LOTS OF COLORS!

This week’s portrait is of Lisa Santiago-Read. 
 


It's just like me to start a project and suddenly start another one and then another one and before I know it, I have more projects going on then I can handle or should be doing in the evenings after work. Right now I really should be watching season 2 of Daredevil!

Back in January it seemed like an easy idea to do these portraits but in the few week that have passed I've manage to come up with some really cool ideas, all worth pursuing. That said, I am going to keep up with these portraits. By December there will be 52 unique images, I will make up the missed weeks somehow.

Fashion artist, Hajin Bae was the inspiration for the look of this piece. I discovered her work on Pinterest a while back. I was so taken by her artwork, I did a portrait of her using her style, she loved it.

I love colors, hot cold, primary, secondary, just lots and lots of colors. Coloring coloring books as a kid was huge with me. I still have several of my childhood coloring books. Crayola was the crayons of choice, still have one of my original set of 64 colors, which includes the politically wrong "flesh"  and "indian red" colors.

I think this also explains why my drawing style is very linear, like coloring book art.

Thank you Lisa for responding to the blog! I needed to know if anyone one saw these writings. Now that I know you're reading these post, I'll keep them sane instead of writing about all the crazy things that live in my brain and come out when no one is looking or paying attention.

Now, off to the next project, sleep!

IT’S A FLAT WORLD!

This week’s portrait is of Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

 What if I told you the world is flat!

I decided to use my circles to define the entire face this time around. The colors I used are often colors I see in images of space. Lines were used sparingly, though if this was a bigger illustration like my dot images, I might had done even those lines using circles.

I've always been drawn to circles and dots. I have a feeling someday if we as a species live long enough and grow a little smarter, we might discover that the universe is contained within a ball, that looks like a circle, and it's one of a trillion circles floating in a much bigger ball, that's floating among trillions, in a much bigger ball and there no end to the number or scale of these circles.

Maybe... my art isn't totally my creation, but a code, a message implanted into my DNA by another species of humans billion of years ago, and my drive to create art is just me performing like a computer, putting the information on paper through pictures. Then someone with a scientific drive, will see my work and it will trigger something in their DNA, a thought, an idea, which then takes us to our next level of development.

Eratosthenes, Columbus and the many others who thought the world was round, very possibly were influenced or triggered by something they saw, art maybe?

Sounds like Sci-Fi?

If that is the case, I for one am thankful art existed in their time, unlike this moment in time where art is no longer encouraged and creative thinking is looked down upon.

I picked Neal as my subject because he got me curious about life. After watching and listening to him talk, it started making me think and look for bigger answers to our existence.

Recently I've been seeing articles with people expressing the opinions that the world is actually flat, that science had lied to us. Neal was actual challenged by one, a young rapper to prove otherwise. (This is one of those moments you want to ask, “How the FUCK is this individual making records and has a following?!”)

This along with the new levels of racism of all kinds and disregard of the planet makes me wonder if I might be right, art does play a part in our development as a species and the lack of it makes us dumb!

If I am remotely right about art and its connection to bigger ideas and none of this is fiction, I think we are in real trouble,  just look at the schools.

Thanks you Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and people like you for giving me the parts to assemble a key and hopefully open that door to bigger and better ideas.

I’ll keep putting my circles and dots on paper like Agent Phil Coulson of Shield. Who knows, maybe I am drawing the map to a newer and better world.

BIG IDEAS

This week’s portrait is of astronaut, Scott Kelly.

While most were all caught up with watching post Super Tuesday election news and the beginning of the end of the United States as a superpower, something big was happening elsewhere.

After 340 days in space orbiting the earth, Scott returned on Wednesday March 2, 2016. In my last portrait post I mentioned people thinking up big ideas, I think this is a huge idea. This drawing was unplanned but I was inspired to think outside the box with this one.

This is my first public posted iPad art!

I created this image on an iPad Pro, with an apple pencil, using several different apps. Drawing on an iPad is like working on a piece of glass. It really needs some kind of textured surface to feel right.

There’s a lot of experimenting going on in this piece. I tried to combine my line work with a painting style from the 50s/60s, and a photograph from one of Scott's twitter images in the background. Though now that I look at it, you can't tell what's going on.

I also felt it was fitting to put him in a Starfleet Captain uniform.

Staying on schedule with these portraits is turning out to be harder than I thought. You might have noticed I missed a week. I guess I could just create anything and post it but I really want each one to be interesting not just in the subject for the drawing but in the execution of the art as well.

Plus, last week was the Long Beach Comic Convention, which was fantastic! I posted some pictures on the www.cosplaylifedrawing.com website. I think I've inspired a number of people to start drawing and that's a great feeling. One participant, a 5 year old girl decided to mimic me and she drew the portrait of another girl at my booth.

I felt like Bob Ross, but in my case, I am helping people to see and think through life drawing.

I need an agent ASAP to help me grow these events!