...in keeping up. (and making of the moneys)

"Autumn" - Digital painting/scanned materials - Dec 07

I'm doing very well for once in keeping up as promised with work, and the blog. I am momentarily proud of myself. If anyone recalls, or cares to look back a short ways, I had a poster print called "winter" a while back, which was a sort of digital collage. I've had several requests from random people to buy a print of it, which struck me as a fantastic idea, if only to get my signature floating around out there. So I am in the process of setting up a paypal account, but also in the process of doing more "digital screens". Each will be available as a high resolution 11"x17" digital print for $12. Like I said, the idea is mainly to get my signature out there, and for the novelty of it. By selling them for $12 it isn't exactly as if I am in it for the large bill money. To get each printed on a high quality stock it will cost me about $3, for a mailing tube and postage, probably another $4...so I am in it for about $5 bucks a print.

"Winter" - Digital painting/scanned materials

...in supplement.

Untitled 41 - acrylic/canvas Dec 07

Nothing really to say. I've been drawing much more and enjoying it; but also taking up the mantle of painting again. It hasn't been anything in depth really, I started something when I was walking around nervously tapping my hands and wanting nothing more than to break something...Leah was here so I decided to turn it into something more productive...ish.

I'll start again with real painting I think soon; not just random abstractions to keep my mind on the brush and off of...the things which they tend to fall. I have an 18" x 48" inch canvas that I stretched a month or two back which is sitting under the stairs taunting me like the tell-tale heart. For the moment I am satisfied with painting over old canvases or random masonite / cardboard I find.

...in being a coffee house denizen

Moods - Dec 5 07

so...once again I return after a shorter long while, but a relatively long span nonetheless. On the artistic front, not much new to report. Still trying to figure everything out as best I can. I'm great, then awful, then just surviving, then great again, then horrible...you see the trend. That's just before lunch. I've been writing shortstories a fair bit lately, maybe at some point I will scan them or transcribe into digital media for someone to read. Also I've been teaching myself french, which is going very well. thank you for asking.

I have been in and out of coffeehouses again, doing some sketches. I am still trying to find a style of my own, the best i can come up with as a style, i'm not entirely satisfied with...I want to be an illustrator, and graphic novelist, but not a comic book artist ya? but most of my work is very outline intensive...we'll keep at it. For once i feel like my drawing is GOING somewhere. I've had to do a bit of a u-turn in life in the past 5-6 months because I realized that my life had gotten a bit bleak. Since the turn around I feel much better as a person, my climbing as gotten stronger in leaps and bounds (although we'll see with the recent return of my good ol crap knee injury) but also I feel, parallel to my climbing, I've marked improvement in almost everything, including drawing, and drawing quickly, or getting closer to that thing I want from my "art". Unfortunately, the turn around bore a promise, which has been the only questioningly unsatisfying aspect...Do not get me wrong, I've stuck to my promise, and I believe I've done well. Change in attitude was for her...but it was also for me...but I had this foolish hope that being what I should have been all along would lead to her taking me back. Alas...I must resign to siphoning the specific stolen happiness which only she gives me, and I suspect only she ever could, but doing so in a way which I almost think she feels guilty for. It's not like I lose sleep over it. I didn't sleep before...(lie)

anyway...the important stuff. the art. (so called)

Mugs Coffeehouse Sketches Nov 29 07




Misc Sam sketches : "Sleepwalking" (bottom) Dec 4 07




"Leah" Dec 2 07




Misc: (top) "Julie" Nov 07

...in regional neck pain.

I don't know why it has become such a hastle to sign on to my blog lately. Sure it's been a while, so things may have changed, but apparently so did my email address. Wait...no....it didn't. So what exactly does a person do when their blog INSISTS that their email address is wrong? Argue? Irregardless, I've figured it out; until the next time it happens.

Once again it's been an extended period since my last entry, honestly I just haven't been working as much as I should be. or...at all. It's fair to let everyone in on why, though "everyone" means...Dave, and the random stumbler upon...still, it seems like in lieu of posts, excuses are appropriate. Lately (the past 4+ months) I've been overly devoted to matters of the heart, and the repetitive breaking thereof. I've been having desperate moment after desperate moment, trying to get my life, and the company I keep, to be exactly where I think it needs to be in order to be happy, and make she who means most to me happy as well. The problem has been a difference in opinion of what exactly that means for each of us. Repetitively I've been let down easy, however for such an easy let down, I seem to hit harder and harder when I land. Hit after hit I seem to find less and less of a will to do anything creative, being more willing to sit and stare, or crawl into bed and...lay down and stare. But hey! tonight is something different. Nothing great, but I have SOMETHING. I was playing around on the facebook art boards again, leaving pictures of myself on my friend's boards, here are a few of they.

Also from tonight, a friend of mine, Leah, and I spent the evening at Mugs (a locally owned coffee house) and somehow led into a photo of the two of us from my webcam which we were each drawing upon and otherwise modifying
here are a few of the better results.

...in absentmindedness

It's been a considerable amount of time since I last bothered to post. Those of you who know me know I have been in a relatively rough stretch lately, emotionally, physically...metaphysically...In any case, I haven't really done much of anything. I have a few metals pieces I need to photograph to include, and a few paintings, but for the most part, my creative side died along side my broken heart.



I brought my pen tablet to a coffee house one night, here is the result: yeah, I drew a couch.














These were scribble drawings that Leah and I did...( you know the game, turn a scribble into the first thing you see)

...in distraction.

"Courtney Graffiti 1" July 07

My lack of productivity of late is at the fault of nothing in particular. Finding inspiration as always, proves to be an obstacle with the weight of dark matter. *something so small weighs as much as a thousand suns...yeah.
I've been sketching a bit. Trying to let the pencil do the thinking, unfortunately it seems the pencil is as freshly out of ideas as I am. Even as such I will post a few pages from my sketchbook though none of it is spectacular.


I had been having problems with my computer feeling the need to turn off unexpectedly at the most inopportune moments. It did not just blink off, it shut down all of the applications *though if i saved my work when it did this, the file would turn up corrupt. FANTASTIC. I disassembled my computer and dusted everything out with compressed air and it seems to have done the trick. It looks like there was so much dust in the heat sync that it was causing the processor to heat up and shut down before it damaged itself.

The newfound *or rather REfound ability to finish work on my computer has resulted in...nothing. I can work again, but i've been so far from motivated to paint anything i have hardly touched andthing adobe or corel. HOWEVER, facebook has a graffiti application now and i've done a few odd things on that for kicks.

A randomly filled page from my sketchbook. I've been told that working in silhouettes can help come up with ideas so i gave it a try. it is not easy.

I had a themed night of drawing yesterday evening. A few pages of odd creatures with a page of a story idea. (see "the narrow man")

A sketch for a partial concept idea. Headdress/rigid

A nymph of some sort. I recently ordered an in depth lesson for being able to draw human anatomy from memory. It hasn't arrived yet, but i was seeing what i could pull out as it is so i can mark any form of improvement.

Miscellaneous portraits and hands. I believe the two were from a book i use as a reference source . Fresh Fruits

Another graffiti drawing. Back onto the creatures, hands and muscles.

...in disappointment.

I feel the need to apologize to the millions of people who aren't reading this anyway.

I've found myself in the type of situation where a person would find themselves saying, "Well that figures..." more often than they may otherwise. In this instance, the full sentence sans ellipsis would be something along the line of, "Now that I have started an artist's blog class and sleep deprivation are going to keep me from doing anything worthwhile...etc"

Class finishes tomorrow with our formal portfolio review. All of the work in the class has definitely been in the category of design...I may further describe all works held within the semester's portfolio are utter garbage. Nothing illustrative, even though I am getting credited for the class entitled: Advanced Illustration...Well that figures.

Soon. I will have something for you SOON. I have paint. I have canvas, the WILL, the DRIVE...just not the time or the attention span.

...in catching up.

While I had created this blog apparently back in early March, it has taken me over two months to actually find the time, or rather the will to sort through everything enough to decide what to post to catch anyone up in regards to any of my work.

I've taken the time today to do just that and rather than having any kind of portfolio to present, I've actually come to something closer to the opposite. I have very little to post. I've decided that the work that I had done in the past is just that, the past. While I recognize that no person would be anything without their past, it is what has made them, and what still holds them to be the person they are, philosophically, emotionally, executionally (like that word?)...While I recognize this, I see the need to veer off into the world of the new, and focus on developing my skills further, in an attempt to stray from any form of rut I've been in. In any case, someday I may post the steps that turned me into me, but honestly, my work at present isn't overly strong, you'd shudder to see how little it took for me to decide to take that leap from a career into the instability of art.

So, as far as the first post goes, I will give you only these recent works, hopefully the lack of posted work will spur me into working more, if only to have something to share.

I may not have mentioned, and I think very few people know that I actually have a double-first of Graphic Design and Metals. I'll be adding to a portfolio of metalworks as well.


"untitled #41" 2007 - Brass, silver & enamel.






A few recent pages from my sketchbook.

"Sorrow" 2007 - charcoal

"The Starbucks studies" 2007 - Graphite/Marker

a digital collage piece I did earlier this year.

"Winter" 2007 - digital scanned and drawn material

I dabble in Photography now and again, most of anything I do tends to be luck rather than skill. I have a decent eye but lack the knowhow or the method.

"Moss #4" 2007 Digital print

My friend Blake Dieters has a studio set up, thank you for letting me use it when I get bored.

"Studio Portrait study" 2006

Model: Courtney Kemp