Something about what the hell Cathal has been up to.

I've had a Christmas and hope whatever you had went well. ( Hopefully lots better than I felt at times)

I've kicked of a year of portraiture way back in the month of mumble-mumble-ber, and I have wearied of gazing at my own face.( Unbelievable but true) So I'm now drawing faces/heads of people I haven't met and calling the series, ' People I haven't met' .  ( By meet I mean in the meatspace not the cyber net space.)

Here are some visuals of what I've scrawled so far. 

1 hourish self portrait on cartridge paper. 

Baron Harkonnen from David Lynch's Dune , unfinished.

20 Minute self portrait in ink.

30  minute self portrait in ink.

R/F about 1.5 hours on cartridge paper.

I might work some of these into paintings or I might not. The real goal is just to get better at drawing. I have already noticed my line work is improving.  I'm still not happy with my accuracy levels. I'm not aiming for hyper realism here, just an accurate representation of the photos I'm working from. I have a way to go and look forward to looking back next January at where I've got to.

Something time constrained

Being Monday and all I've had about a 1 hour to do work. Here are my two 30 min studies. Both are about 7" x  10" and are oil on canvas paper.

Something about dedicated focus.

I've been watching with mild jealousy, my Instagram and Facebook feed. Recently the Flux exhibition happened in London, and it's been filling my feeds. I wish I could have attended, I wish my art was there. I wish. I wish. I wish. Wish are just signposts to action. 

I enjoy my job. Painting and having fun. I need to build more skills and refine my technical abilities, which means I feel I need to put most ofthe fun to one side and crack on with 'work'.  Work in this sense is doing the type of painting that will advance my skills and doing that regularly. Daily. I have obstacles, like everyone else, but I also have advantages others lack. 

I'm being very vauge. (I feel vauge.) I'm setting off on a year(ish) long plan of creating portraits and figure studies. My natural tendency is to rush head long into all my tangential ideas. But I need to be strict and develop my skills in handling realism. I'm going to still play with the generative, glitch and abstract ideas, that's what keeps me having fun. But I need to focus to bring myself up to scratch. 

The images below are from the first few days of this. 

untitled self glitch

Your uniformity does not impress me. Oil on board. 9" x9".

All I ever wanted. Oil on canvas paper. 10" x 14".

Something about doubt and drawing

I've  had a bad week or so. It has been up and down. But I want to talk to you about drawing, more importantly what's going on in my head as I draw. 

Today I got back to my sketchbook work. I need to improve. The core element to help an artist to improve is drawing from observation. My mirror kept falling over, and I do have access to a willing model. The next best thing was the internet. So I have used the work of Peter Hapak and his photo of Wallace Shawn for TIME magazine ( "Pack Your (Book) Bag," July 11, 2011 issue.) 

Here's the image

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Wallace Shawn by Peter Hapak for TIME  From "Pack Your (Book) Bag," July 11, 2011 issue.

You may recognise him from 'The Princess Bride' and his voice from Rex in Toy Story. I love his face here. 
My humble attempts to copy the photo are below. I'm not going to talk about the flaws in the drawings more about the thoughts that ran through my mind when I was drawing it.

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This was about 2 and a 1/2 hours.

After I put my kids to bed I logged another 1/2 hour. This is about as good as I can get it. To be honest I prefered it before I put another 1/2 hour into it.

When drawing I have the same thoughts, first it starts with ' I wonder what x will think of this drawing? Will they like it..will they...FOCUS.' I have to think about things like 'This line is roughly twice that and this angle is roughly 20 degrees..' and other such technical thoughts. Then comes the wave of :
' I'll never be as good as those hyperrealistic artists, why am I bothering.'
' This isn't even your style Cathal you're more semi abstract, so why are you bothering.'
 'It's as good as you can get it. Stop.'
'You can't draw like this, stop.'
' Shut up brain. Working here.'
5 minutes later the doubt cycle kicks in again. I keep resisting the doubt and fail voice because I care and I want to get better at this. 
I know that voice is the voice of fear. Fear I'll fail. Fear I'll get laughed at. Fear of pushing myself. 

Well I'm pushing myself because I care, I'm aiming to improve I'll only fail if stop trying to improve. As long as I try I'll improve slowly or quickly, but I'll improve. Laughed at well I've been laughed at lots.(usually because I look ridiculous.) And as Adam Ant sung,  
'Prince Charming
Ridicule is nothing to be scared of,'

I'm no Prince and my charms are questionable, but I agree 'Ridicule is nothing to be scared of,'