dr_lizardo

Lately I've been working myself up to have a go at art again. I should be very sorry about it if I got to the end of my life without at least having tried to be an artist.

Been thinking about what sort of project would be fun enough to do for years, interesting enough to keep me motivated to keep trying. I thought of a book I once found in a little used bookstore, of victorian studio portraits, and I went up there in search ot that book, thinking to set about drawing from those old photographs. I didn't find that particular book again, but I found a couple of others, one on Modigliani and another on Mucha. I think it would be fun to do portraits of people I know in the style of Modigliani, or Mucha or Aubrey Beardsley. So this afternoon I set about copying (sort of) a modigliani painting with the above result. It is what it is, nothing earthshaking but I don't hate it. I'm not really attempting to duplicate a given painting, I'm trying to study how an artist has built his image, to give myself a toolbox of techiques, of expressive visual language. I've never had much success drawing from life so I'm having a go at learning to make pictures by studying pictures. I also spent five dollars on a big sampler package of colored pencils. I don't know what makes another sort of colored pencils cost six times as much, but I spose I'll learn my way through the medium. I don't see colors as well as other people do, but there's nothing for it but to try and work with such colors as I can see.

I've been feeling depressed about having to leave home again. I know it doesn't make sense but it afflicts me anyway. Tomorrow I'm headed down to Harrisburg Pa to start up with Werner. I'm too long out of school for them to offer tuition reimbursement on my student loans, but whatever. Hopefully they have loads and miles. Hopefully their trucks are as nice as they claim. Now that I have cellular internet I can waste even more time here. Or maybe feel less pressured to do so, when I can get it any time.

Cherrio, pip pip.