Sketching.

This was a very short sketching session, but I like what came of it

A sketch is mostly a quick and rough outline of a finished work, it's kind of the skeleton on which the artist will have the muscles and skin of the work stand. A sketch is kind of like taking note of an idea to work on it later.
Most of the time, it takes place on paper with a pencil, but it can definitely be done with pen or whatever the artist has at the moment. It can also be done right on the canvas, if the artist doesn't want to draw on the canvas and will just start working right away with brush and paint, I think this is called painting "a la prima" or something >_>

ANYWAY, sketching is very important for an artist to do everyday as exercise to keep his or her drawing hand limber and as a form of constant study of the forms that surround us. Depending how it's done, it will help one to work faster, make more precise lines and be more accurate in the drawing.

Sketching is something I don't do nearly enough, I hardly ever really just sketch and that's probably why I find it so difficult to draw the body or the face in a lot of different positions and my work tends to come out really stiff and immobile. BUT, when I DO, even if it's just a couple of pages of sketches, I can see and feel myself working progressively faster and better. So, srsly, I should sketch more and stop dicking around with that.
An artist can sketch anything, he/she feels like at the moment or based on whatever he likes working on most; in my case, it's the human body, so my sketches usually revolve around that: different positions and angles of the human body and face.
Sketches, because they're outlines, don't have a lot of detail and not a lot of shading.

These are two things that were meant to be sketches, but I got carried away XD

I LIKE shading, so I tend to concentrate on that, instead of moving on to the next sketch and a lot of times, I just end up with a finished drawing XD
Back in school, the drawing teacher would time us and give us shorter sketching time for the next sketch and we didn't do it a lot, but even one session of that was INCREDIBLE progress.

This and the other sketches that don't say so, are from a single sketching session that I pulled the finger out and actually worked on like three or four pages

Strange World

This was the invitation/flyer. The only thing made by computer is all the writing except for "Mundo Extraño", I made that with watercolors.

"Strange World" was the name of my first individual art exhibit and I had to put it together all on my own. From finding the place, to making the paintings, to decorating the place, getting foodz, making invitations, fliers, posters, hiring somebody to cater, putting it on some kind of medium of communication. EVERYTHING.
The purpose of it, was for me to be able to get my Bachelor of Arts degree, specializing in easel painting. I don't even know how that measures up to the rest of the world, because I always get impossibly confused whenever I want to look for Masters or something. I GUESS? A master is what comes next? I don't know.
ANYWAY, yeah, before being able to make the art exhibit and work on it, I had to write like a little thesis that revolved around the theme that I wanted to make the paintings about, which was Fantasy Art. And why I chose it and why I like it and an analysis of the paintings, glossary, whatever the shit. I say little thesis, because I didn't go over one hundred pages of written stuff. So I had to present that shit, talk in front of three teachers so they'd grade me and whatever and THEN I'd be able to make the art exhibit.

I was actually pretty clear on how I wanted the place to be decorated and what shape I wanted the room to be. It's relatively simple: I just wanted the paintings to be hanging all over the walls of an entirely matte black, square room. I didn't even think of framing the paintings, because I think that's up to the person that buys each painting and it's better if they see each painting in it's most bare form. In MY opinion, anyway >_>
There IS such a room as I wanted here, in the "Museo de Arte Contemporáneo", funny thing about that joint, is that it's pretty far from being a museum, it's just a huge ass mother gallery. But, yeah, they have this little room, that's all painted black, the walls, the floor and the roof; and the time I entered there that I was totally taken aback was with this artist woman that did things in metal. I don't remember her last name, but she had in that room these BIG ASS metal wings, painted silver and they were just hanging in the middle of the room. And, you know, describing sensations is always a ramble and it's always confusing and this is why this is a big fucking paragraph of bullshit right now, but I felt like I was floating in space or just somewhere where I was somehow separate from the rest of the world and I felt immense comfort and wonder. Like, the wings were just these super mysterious.. contraptions, that although I knew were hanging from nylon strings, were just floating there, suspended in time.

These are the wings, except that they're huge wings and they don't look as awesome with that grey background. Her name is Emily Zhukov, by the way >_>

I wanted that sensation for my art exhibit and it's kind of the sensation that I feel when I see my finished works.
HOWEVER, that museum doesn't hold art exhibits for artists that aren't recognized, but the director guy super totally loved my drawings, so that was cool.
I found another place with a nice square room, it's this stupid, trendy library place we have here called "Excedra Books" and they have a conference room where they hold art exhibits. Except, I'd find in the end, I was only renting the walls and not the entire room, so they still held conferences in there and it wasn't an awesome empty room anymore, it was full of folding chairs most of the time. Fucking assholes >=/
So, since I couldn't modify the room itself, I kind of had to work on top of the walls, like I couldn't paint the walls, for example. What I did in the end was just hang black fabric behind each painting and WOW it was amazing how everything looked. The lighting was perfect, because I'm incredibly fond of that yellow colored lighting, it's always been the color of the bulbs in my room XD

It's a pretty big room, as you can see. The paintings looked so small

I LOVED how it turned out, because when somebody approached whichever painting, it would look as if it was just floating in space, because everything was black behind it and with the little bits of air from the air conditioner or whatever, the fabric would move a very little bit behind the paintings and it looked like they were breathing, but the kind of mellow breathing from when you sleep. It was the most incredible thing ever. And I was SO proud of them finally hanging for a public to see.

Fantasy Art

Fantasy art is a pretty vague thing and I felt really dumb when I was presenting my thesis, in front of the three teachers that would grade me.
I say that fantasy art is vague, because in all the time that I was researching about it, I couldn't find nice and thorough information, like you'd find if you looked for Cubism, for example. I mean, yeah, wikipedia has an article about fantasy art, but it's really short and only has kind of a definition of it and doesn't have the history and hardly any of the ones that practice it.

According to the research I made, Fantasy art has been present from the beginning of man kind, because it has to do with magical and mysterious things that we humans don't have an explanation for. It can overlap with science fiction and horror, but science fiction touches, as the name says, scientific things and horror, fear. So they CAN be filtered from each other. It can also overlap with a bunch of other shit, simply because there's tons of things that we don't understand about the world and ourselves and we tend to make up stuff about them, 'cuz that's just how we humanz work.

Fantasy art was present when we were drawing things in caves, because there's the theory that those drawings, although based on reality, were actually some sort of magic spells. Because the cavemen would draw themselves being successful in the hunt as a good luck charm that would make them successful when they ACTUALLY went out to hunt.

I don't remember WHERE I gathered all that shit from, but definitely part of it was from the wikipedia article and a pretty spiffy book called "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy Art by John Clute and John Grant".

ANYWAY, yeah. I'm incredibly fond of Fantasy art and wanted to make this entry about it and mention some of my favorite Fantasy artists.


1. Luis Royo: One of the things that I seriously like about his work, even if it becomes kind of monotone sometimes, is the atmosphere he creates. As if there was this super thick humidity, that makes everything look as if it was covered in myst.
I also like how it's blurry and detailed, at the same time. The women he draws are incredibly beautiful and they manage to stay beautiful, even if everything around them is decadent.
And it's far out how obsessive he is about his work to the point of not having sex and showering.


2. Brom: I don't know exactly what it is I like so much about this guy's work. Maybe it's how NEAT everything looks, the amount of color, just the right amount of reality, proportion and cartoon and how you are CERTAIN there's a story for each image. And I also admire and I'm super envious of him having already written three graphic novels.


3. Dorian Cleavenger: (If you don't have a Mac, you'll probably be able to view his website just fine >=/) What I've always liked about this guy is the stupid amount of IMAGINATION he has. Like, yeah, cat women are cool and so are mermaids, but that kind of shit is also really generic and COMMON and you see it a lot all the time; but this guy has the strangest creatures ever and, although I may not always like what he comes up with, it's definitely always refreshing, interesting and INSPIRING to look at his work.
That image I put up there is my favorite one of his.


4. Boris Vallejo:Boris Vallejo is awesome, because even if he's painting Fantasy subjects, he makes everything look so REAL. The amount of color he uses is super respectable and enviable and his love of the human body is amazing. And I dig that he respects the human body in his paintings and in real life, because the guy is also a body builder or something XD
And HOLY SHIT BALLS they have a blog here, too *dies* Here *follows*
Also, his wife, Julie Bell paints some super spiffy shit, too.

Feelings

For a long time, I've thought of my feelings as a raging sea inside my chest. Or just thought of feelings in general that way and, it may have been brought about by Björk's video "Jóga", where towards the end she's standing atop a mountain or something and she's opening her chest with her hands and inside there's an island. That image has stayed with me since then and it always brings some kind of comfort and wonder to see it.
So, feelings would be inside one's chest, where the sternum is, and this drawing has to do with that image. The woman in the drawing is overwhelmed by her feelings, which pour out of her chest and are flooding her surroundings and make her weak, so she leans against the back of a chair. And her feelings are moving around her as if they were the sea.


The drawing is kind of like a two panel comic strip, in the first part, she has her eyes closed and tries to stop her feelings from pouring out, by covering her chest with her hand. In the second part, they're still pouring out all the same and even a bit more, but she looks up at the viewer, maybe asking for some help or understanding.

Also, I don't know exactly why, but I wanted to sign the drawing as if it was a print. I guess it just looks that way to me; so on the bottom left there's the number this copy in particular above and the amount of copies of the "print" made below (1/1), in the middle the title and on the right my signature and, under the signature, I put all the other shit I usually sign the drawings with, the date and where it was finished. The drawing is 2B pencil and watercolor for the sea, it's 12 x 18 inches and it's USD 100.00.


This other drawing, was me trying to "experiment" and it's the only other drawing I've made with the same dimensions as "Feelings", that's why I'm talking about it in this same entry >_>. So on that drawing there's pencil, watercolor, acrylic, a Sharpie marker, which is that black stuff at the bottom (x_x) and sanguin. That drawing is called "Sun and moon, respectively", because both faces have Egyptian eyes painted on as kind of make up and the left Egyptian eye means the moon and the right means the sun. This one is USD 90.00 and I seriously like it.

Vincent Van Gogh

I've been saying that Vincent  Van Gogh is my favorite artist for a while now and I think it's because of Don Mclean's song "Vincent". I DID like him before, but it wasn't until I heard that song and realized who it was about that it really got to me. And I heard the song again today, on the way back home from my grandma's house, and I cried like a moron.

Vincent VanGogh suffered his entire life, because he was too passionate. He had an insatiable fire burning inside and it constantly asked for more, no matter what he did, and he had no choice but to heed to the fire's capricious will. It consumed him throughout all of his life, until he gave in and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. His last words were: "The sadness will last forever."

He was thirteen in this picture

His tortuous way of painting is so consonant with his whole life and him physically, you can see in his face how stubborn, troubled and difficult he must have been, even from the uncomplicated and tender age of thirteen.

I guess it can be seen as depressive and sad, and it sure is, but it's also really beautiful how DEVOTED he was in every sense. And, yeah, his painting was tortuous, but it's also an incredibly colorful and granulated way of seeing the world, where it seems like everything is constantly moving and changing.

I also think it's very respectable and admirable that he could paint like that and he could also make more polished and finished works and the AMOUNT of works he produced, that tells me that he had actual skill and wasn't just dicking around with painting.

Don Mclean's song was banned in Canada when it'd first come out, because they thought it was a song about homosexuals or something related. Now, I don't know shit about poetry, but I feel like the lyrics of this song are incredibly poetic:

Starry starry night

Paint your pallet blue and grey

Look out on a summer's day

With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills

Sketch the trees daffodils

Catch the breeze and the winter chills

In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

How you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry Starry night

Flaming flowers that brightly blaze

Swirling clouds in violet haze

Reflecting Vincent's eyes of China blue

Colors changing you

Morning fields of amber grey

Weathered faces lined in pain

Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now I understand

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

How you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you

But still your love was true

And when no hope was left inside that starry starry night

You took your life as lovers often do

But I could've told you, Vincent

This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

Starry starry night

Portraits hung in empty holes

Frameless heads on nameless walls

With eyes that watch the world and can't forget

Like the strangers that you've met

The ragged men, in ragged clothes

The silver thorn of bloody rose

Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen

They're not listening still

Perhaps they never will

Maybe I shouldn't have bothered writing anything, before the lyrics, because they say everything. And maybe all of us future people, in comparison to him, are full of shit and are just idealizing him and he was just a prima donna and an asshole; because we tend to do that. Same as the Scandinavians glorify the Vikings, when they were dicks and the Japanese glorify the Samurais, when they were assholes, too. And maybe I'm entirely biased by that song, that makes his suffering and decadence so beautiful, I don't know.

Regardless, I can only wish for a small fraction of that passion and drive that he had and hope that it will consume me until there is nothing but ash.

Incubus

Yesterday, I decided this next entry would be about the Incubus.

First, though, here are some links that lead to WHAT an incubus is:
- Wikipedia
- Occultopedia This website is kind of annoying, because some pages have animation and cheesy music, but I don't know if all the pages have sound. Nice to read, though.

This is the original. Or maybe not the original, just the first one. The drawing and the would be story are called "Seduction of an Incubus"

My incubus started out as a little 4 x 6 inches drawing, when I was still working at a call center and they let us have a couple of things atop the desk and I'd draw, when there weren't any calls. I bought the very small drawing book, because drawing on the spare pages from trainings sucked and I could carry the small drawing book around without it getting too much in my way. And it was kind of inconspicuous.
Anyway, when I started drawing him, I wasn't like "yeah, I'm drawing an incubus today", the drawings usually start with a little left eye and then the rest of the face comes along, whatever it may be. So, at the time, I was a bit more dedicated to fantasy art and that's how he got the four horns and as I drew him he started looking like a demon type thing and his eyes were staring out at me and this whole story started occurring to me about how he's an incubus and how he's going to seduce the narrator.

Also as I drew him and the story was coming up, it was super easy to visualize everything about him physically. How his skin would be like polished marble, but still warm and the color of a really gray sky; his thick mouth would be so red, it's almost purple; his eyes with no whites would be a tone of purple that has a little bit more red than blue in it; his hair is super thick, heavy and straight, jet black; and his build is slender and muscular. I could picture all of this in the story.

This is the second drawing I made of him. He's just chilled out there, I trip on this being the cover of the graphic novel. It would be a hard cover *_*

So this drawing is a really long term project that I'd like to make into an illustrated novel or graphic novel or whatever. The story is meant to be super graphic, because the incubus is seducing the narrator and fucks her brains out, but I also don't want it to be lewd, like a Penthouse story or something and I don't have enough imagination to think of "neutral" words, but then maybe "neutral" words will kill the mood for some people and thinking about that rattles my brain. And the story would also have amazing super detailed illustrations, so it would be like a really complicated adult comic. It will be my baby. Don't nobody steal my fucking idea >=/
BUT YEAH, since writing the thing has gotten so difficult, I've laid off that for now and I usually stare at the little drawing, until it makes me uncomfortable and when I was making the paintings for the art exhibit, I decided it would be appropriate to make a painting out of him. As kind of a way for me to get to know my creation better, and MAN it was an awesome experience. I think I enjoyed painting him the most and he was also the last painting to be worked on and finished.

This is the enlarged version I tried to make. It's not bad, but his eyes are too small, face too wide, has a stupid facial expression in comparison to the original

First I had to enlarge the incubus' face, because the canvas is 24 x 36 inches (XD) and I tried just drawing it again. The result wasn't bad, but it just wasn't AMAZING and hypnotizing like the original, and then I got the BRILLIANT idea of just photocopying the thing, DUH, right? 6_9 Anyway, I did and then, after a lot of struggle finding a way to get the body and pose I wanted, he was on the canvas.
Painting him was incredibly pleasurable, right from the beginning. And from day one, just stained, he'd stare at me. I went on this AWESOME trip the whole time, that I'd added a body and color, so in no time, he'd walk right out of the canvas. I felt like I was merely doing him a favor, by bringing him to life this way and, by me getting into it like this, he was taking over me and it felt like some really strange kind of foreplay. It was the best thing ever.

Also, while I was working on him, since the incubus is supposed to be kind of a secret lover, nobody knew I was working on him NOBODY. That was also part of my trip, that he's my lover and nobody can know he exists. So, although he was in my room the whole time, neither my dad, brother or boyfriend knew what I was doing.

This is the painting as it was in the art exhibit. Sorry for the watermark and censored part. That's just him touching his balls and hard on, but I'm pretty sure I can't put up naked people here. I thought it was pretty funny, how people didn't stay and look at him and they referred to how several of the paintings had horns, but nothing about how he's a naked demon with a boner. The naked male body, I guess is just not as common to see as the naked female body

So, in the painting, he's meant to be coming out of the shadows, because in the writing, there's no particular source of light; and he's meant to be coming out of the shadows, with confidence that the viewer will allow herself to be seduced and his head full of evil intentions. In the end, the shadows on him weren't as marked as I'd thought originally, but I felt that he wouldn't have been as visible that way.

Looking at him for a prolonged time never fails to make me smile, because I'm so proud of him and all the things that revolve around him.
The painting is USD 1500.00, and I've considered either making it more expensive or just not having it for sale at all, because I don't want anyone to have him. If I had a lover, it would be him and if any demon could seduce me, it would also be him.

Eyes.

I've been working on this little 5 x 7 inches canvas today, I think I'm going to stop already, because there's wet paint all over it and my pulse sucks and have a super hard time working unless I can lean my hand on something. I mean, I CAN, but I'll avoid it whenever possible.
I started this one a long time ago and it's part of a kind of project of making the two eyes, nose and mouth of separate little canvases, not necessarily part of the same face.

I think the eyes are one of my favorite body parts, there's also the hands and feet, the face, back, abdomen, legs. I mean, I like all of the human body x_x
The eyes stand out a little, I think, all of their anatomy, everything about their shape and components.
I'd rather not go much more into it, I tried and was rambling like a moron. I was painting on the canvas with oil paintings.
The image below is a super close up of the iris.

Rosario Tijeras

Rosario Tijeras is a book by Jorge Franco Ramos and I've read it maybe three times. The story is situated in Colombia and it's about this super gorgeous woman, called Rosario Tijeras and she's involved in the drug business, sometimes does hit jobs and is the occasional lover of big drug dealers. It's narrated by a guy that sees her in a disco and falls in love with her.
It's a really beautiful book and I feel like it's kind of poetic, although I don't know shit about poetry. Maybe I should say it's more romantic, rather than poetic, because the narrator IS in love, anyway.
I love the book, because of Rosario herself, because she's such an awesome, bad ass, ruthless, impulsive and vulnerable character and because the narrator (I can't remember his name, I think it's Antonio x_x) is SO passionate about her. And passion is a beautiful thing.
The drawing on top is a representation of Rosario and I was able to put her on paper, after I saw the movie. It's Rosario in her walking, day to day life; she has her gun in her hand, with a kind of slutty outfit and has an angry face. This drawing is USD 70.00 and it's 11 x 14 inches.
In the book she's quick to shoot whoever disrespects her or whoever she's been assigned to kill and usually shoots only men whilst kissing them.
I liked watching the movie and I liked the girl they used to play Rosario, but I don't feel they focused it properly. Because it was more about how these two close friends fall in love with her at the same time, rather than it being about her entirely and how she drags these two guys into her hurricane.
The drawing on the bottom is Rosario as a saint, because in the book she becomes a kind of a legend in her home town and some call her a saint. So I drew her in a dress with the Virgin that sicarios usually pray to, a Rosary around her neck and on her wrist, the little medallions that sicarios usually use that have a picture of baby Jesus and the Virgin. I used a picture of Patricia Arquette that I LOVE as model, for posing and shading and I thought the gesture she's doing with her hand in the picture is so curious. This drawing is also USD 70.00 and is also 11 x 14 inches.

Some Artists I like

I didn't write anything yesterday, because I suck. I had a pretty busy day, with hanging with my dad and brother visiting this AWESOME fort, bathing in the spiffiest beach ever in my underwear and then, when we got back, hanging with my boyfriend.
What I MEANT to do yesterday, was link to some artists that I hold in high regard and that make me incredibly envious at how GOOD they are and how sickeningly AMAZING their work is. I'm going to do these three today.


"Sleipnir" by Keith Thompson

1. Keith Thompson: I'd seen Keith Thompson's work in a book I have called "Anatomy for Fantasy Artists", except I didn't know his name and then I don't remember how I stumbled upon his website. I don't know what techniques or tools he uses to make his pieces, I don't know what he looks like. But those drawings (I think they're drawings) are simply amazing. They're so detailed and meticulous and not a single line wasted. And I love how, in the website, each work has a little story, I mean, he IS a fantasy artist and most things inevitably has a story.

"Chirurgeon" by Maya Kulenovic

2. Maya Kulenovic: I don't know exactly how to describe what I feel when I see this woman's work. I DO know that I'm completely hypnotized, a little bit uncomfortable and sometimes I'm pretty close to becoming scared. She paints just so you can see some details, but at the same time it's kind of rough. I think it's that quality and such high contrast which hypnotizes me. I got the above image from the gallery "Faces"

"El Gato Helecho" by Remedios Varo

3. Remedios Varo: I'm sorry about the website being angelfire, but it's the only one that had sort of properly sized images of the paintings and also the most.
I stumbled upon this lady, when I was still going to university. We were each told to pick an artist and I picked her, because she was the only one that wasn't from the United States and that wasn't European. Turns out she WAS European, because she was born in Spain, but then I don't remember what happened and she was Mexican. I guess she married a Mexican guy or something. Anyway, I'm completely clueless about her technique, because I was reading about it one time and it's this super convoluted shit that I'm too stupid to understand. But the end result is super satisfying to look at. I feel like her works have some sort of childish thing going on, but they're also kind of mysterious. I like looking at her work, because of the amount of detail and because I'm trying to think what the story behind the image is. She was a surrealist, but she definitely had a touch of fantasy art going on in there.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Lately, I've been in an ultimate recycling mode and I don't want to throw anything away, except organic things and shit that will rot. So, aside from separating things like plastic, cans, foam things, carton for recycling; I've separated other things and decided to make spiffy shit with them. Remember that the pictures are flipped horizontally, because I use photo booth, so everything is backwards.

This one doesn't have a title yet, but under the black and white paint, it has about three layers of different kinds of papers, receipts, a couple of cards, bills, shit like that. One of the few things that aren't sent to be recycled is paper and news papers, because recycling paper is really contaminating, to my understanding. First, I spray painted each side, because it's faster and then a couple of layers of acrylic black and white paint and then the actual work will be oil paints.
I hope the impression this piece gives, isn't something related to "double personality" or whatever, because that's not what I feel it means. Granted, I don't know what's there yet, but it's not that. This one is going to be around USD 400.00. Although the materials are definitely super cheap, it's the painting work, more than anything else. And also the fact that I like so much how it's looking, usually when I like something I'll make it more expensive than necessary XD

This one is about to be finished, I just have to finish gluing the plastic tube on there and finish working on the word "Breathe", which is also the title of the thing. What's being recycled here is the mask and the tube, it may not be much, but I refuse to throw it away, because it's so cool. My dad got this mask and another one and a bunch of other spiffy hospital shit at the end of last year, because he had to have his gallbladder removed and I've kept everything, 'cuz I'm gonna use all those mothers. To glue the tube, my dad gave me this stuff that's used for cars called "GOOP" and it's super sticky and you're supposed to use it in a ventilated area. And the way it works, is you put some of the stuff on each side of what's going to be stuck together, you let it dry for a while and THEN you put both sides together. It smells nice, haha! XD
This one is going to be around USD 350 or 400.00.

I know this thing looks like a fucking mess and that's because it pretty much is. This is the piece with the most amount of recycled things. The piece of wood is covered with news paper, then it has pieces of thin carton bags from whichever stores, then it has some fabric, then a bunch of receipts, a soap, fliers, a piece of a broken dish, a limited edition Marlboro box (some aluminum metal thing, I don't even know, but it was awesome), some fish net, part of some shorts of mine, a cent a container of one of those things that you stick up your nose, when it's stuffed. Then I spray painted part of it and on top of the black spray paint I used some white oil paint and did some shit with that and the stuff that looks like blood, is crimson oil paint and, yeah, it's meant to be bleeding, but not because I love blood and shit (although, it IS some amazing stuff), but kind of because of a song by the Wallflowers called "Bleeders". The song has a line that says "Everything just bleeds". I dig it.
This one will probably be about USD 150.00.

This is the simples piece, but it's the only one that's made entirely out of recycled stuff. I used the box in which my computer came. I cut that mother up in different sized squares and stuck it back together and painted it, that's it. And my dad said he liked it from the beginning, so now that it's finished, it's going to go in his office.

This one is more along the lines of sculpture and what's recycled about this one is the news paper and the base, which is one of those foam plates/dish thing that meat, chicken or pork or fish come in. I usually keep the biggest ones, for when I paint, to put the oil paints on and mix colors and shit.
The "face" is modeling clay with plaster on top, that I sort of sculpted. I know it looks like crap, but that's because it's halfway to being finished.
This one's going to be between USD 90 or 100.00

Guardian of Anubis

"Guardian of the Temple of Anubis" is one of the most recent drawings I finished. It's a woman, with a spiffy haircut, the eye of Ra painted on her left eye, an ankh shaped birth mark above her heart, holding a jackal mask and "Guardian Anubis" in hieroglyphs behind her.

(By the way, the pictures I've uploaded so far, including the ones in the previous entry, are taken with Photo Booth and everything is flipped horizontally).

Anyway, supposedly, this Guardian of Anubis that I've drawn is a person that was born to guard the temple of Anubis and this is known from the moment they're born, because of the birth mark above their heart that's shaped like an ankh. They're a type of were-people, because they transform into jackals, when they need to exert their duty of guards, but they need aid from the mask. It's what they use to transform.

For the hieroglyphs, I used an online translator from English to hieroglyphs. This one. 

I don't know just how accurate it is, but I wanted to have hieroglyphs behind her and I'm cool with how those look.

I used 2B, 3B and 4B pencils. The drawing had started out a long time ago, when I still went to art university and the paper is super old and when I pressed the pencil too hard or erased too much, bits of fiber would come off. And the paper also has a weird color on it, but that's cool, I think it adds a nice effect of being old and shit.

And, finally, I burnt some parts of the edges of the paper, because I thought it could look like a cool scroll type of thing.

I'm not particularly into Egyptian mythology, but they DID have some pretty cool gods and goddesses and their symbols are just super cool. I just like mythology in general and I think the Egyptian's old meticulosity is admirable.

Also, in that picture I put up, I drew my eyebrows on with a brown eyeliner pencil, as opposed to the black one I've used most of the time. I know it looks like shit, leave me alone XD

The art works, unfortunately are only available for sale here in Panama, unless I go to another country and whip them out and say they're for sale, because I've yet to devise a way to exchange them for money outside of Panama.

"Guardian of the Temple of Anubis" is USD 90.00. 

The moment when Pink Pinkerton shaves off his eyebrows.

I shaved off my eyebrows about two weeks ago and I think it's possibly the boldest change to my image so far.

I'm not a big experimenting type in that sense, I HAVE made changes, they've just been rather subtle: 

a) Dying my hair red: Whilst I was in a hippie/goth wanna be stage, I wanted to dye my hair fire engine red. I guess Panama is too much of a conservative/boring country for hair dressers to understand that and, instead, my hair was dyed a wine tone color. Like that purplish thing I see on grandmas sometimes. I tried getting the color I wanted maybe three times and then I gave up and realized that, to get the color I wanted, I'd have to bleach my hair and I didn't have the dough or the force of will and lack of laziness to do all that shit, so I gave up/was discouraged. Haven't felt like dying my hair at all since then, because I actually seriously like the tone of brown I have.

b) Dying my eyebrows blonde or orange (like a natural redheaded color): I discovered that I liked this by accident, because when I still had acne and hadn't started on the second acne treatment, a lady in my building told me and my mom to do the following and that shit would be cleared in two weeks or something ridiculous like that: Wash face with soap and water normal like, then with a cotton ball, apply peroxide all over your face, then with another cotton ball, apply listerine all over your face, and then with a cotton ball, apply evaporated milk all over your face until that shit dries up and then just rinse it off.

The acne wasn't gone at all in two weeks time and I don't remember if that was the order of the things, but we kept doing it, anyway, because.. I don't really know why. But I kept doing the three things, if differently from the original instructions.

I STILL use listerine as an astringent after washing my face, because that way I don't have to buy an astringent and the listerine serves a double purpose and I like how refreshing it is on my skin.

I saw how the peroxide died all the little hairs of my face and I was tripping it. I specially liked how my eyebrows looked all whitish/light yellow, I don't know how I didn't notice until they were already a completely different color. Then I stopped and then I started again a bit less, because before they turned light yellow, they were orange and I seriously liked that even more. I thought it was a really nice contrast with my dark brown hair and I feel it made my face more colorful.

c) Cutting my hair super short: I don't remember when was the first time I cut my hair, but I went to my hairdresser and asked him to cut my hair to the same level as my jaw, then I went a couple of times after that to make the haircut better, because it looked ugly as shit at only one length, so he did these little layers. I liked how I looked kind of younger and how I was kind of like Milla with her almost permanently short hair. She was actually one of the ones that made me want to have short hair, she just works it so well. And also Carrie Bradshaw, from "Sex And The City", because in some episodes she had it real short and it looked gorgeous on her.

Anyway, yeah. Those are the changes I can remember doing to my person, before having shaved off my eyebrows.

I watched "The Wall" a bunch of times (I lost count x_x), I think I was up to seven times and the moment when Pink shaves off his eyebrows, for some reason, always really catches my attention. Maybe it's his facial expression whilst doing it or maybe there's something to be understood at that moment that I don't quite grasp.

Like, at first he's shaving his chest hair and he seems child like in his excitement, specially while he's rinsing the shaving cream off. Like, he's just dicking around "oh, haha, I'm gonna shave mah chest hair and it's gon' be CRAY-ZEE haha". But when he looks up at his face and touches his eyebrows and then they don't show his face again until he's shaved them off, that part just gets me.

It's like the moment where he just accepts he's mad and embraces his insanity. And each time I saw the movie, it made me want to do it myself.

I thought a lot about it, because that happened maybe two years ago, now? Surely, more than a year, though.

I'm definitely not mad/going mad, but I try to heed to my impulses sometimes, because if it's something that's lingered there for so long, BEGGING me to do it, then I gotta listen.

I told my dad, brother and boyfriend I wanted to do it and they were all like "pft, it's gonna look ugleh" and they were right XD

It's cool, though, because I'm incredibly satisfied that I did it and it's been very interesting.

My hands trembled as I did it and I didn't cut them off all in one sweep and it was also kind of painful. I guess I should have gotten them wet or put some soap or something.

It was real strange how my brow and forehead looked so flat and how expressionless I looked. And I thought the fact that that protrudes a little bit, would be enough to leave some of the expression in my face, but it didn't at all. I looked expressionless and like I was wearing a mask and looked super weird when I smiled, cried, frowned or did any of the gestures I like making.

I also found it incredibly curious how something dark, like the eyebrows, would cause something to protrude. I say this, because when I paint or draw, dark things are usually used to bring things to the background and to give depth, not to make things stand out. And, in the case of the eyebrows, it's totally the opposite: Something dark, makes something stand out.

Also, I did this at maybe one or two in the morning, after having gone out with my boyfriend and as soon as I went to bed, I got real nervous about what I had just done, I was like "what the fuck did I just do? x____x". And when I woke up in the morning, the same thing.

I tried drawing them on in the morning because there was no way shit fucking hell that I'd go out like that. And I was pleasantly surprised at the good job I did. I guess being an artist really IS useful sometimes XD

 I just kind of traced on the shadow that was left of my eyebrows and then, removed the excess black from the eyeliner with my fingers. And nobody could tell they were gone, while they were drawn on.

Now that they've grown out a little bit, I like how it's all looking. It looks like I have really light colored eyebrows and I feel like I look really threatening or scary.

I feel like I kind of look like.. a Victorian type or one of those women from the twenties or whichever of those times when looking like a doll was in vogue.

I'm glad I did it, but I can't wait for them to be back.