(I’ve decided to write this entire post in parenthesis because it seems like a convenient way to make a rather lackluster effort seem much less official.  And as you know, if your post is really boring, you always want to take any necessary steps to make sure it isn’t officially really boring.)

(Normally when I write, I imagine my regular, nasally, probably slightly indignant, speaking voice saying the words.  This way it’s kind of like I’m whispering to you instead!)

Today is my dad’s 75th birthday, though he claims that he is only 29.

Hmmn.

Every Wednesday afternoon he comes down to take me to lunch at Hubcaps, the local diner down the street from my day job.  We come here under the pretense of eating and catching-up on what’s been happening with our lives, but I’m pretty sure the real reason Dad visits me every week is to look at girls.

He recently got the lens in one of his eyes replaced and he can see better than he’s been able to in years.  He takes full advantage of this miracle of modern technology to enjoy the parade of girls in skimpy outfits that is downtown Walnut Creek on a summer afternoon and say things like “Her legs go all the way up and make an ass of themselves”.

Maybe Dad is actually closer to 16 than 29.

Alright goddamnit.  Settle down you heathens.  I know it might be hard to believe, but I’ve got other things to do besides trying to entertain you fuckers.  Let’s see… I have to drink a lot and I… uh, I totally spend the rest of my time getting laid by super-hot library vixens!

Well, half of that statement is true.

There have been recent comments made making it clear that people are dissatisfied with my my current timeline for content output here at This Is Some Life You’ve Got.  Apparently, I haven’t been posting with enough frequency to satiate my legions of readers and the outcry of disappointment has been deafening.

Normally, this would be the point where I would be waving my arms around wildly and saying something loudly about how maybe you should shut the fuck up until you are the one working on a fairly time consuming painting while trying to tend to all the other responsibilities that  any other functioning adult has to deal with like commuting an hour to a shitty day job five days a week and drinking myself to sleep every night.

Also, I would probably mention how you should cram it until you have even tried to make up content that doesn’t embarrass you on a regular basis for a blog that you put on the Internet for every jackass on earth to read and comment on if they wish.

AND speaking of that,  I might mention of how almost NONE of you can be bothered to even write a SIMPLE FUCKING COMMENT unless it is to say that I should FUCKING WRITE MORE!

This is not going to be the case this time!  I’m don’t want it to sound like I’m complaining about the comments that were made, Enlightened Andrew is actually really glad to hear that some one besides me cares at all about this thing.  His tiny heart is warmed.

When I created this blog, it was not supposed to be work.  I was supposed to be able do my stupid little drawings and write snarky comments about things and have some fun.  As it turns out, I found that while most of the time I really enjoyed the posts, some of the time it was incredibly frustrating and time consuming.  It was work.  It was time spent writing that I could’ve spent painting.  I know it seems ridiculous, but I’m trying to make something I can be proud of and some posts take five or six or ten hours to do with all the photos and stick-figures and Photoshop and figuring out what to write about and the deciding the best way to say it and the constant re-reading and editing and re-writing and, of course, all the run-on sentences. Those sentences don’t just go on and on forever on their own you know, some one has to spend time making that happen.  So I just stopped for a while because it wasn’t fun anymore.

Luckily, while I was busy not updating my blog, I was busy painting like a motherfucker.

I finally started on the coat and was very happy with how things began.  Frankly, I did a bang-up job on the outer white portion.  I managed to give the material a thickness and a softness that I was hoping for and the looseness (for me at least) of the paint application gave it a kind of fuzzy feeling.  Later as the painting nears completion, I’ll go back and give the white part of the coat another layer of fuzziness to hopefully enhance the effect.  Well done, young man.

The inner pink lining did not work out as well. I always have trouble with the pink parts.

I had designed the folds of the fabric to help give the illusion that her hip was sinking into the couch cushion.  It did this, but unfortunately the shape of the folds gave our girl a misshapen figure and that was majorly uncool so I re-shot the coat photo reference and reshaped everything in that area the next day.

A much more graceful, streamlined shape (and a nipple for a portion of the time!) was what resulted from my second attempt at the lining.  I used the directional lines from the folds in the fabric to show the point of contact for the hip and increase the sense of grounding the figure on the couch. As her ribcage reclined partially up the back of the couch I used less directional folds to indicate less pressure from her body.

I confess, I was sporting a bit of a chubby as I finished the shadows and highlights on the wavy fabric because all the  bunching and folding of the coat fabric was going to really help emphasize the smoothness of her figure.

I had happily spent most of both days of my weekend painting the coat and I couldn’t wait for the next day of painting.  Too bad I have a real job that I have to go to so I can pay my bills and it would be five more days before I picked up a brush to paint again.  It’s no wonder it seems like it takes me forever to get anything done.

…um, painting the couch… let’s see… well, there’s always… no, that’s super-boring…  hmmn.  Oh!  Oh Yeah!  I almost forgot!  People LOVE that thing about couches!  You know THE THING!  I’M YELLING AND EXCITED ABOUT IT SO YOU SHOULD BE TOO!  …Alright.  I admit there is nothing inherently exciting about a couch and I don’t really have much to say of any interest about painting one either…  hmmn.  It’s a couch… with cushions?  Fascinating stuff indeed!

This may surprise you… I  don’t really care all that much about painting couches.  Unfortunately, sometimes girls in paintings need to recline semi-naked on things..  I don’t actively seek out these sorts of situations, they just happen to me.

In fact, if I had my preference I wouldn’t even have a couch in the painting.  It’s way too dangerous for a gentle soul such a myself!

It is well documented that if I don’t do a top notch job of rendering every little detail, the Furniture Quality Control Monster sends one of his goons over and I may find myself on the business end of a talking-to about why I can’t wait to spend three more hours painting the piping on the couch cushions and how said piping had better move people to tears when they see it.

The FQCM means business and he gets the tears he wants, one way or another.  

As you might imagine, the possibility of having the FQCM show up for one of his surprise inspections puts a great deal of pressure on a painter.  In order to prevent any kind of FQCM confrontation, I have a certain procedure that I go through EVERY time I’m working on the supporting elements of a painting.

First, I gather up loads of reference photos.  If I’m painting a lamp, I usually like to have pictures of four or five or fifteen different kinds of lamps.  Sometimes I even have a picture or two of lamps that I just like and couldn’t pass-up in the magazine I was looking through, even though they have nothing at all to do with with what I’m painting.

Second, I like to really step back from the canvas and try to decide which of my reference lamps will best fit the piece.  After flipping through the stack of reference pictures, I step back even further to consider shape, texture and perspective of all the possible lamps. By now I’ve stepped back a couple of times and since my studio isn’t huge, I’m now probably standing next to my couch so I might as well sit down.  It is well known that sitting is MUCH more conducive to thinking than standing.  This way I can focus all my brain-powers on the important task at hand!

Third, I usually close my eyes so I can imagine each lamp as it would fit into the layout of the painting.  Careful consideration must be given to every detail so as not to provoke scrutinizing from the authorities. Combined with moving into a horizontal position on the couch, this often results in a zen-like mental state known as Maximum Focus.  I have been known to maintain this kind of concentration for a couple of hours on a sunny afternoon.

Also, as every one knows, it is virtually impossible for any of the FQCM’s goons to smash your head in during Maximum Focus.  It’s like a protective barrier against things that are trying to ruin your day.

Sometimes I enact this routine even when there aren’t any supporting elements in my painting because it’s that important for my personal safety.

   Easily my favorite part of the rendering the surface of the couch is the shadow under her right knee.  Normally, obsessing over every little detail leads to my work having a stilted, overworked quality, but this area somehow managed to escape that fate.  Just a couple of strokes around the knee with a half paint-half waterlogged brush leaving some of the darker orange area underneath showing through and BAM! we have a terrific grounding shadow.

As you can see in the above Official Super-Useful Diagram, a grounding shadow is the trick that makes one object appear to be touching the surface of another object.  The Fig.A Stick-Figure Andrew is clearly pathetic and lost, floating in a indeterminate space while the Fig.B Stick-Figure Andrew is much happier and well-adjusted because he has a grounding shadow that shows that he belongs somewhere and gives his life meaning. 

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Regular Andrew needs to get a grounding shadow ASAP.

Even though they are important and make you feel really good about yourself, grounding shadows are just a fraction of the details that come under the jurisdiction of the FQCM.  Details like piping on the cushions and the tufting buttons on the backrest of the couch are the kind of thing that gives an object a solidity and believability. Without them, the object just seems unfinished and might get you kneed in the balls by one of the FQCM’s henchmen. 

Without sprinkles on top, a cupcake still looks like cupcake, but it’s much more cupcake-y with the right delicious supporting details in place.

The point of all of this is that as an artist, you need to be ever vigilant about every tiny aspect of everything you ever do or you will suffer the FQCM’s tortures in excruciating and undignified ways. 

hmmn… So I guess all the fussing I did about ruining the painting in the previous post with the blue was just a shitload of overreacting since apparently I painted over every bit of that mess this week.

When I woke up this morning I found a confusing, poorly constructed message and this tiny drawing of Stick Figure Andrew scribbled upside down on a piece of notepaper that I had been using the previous day. Apparently I had a bit to drink last night and for an unknown reason thought I needed to remember this:

’I have jokes in my head that don’t get to come out, opposite the way I bring my feelings into the heart huddle’

Maybe I could teach art classes to make more money.  I would be an excellent teacher if the premise of my class prospectus was that I would show all of my students what NOT to do while attempting to create a quality painting.  It is quite possible that I have made every mistake possible over the course of my career and it could be an invaluable experience to novice painters to witness my ineptitude as a preventative measure in service of their future careers as successful artists.

Of course, It’s more likely that I will just give away all my valuable insights on this goddamn blog for fucking free.

For example, after I have the composition suitably sorted in charcoal, I like to tone my canvas with a couple of layers of transparent yellow oxides and oranges so that I don’t have to start the painting with a glaring white canvas.  Plus, I like the way the orange looks when it peeks out between the brush strokes of the completed painting.

The next step is washing on some violets, crimsons and blacks to start determining the relative lightness and darkness of things.  Jesus Christ this is boring.  If you already know anything about painting please skip off to read another blog with my full apologies and blessings as I don’t blame you at all for abandoning this sinking ship.  Please come back another day though because my happiness depends on validation.  I swear I’ll try to write something about Elvis Costello or some other celebrity that you care about for the next post.

For those of you that remain, I love this part of the process because it is so filled with the potential for greatness.  Oh the genius that will surely accompany the future of this painting for the rest of eternity with never a mistake to be made!  The paint washes on all loose and fun and it never matters if I get sloppy because every single thing I do at this stage will inevitably be covered up at some later point.  The only thing I’m really trying to do is establish how dark the dark areas are going to be so it’s almost impossible to fuck it up.

So I just got done reading a book about the artist  Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and apparently I was so excited and full of myself after reading a couple of paragraphs about a genius’ technique that I thought I should attempt to apply this to my work.  If I understood my book correctly, what Toulouse-Lautrec would do is dilute his paints and apply thin washes of color quickly over each other and then go back in with opaque paints and solidify the areas that needed it.  This transparency would let his gestural drawing style show through and capture the energy of the moment. I’ve always admired painters who can work fluidly and quickly because it’s the exact opposite of my usual overwrought process that sucks out whatever life there was in my original sketch.  This time, with my borrowed new technique was going to be different though!  

Sure, any thinking person would’ve realized that he and I were using different media on different surfaces and that he was a genius and on my best day I’m mostly mediocre, but thinking has never been my thing so I headed over to the easel.

I had decided that my couch was going to be blue so what better place to start with a technique that I’ve never tried before than on the component with biggest surface area of the whole painting.  Smart.

Trying to think ahead and seeing how large the surface area was going to be, I decided to use the BIGGEST brush I had so I could cover more ground before the acrylic paint started drying.  Super-smart!

So without doing any kind of a test on a small discreet portion of the canvas, I loaded up the biggest brush I had with blue and slopped it on my painting.  As you can probably guess,  things did not go as well as expected.  The paint was not nearly thin enough and it completely obscured all my under-painting.  As I desperately tried to scrub off that fucking blue, it started to take off the other colors that were below it and I was loosing the tooth of the canvas.  Fuck.  I decided to just let it dry instead of risking damage to the canvas itself .  I would just have to try to cover the blue at a later point.

I know it doesn’t look that bad in the picture, but seemed entirely wrong at the time.  Also, I may have panicked a little bit.  The shadow areas of paintings are supposed to be translucent and dark, not fluorescent opaque light blue.  I was DONE with washes of color FOR FUCKING EVER!

So after some lunch, I loaded up the biggest brush I had with a much thinner blue and washed it all over that goddamn couch.  I have been known to be a bit stubborn at times.