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 about teeth and faces

I've had an odd week. Due to life gremlins everything has taken twice as long as it should've done. On another note, my usually dependable teeth have decided to revolt. My teeth according to the dentist are great, except for that pesky upper right wisdom tooth that has started to decay. Wisdom tooth pain ain't clever. 

Enough about my oral complications. I made these things happen today. 

broken syntax, oil on canvas 

generation chiaroscuro, oil on canvas, 9" x 9" 

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,'

Something about whats been going on

I was going to write a truly righteous blog entry, but that fell through so this is just a tribute.
I'm busy working on a large scale portrait. I want to create layers of meaning, within the portrait. It's a very personal portrait, as it deals with my anxieties and feelings of rage. I could tell you all about the portrait, but that would remove all the fun for you.   

OH CH CH OH NH CH 

Also I've been working on a number of other projects.  A number of glitch portraits and  some text based projects. 

Rule 102 glitchrait

l//k/b/bh//s/

I'm still working on my text based project. The ideas relating to it keep expanding, which keeps things interesting. But I don't want to post the full images.