Sunday, April 1, 2012

Spectrum Awards, two Monstrous faces and the guts to fail.



Speaking of sculptors like Kim Fung Wong, another amazing sculptor, Jonathan Mathews... is the dude who did such a kick-ass job on that Batman figure for DC.  My old pal Shawn Knapp gave me the heads up that Jon entered a color version of that Bats figure in the Spectrum Awards and, Jon's version of the Batman figure was a Finalist in that Spectrum thingy! Kinda cool for Jon especially as he did most of the heavy lifting, clay wise.

So Congrats to Jon!




Above i did a few randomly doodled brush strokes ... and it sorta evolved into an eye, then morphed into a nose, and i guess... almost some abstract looking...teeth? Not really sure.



The only goal here was... could i try to focus attention to the eye, and stay light on everything else? In other words NOT pile on tons of extraneous detail for details sake? Get blurrier towards the edges?


The modest little idea was... could more be less? could it seem like a weird little face peaking out of an otherwise empty page? Maybe it works, maybe not. But was cool to at least try.

***

Meanwhile, on another sketchbook page...


here's another one i almost tore up.  I did this asian woman's face,  but it just seemed like a million other asian women i've done before. Like if i don't watch out i'll turn into a watered down version of David Mack or something! (kidding, i actually love Dave's stuff).



But seriously.... i wanted to see if i couldn't 'deconstruct' it in a way... (some might say ruin it?) ... by doing a rough ink gesture painting... over her face. Fast. Furious. Almost accidental.  Or 'setting it free' even.  But in some deliberately 'ugly' way.



Almost like a blurred photograph? Catching some motion...



Now, to that end, i did actually may have failed, but at least now i don't want to rip it up. I'm curious how it strikes everyone else though.

I just keep trying to draw my way out of my own problems.  My own bad habits. That's why i keep writing notes to myself in the pages.  Trying to wake myself up.  Hoping i can break through to something ELSE... something that doesn't look like my usual stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with my 'usual', whatever that is..

But NEW or different, can be nice too.


Even though it may seem pretentious... the *trying* feels important to me to do. Failing is cool. A producer friend of mine once cringed when i said in an interview i have 'no talent as a film director', and i sighed and told him, well, i have no talent drawing, painting or story telling either.  But i kept failing at all *that* crap, and that's never stopped me either. So, great or talentless.. i may as well CHILL, relax, and just enjoy... whatever i the hell it is i DO do,

And be humble and thankful there's *other* folks out there... just as crazy as me, who also like it! : )