Posted: December 30th, 2008 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Artists, Sketches, Thoughts | Tags: drawings, music, umfeld, winter break | No Comments »
This week has been an incredible one for music. My interest in music just keeps getting deeper and deeper. A friend of mine has showed me some amazing artists whose music I plan on acquiring once I get back to mke. Soundcloud is an amazing hub for quality music it seems. The songs are so fresh and contemporary. I’m starting to be able to recognize styles and musical trends that are occurring in modern electronica music. It is hard to fathom all the possibilities in creating music with computers.
Some artists, who as far as I’ve heard kick ass, (spelling may not be perfect) are Eryka Badu, Dert, Baduizm, Firewater, Sigward, Buset, and a slew of soundcloud and myspace dudes whose names I have to search for again. One of the most interesting things I’ve seen since yesterday was Umfeld. I would not suggest watching the whole thing through (even if you could) as you might go insane, but it is an interesting display of sound and visual manipulations. To me it is one of the most organic and lifelike displays of computer animation and digital manipulation of sounds.
Before this blog goes from visual art to music blog completely, I have been thinking about re-focusing my artistic energies on my digital art. Layering of drawings and hybridization of analog and digital mediums. I really enjoy using the computer, and some of my best ‘drawings’ have happened there. An art day is in store.
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Posted: December 28th, 2008 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Projects, Thoughts | Tags: art business, brady street, farmers market, madison, permit, selling art, summer | No Comments »
Astronomically speaking winter has only just begun. So, as an ode to summer and the longer days I thought I would post some pictures of a couple summer markets where I’ve sold my work. These shows were always stressful, not always lucrative, but I did have fun and am glad I made the effort. I should also mention thanks to my mother who let me use her car and who occasionally helped out with preparation and setup. For a full list of the places I’ve been go here.
The Brady Street Festival – 2007
The Madison Farmers Market (Capitol Square) – 2008
This was before I got a permit, just sold on the streetside (much more profitable)
After the permit, with a new display set up.
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Posted: December 25th, 2008 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Artists, Thoughts | Tags: jamming, Library Donut, marty finkle, mr. Squirrel, music | 1 Comment »
Merry Christmas to everyone, or happy holidays, whichever you prefer. Today I gave my sister a Christmas gift, a drawing, of which I was not particularly proud. It was procrastinated upon, and despite my efforts proportions and value structure were slightly off giving the whole image a slightly off feel. She agreed saying it looked like she had just gotten through chemo in the picture and then she mentioned something about “baldilocks.” Now thats a vicious critique if I ever heard one 
.
Currently I really feel like jamming. Here is a drawing I did a couple weeks ago of a guy named Marty Finkel playing drums at one of the first Library Donut shows. Kinda digging ink and pen drawings.. In other news my friend Mr. Squirrel’s EP is out and for sale (this guy works like crazy on his music, so if you like it, buy it)! If any of you have an interest in electronic music, check it out. He has most of his songs up for download available to celebrate the release of this EP so take advantage of it and rock out to some awesome digital music!
Time to make some music, peace!
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Posted: December 24th, 2008 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Sketches, Thoughts | Tags: art theory, drawing history, graphite | No Comments »
When looking back on my artistic endeavors it is interesting to look at the materials I used most frequently. (Note: digital drawing tablet is included under pen). There is a slight exaggeration of my graphite use as I cannot remember my first drawing ever. Thus I will just assume that I’ve been drawing all along, even at age 0. For the vast majority of my life I have been using graphite which I fell out of favor with once I fully entered art school.
Problems with Graphite: As far as drawing materials go graphite can be a wonderful drawing tool imho, aside from several things. Graphite does not have as wide of a value range as charcoal, pen, pastels, or crayon (except for maybe 9Bs). Graphite smudges like a motherfucker. Charcoal does as well, but with the way I personally hold a graphite pencil (tight) versus a charcoals tick (loose) I actually smudge less with charcoal. Graphite is also very difficult to erase, especially when you’re dealing with very dark values. A dark graphite pencil and eraser will tear my piece of paper a new one.
Bonuses of Graphite: Graphite is an amazing line tool. Very small details can be achieved with a sharp tipped pencil. Whereas one’s charcoal stick will go flat within a series of strokes a pencil can retain its sharpness for much longer (although frequent sharpening is a good idea imo). In addition cross hatching is ideal with a pencil. Along with pen, graphite pencils allow for some amazing cross contour hatching to describe the planes of any form. Posted here is my most recent and best yet use of cross hatching with graphite. I decided to do my last in-class drawing with my old friend graphite.
Recently (past couple years) I’ve fallen in love with charcoal and oil paints. Mainly because I’ve been forced to use them, but they do provide a whole new world of visual possibilities. I love their feel and their wide range of abilities (value, texture, fluidity, etc).
Happy Holidays and Happy Drawing!
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Posted: December 21st, 2008 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Projects | Tags: 5% rule, art business | No Comments »
This blog is slowly taking over more and more of my soul. With every post artocalypse gains a little more sway over me, and again it won’t be denied:
Creativity is good. To graph my 5% art profit donations I went on an online hunt for a flash or jscript graph maker to post graphs on my website. Well most of the software is not free and just at my peak of frustration with the search I figured out a way to make some good looking graphs. I used this site (which is actually an educational site for kids) and took a screen shot of the graph (after some ctrl zoom inage), photoshoped it, and now I have some jpgs up on my website’s info page. I’ll post them here just to prove that asking money for software now adays is a losing cause.
I hope to see the day monetary currency dies and our markets are funded by usefulness and awesomeness.
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Posted: December 21st, 2008 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Artists, Projects, Thoughts | Tags: Library Donut, midi, music, nerdcore | No Comments »
It seems to me that every time Library Donut reunites for musical episodes its like a rebirth of joy in my head. The solstice show last night was a complete success. We actually had a crowd of people nodding heads and several of these: |..|,
My interest in music has also been spurred by my recent discovery of Nerdcore (thanks to Christa). I can relate to this music because one, I’m a white nerd, and two I like rap. This shit is awesome. Tonight I’m dedicating atleast an hour of my time to messing around with my rarely used MIDI keyboard. This post is specifically short of detail about both these subjects because I’ve got some music to make, some websites to refurb, and some christmas presents to make.
peace out world.
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Posted: December 20th, 2008 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Projects, Thoughts | Tags: elgg, etsy, social network, web design | No Comments »
The more I work on this social network the more it feels like endlessly chasing the wind. From [edit] and dolphin, to revolart.com and elgg, and now I’m switching yet again. I’m staying with elgg to be sure as it is the best out there for what I need, but my web-dev-tech-savy-ness-less is catching up. Today I was able to play around with php, mods, and themes in order to get this:
Its as far as I’ve been so far. I am learning a great deal. An aquaintance (who is quite skilled with webdev and design) of mine is setting me up on his own servers and helping me out a bit with this project. I’m eternally grateful just to have this guy on aim teaching me more in five mintues than an hour of searching on the web. Part of the difficulty is that Elgg (the base I’m using for this social network) is very young and there isn’t a whole lot of info out there on it. Most of the people using it already have the skills to use it effectively.
So, I’m taking a new approach. I’m going to build the site on paper, put down everything I want, fill my imagination to the brim and then build from there. I know its possible and little by little I’m gathering the necissary tools. It will work.
In other news I’ve opened up a second etsy store. One might wonder why I need two and the simple answer is that each store showcases different styles of work. The original store has sketchwork and studies, the crude raw stuff. The new store has more polished works and even framed prints.
I’m exhausted.
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Posted: December 18th, 2008 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Projects, Thoughts, Upcoming | Tags: etsy, Library Donut, school | 1 Comment »
Stress levels returning to normal, workload transfer complete, engines cooling. As of tonight I no longer have class for what seems like a wonderfully long period of time (2 weeks). My busiest semester by far is over, my house is clean, my computer clean, I’ve got a meeting w/ Sovine about the Collegium Sorcerorium commission tomorrow, a show with Library Donut in madison this weekend, and I’m feeling pretty damn good. Had my final critiques today and turned in some ok projects (above and below). Definitely not as high caliber as I wanted, so next time I’ll start a little earlier…
One thing I’ve been meaning to write about is a recent sale with a user on Etsy. This person bought two drawings from me and when I was prepping to ship the works I noticed it was a gallery I was shipping to. The gallery is called the USpaceGallery based in Atlanta Georgia. I checked the site recently and they have the two drawings they bought priced six times higher than what I sold them for. I think it is a good idea, buying art on the cheap from artists online and reselling it. Its only I find it somewhat humorous that these are works done in about two hours at most and one is being sold for $120.00. Damn. If they actually sell one of those drawings… damn.
One can expect more blog posts since finals are over and I’ll probably be hibernating in front of my computer for the rest of break.
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Posted: December 16th, 2008 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Thoughts, Upcoming | Tags: civ 4, finances, Library Donut | No Comments »
Recently I’ve witnessed something of a personal renaissance. My band Library Donut is having a show (it is rare that we’re all in the same city at the same time) in Madison this weekend, I’ve started playing Civ IV which is not good for my final projects, and many of the sketches I’ve been doing recently are hitting upon my old themes of fantasy war. I thoroughly enjoy these things. I know that I have lost a certain enjoyment in drawing that I used to have. When I was younger I would wake up with an image in my head and get a pencil and paper. Most of the time the drawings I made I did not like, but when I did I was ecstatic.
World view lens is being transformed by my art studies, a lot. I see things quite differently and almost daily find myself thinking “that would make an awesome painting” when on the bus or walking down a hallway. Also when looking at art I think about the sellability of each work. I hate this. Many times in the past I have had brainstorming sessions w/ myself about how I can make money with art. I don’t like feeling as if I must use my creativity to make money, but money runs this world so what can you do? With the social network coming along bit by bit I hope to use my creativity for something bigger than me and bigger than money. In today’s society it is harder and harder to make money off art (pirating) so new ways need be developed. I think its a shame though that we are forced (or are we?) to think about money. Its too bad in today’s society money is one of the ultimate tools for getting shit done. More and more new ways to get shit done are being done w/o money thanks to web 2.0. I leave it at that.
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Posted: December 12th, 2008 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Finished Works, Sketches | Tags: elgg, phpbb3, self portrait, social network | No Comments »
After perusing the interweb for sometime I’ve decided to relocate [edit] so I can use elgg freeware for the social network. Thanks to responses by some people on the [edit] think tank a new name has been generated. The new domain name for the social network is Revolart.com. I’ll be building forums with phpBB3 software and tons of mods. Lots of new ideas have been generated and I can’t wait for finals to be done so I can pounce on this project like a 5,000lb lion.
In other news, I recently created my most naturalistic painting and best self-portrait to date in my opinion. The images you see here are from finish to start. The painting was inspired by Timothy Stotz and Odd Nerdrum. I have begun to really appreciate realism in paintings because I think it ups the level of human presence and emotion in a work.
Time to crash. zzzz
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