A day in the life of Ethan

The day he died, specifically.

Man, I just realized I've never really drawn Ethan happy. Now I feel bad. I'll have to work on that.

Dialogue

At 5am and with a broken internet connection, I had a moment of stubbornness, mixing boredom with exhaustion. Refusal to sleep, but too unfocused to read. So instead I picked up a pencil. Admittedly, it made for some lovely lines.


I really missed drawing, it was like reuniting with a friend. Natural smiles and comfortable conversation. The pencil was friendly and boldly declared decisions it was confident in, soft spoken in places it wasn't. And even then, it could retrace those unsure places once it had more information.

It felt more like pulling out lines that were already there, they just hadn't been readily visible yet.

But there still has to be some restraint. If all the possible lines in the world were drawn at once, it would be like living in a enormous tangle of knots. All visual noise and no discipline. But if there were no lines at all, the resulting void would be a terrible, silent bore.

In the end, lines and space are best kept in constant contrast.

Although I must admit to enjoying high tension between the two. Only existence and absence have had a longer rivalry.

My Space

My work area on a good day. Given the amount of drawing, painting, and sugar work I've been doing to get away from my job stress, I can assure you it does not look like that now.

General organization:

• Inspiration and unfinished pieces go on the wall where I can see them.
  
• "Finished" work and things I don't want to look at anymore go in the corner on the floor.
  
• Underneath the desk on the right is a box of magazine clippings, fabric swatches, and other knick-knacks I hold onto for future inspiration and reference.
  
• Under and on the left is a pile of old sketchbooks I thumb through for recycling ideas.

Not shown: in the basement, I have a gallery of early work that covers the entire walls, including a wall of just self portraits. Everything there is too rough to do much with now, but too nostalgic to just roll up and put away. So everything just hangs there like a forgotten ode to the beginning.

Just looking at this photo reminds me that I need to glue my dragon head back together and catch up on my embroidery. Art keeps me busy, but at least it's the kind that cathartic.

Ai deshou?

As someone who has spent much of their time changing faces to suit the situation, I forget who I am sometimes. When that happens, I just go back and remember what makes me smile. Because those memories are constant and at the root of my being.

My love, my passion.

So here is one facet of my love: old books.

Old books are a combination that I absolutely adore: history and the printed word. Before internet, before computers, before even movies, this was our way of spreading information and entertainment. This was our advancement.


I bought this book some years ago, with very little information on it. The online seller put the bare minimum up about it, probably due to English not being their first language, but the pictures sold me on it. When I first opened the package, it was love at first sight. The book was so fragile, I was almost afraid to touch it. Every page is thinner and more delicate than newspaper, almost fabric, like a dollar bill that has gone through the wash too many times. The whole book itself sags under its own weight if not supported properly.


I decided to get more information about it. The problem was I only knew a moderate amount of Japanese, and even then the cursive script of this era was unreadable to me. So I decided to use what sources I had: my professors. Luckily for me, I was taking World History at the time with Dr. Lutz. She agreed to look over the book for me with her coworkers. Interestingly, even though I told her what to expect, she still seemed delightfully surprised when I brought it in.

She brought it back a couple of days later, resealed in its original mailing package inside an archival box, along with small packet of information. Dr. Lutz told me that her coworkers were amazed by my book and pointed out certain highlights in the information packet. Apparently it is an issue of Kinmo zui Taisei by Tekisai Nakamura and Shusui Shimokobe from 1789. A sort-of encyclopedia with short descriptions and an accompanying illustration.


These are the only pages scanned because I like to handle this book as little as possible. Just peeling apart the pages is nerve-wracking because every crease has been there longer than I have been alive. It has a few holes from where small bugs have eaten through as well, but those in itself are amusing because you can trace where an insect burrowed through five pages decades ago.

How did I get this book?

Ebay. For only $100.

The internet is a magical place.

Unfinished Portrait

During my last semester in college, I was doing a series of Da Vinci inspired paintings and copies for general practice. This unfinished portrait was a detail of the rightmost angel in "Virgin on the Rocks" (the later version now in the National Gallery in London) seen here:


But while working on it, I realized the painting looked very much like my mother in her early twenties. Just to confirm it, I brought it to my family and they agreed. It's not like I carry around a youthful photo of her, so I'm not sure what triggered in my subconscious to make it this way. It remains unfinished to this day because now I'm just not sure what to do with it.

Do I correct it enough to finish the practice? Or do I run with the idea and paint a sepia-toned portrait of my mother as an angel?

Seems oddly Freudian...

Kinnaree - WiP 2

A new year is ushered in and all I get is stress. Yay adulthood!

I kid, really, but mostly I've been surprised by how little time I have to myself now. Most of the day goes towards work and with that means less time for art. Any time I do have for art I genuinely have to fight for. And I do not lose fights, thank you very much.

Last year I was working on a kinnaree painting but eventually hit a dead end with it. Recently though I picked it back up to rework the idea. Now this is the first panel of a triptych, the composition of which will be borrowing heavily from this Hiroshige print. I'm still working out their anatomy since I have to maintain a balance of realistic bird-legs while keeping them graceful and dignified. Looking at them and thinking "fat duck" kind of defeats the purpose.


I haven't really set a deadline for this, but rather I was hoping the triptych layout would force me to work on landscapes and objects more than the figure. We'll see how well that turns out.

Mucho Mucha (with a dash of Da Vinci and Bernini)

An art dump of some practice work from this month. Haven't had much time to do original stuff, so I end up copying out of my books and whatnot. Art history knowledge has its perks.

Also made me realize my gummy eraser is so used up it's more of a smudging device now. Time to buy a new one.