can't - stop...

Pause. Be still. Look up.

Love is suspended. The thread is thin, because it lies in this mortal atmosphere, but it is strongly connected to its source. Keep the thread intact, and you'll find that "love" is only a poor reflection of something much greater, and much more genuine and pure. LOVE is God, and God is Love. He wants to teach us humans how to nurture the love he showers us...but how can He teach when we refuse to listen? How can He teach when we climb and wail; when we reach and snap the thread like a flower that will eventually wilt and rot?
There is something much greater than this. My heart aches when I see girls struggling for their vision of "love." Even when the truth is there in front of them. Even when all they have to do is look up. In those moments, I feel very much like Jeremiah:

My soul! My soul! I am in anguish! O, my heart! My heart is pounding in me; I cannot be silent, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet; the alarm of war. - Jer.4.19

May 20

Guess who this is!

....

...it's Mona Lisa...

yeah, I tried.

May 19

Old statues are so incredibly fun to draw in gray scale markers. This is my favorite so far. I'm drawing on each 4x5.5" thank-you card that I'm sending out to the people sending me graduation gifts. =) This is one of five so far...

May 18

Rainy days and black overcoats and boots and umbrellas are absolutely aesthetic. :) i love the reflection on the wet sidewalk especially!

I wish it would rain more here so I could carry a big black umbrella and wear heavy trenchcoats and boots and gloves and look way classy.

May 17

No, this drawing was NOT inspired by Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. Gosh.

This has always been my favorite flower...it's called a Bleeding Heart. Look it up on google -- it's absolutely gorgeous. I remember picking Bleeding Hearts and putting them in my hair when I was little. :)

I like drawing curly messy hair. I can sympathize. :)

I haven't been drawing much lately....there is no way I can unravel my easel and start painting because of my cluttered room. In less than a month we'll be moving to a larger living space!! But for now I'm focusing my energy on graduating, drawing thank-you notes for graduation gifts, graduation trip to AL, Baylor initiation/scholarship/living stuff, clearing out my room for the move, and finalizing my summer reading list. YES.

May 14

I've forgotten to upload anything in the past few days...because I've been playing video games almost non-stop. This is what my summer schedule has been like for almost my entire life...

I fell asleep around three yesterday morning, and woke up at 12.30 to eat a lunchfast sort of meal consisting of two muffins, and then I fell upon Harvest Moon Another Wonderful Life and Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion with breaks of Super Smash Bros Brawl and Mass Effect and Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess (and Phantom Hourglass) and Pokemon Diamond and Fire Emblem Sacred Stones in-between. All the while lusting for Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon and Animal Crossing Wild World and Castlevania Order of Ecclesia. And I'm still waiting for a copy of Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn for the Wii to pop up at GameStop. I've been wanting to play that epic game since it first came out...

I'm a sad little person.

Maybe tomorrow I'll read a book or do something more productive other than sit on the couch and smear game controllers with taco grease. :D

May 11

Sometimes you just have to let it go.

This could have been so much better if I had spent more time making it better. But eh. I bought a 30x40" canvas today for cheeeap, and I'm excited. :D

May 10

Thumbnail sketch. Hard to tell what it is, right? hahaha

I've got an idea brewing in my head...I'm scared if I tell, then it's not going to be as good as I'm pretending it'll be. It's like when you have a dream that is so good that you want to tell someone else about it, but you're hesitant because you feel like some of the magic will leave once you speak it out loud...? It's like that.

...Except 100 times more tempting.