My cycle of work, the peaks and troughs
All my life I have had a very specific way of working. In high school I would research an essay topic up until the day before it was due, then pull an all nighter to get it done. I would cram to study the night before, I would spend all year thinking about gifts to buy then buy them all in the rush two days before Christmas at 3am.
And mostly this worked very well for me. I got great marks, I bought the right gifts and I somehow developed the notion that I can only work with a deadline looming.
“I’m great with deadlines!” I would say
Unsurprisingly, I moved into project management where everything is planning and everything is deadlines and best of all, the deadlines are for other people! I mean sure, it was my ass on the line if it went over time or budget, but it never did because I’m great with deadlines.
Now that I’m an artist, I plan everything. I plan my next 5-10 works, posts, tweets, exhibitions… I have shows to propose for and applications to file, I have ideas coming out my ears! But I don’t have deadlines for most of these things. And often they don’t happen. For the first time in my life I make the deadlines for myself and I’ve come to a new realization..
I suck at it.
I can organize anyone and anything, but i can’t organize myself out of a wet paper bag. I can paint a work for an impossible deadline, But i can’t paint a steady stream when i don’t have one looming. I can do anything in my career, As long as I have been given a close deadline.
But I can’t keep going on like that anymore. February and March made me realize that I have to learn to manage my time better. I have to force myself to think more than a month or two ahead and work consistently. This involves unlearning a lifetime of bad habits. But hopefully it will mean that I can avoid the peaks and troughs, the 13 hour studio days and the resulting 13 hour physical and emotional crash days. I can’t physically take it and if I manage my time better I shouldn’t have to. There has to be a better way and I’m going to find it.
What is it about a nude that’s offensive?
At my local shopping center there is a massage place. The poster in the window has a nude woman’s back and the prices extending down her spine. It’s a cute concept until you get to the lower region.
This woman has buttocks, but no dividing line.
You can see where the heal tool was used, and you know that even with some shapes there is no way that this woman was born without a buttcrack.
In Japan, anime with nude breasts can be shown on any channel at anytime- providing the nipples are removed.
In many countries the tiniest bikini (an inch covering the butt and nipples) is enough to satisfy propriety while nudity or g-strings aren’t.
The details, it seems, must be covered or removed.
This makes me wonder. Is it the breast that’s “offensive” or is it the nipple? Are buttocks a problem or just the crack? Why are they offensive? Is it because the are the functional part of that zone? Or because they are the defining characteristics of those dodgy areas? If nipples are the offender then why are men’s acceptable?
Consider this an open forum, I want to hear your thoughts on these questions!
Why being obsessive produces better art
The more I get absorbed in this complex steampunk series the more I wonder about my obsessive tendencies and artists in general.
Recently, I’ve been having a hard time painting, something was gnawing at the back of my mind. Like a face I couldn’t put a name to it was elusive and irritating.
Something was Not Quite Right in my last painting. The geometry of the gear was off. I didn’t like the model I chose to begin with and have since gotten some better gears, so I decided to redo from start. Or at least, redo the gear.
Just the act of making this decision was galvanizing. suddenly I wanted to be in the studio all the time again! On a roll, i also decided to revisit the gold embellishments on the bustle, to bring them into the shadows better and connect the shapes more. I painted furiously, and it has paid off. A little obsessive prod that was poking me has subsided. The itch stopping me from continuing to the next painting, that was thawing doubt up in the way has passed and I am fired up and ready to continue.
Sometimes obsessiveness can harm a piece, it can lead to overworking and losing a sense of motion, spontaneity and immediacy that draws people in.
Friday Nude Quotes
We did extensive test marketing and truly believe that the public has an insatiable desire for this particular body part. After years of predominately featuring younger actresses going nude, the baby boom generation is excited to see a vagina it can relate to
Friday Nude Quotes
His drawings of the male nude are incredibly sensual. You get the feeling of his hand all over the body. If all we knew about Michelangelo was his drawings, he would still be hailed as a genius.
Friday Nude Quotes
A lot of people in California garden in the nude, but there are naturists all over the country.
Friday Nude Quotes
Nude drawing and nude painting is where you learn the balance of forces and the balance of thrusts.
Friday Nude Quotes
I’d do a nude scene for world peace or if I were facing some serious jail time, but I’m also a sucker for a good bottle of wine and candlelight.
Where do you find your muse?
I’ve been having interesting discussions lately on the topic of muses and how different artists access their own personal muses.
In Greek mythology, inspiration for all the different arts were represented by the muses. Demi gods and goddesses who would descend on artists and grant them inspiration.
These days we refer to our muses as fleeting anthropomorphisms of our inspiration and drive to create.
I find my own personal muse in several ways. Sometimes she will just call upon me, and those are brilliant times, but other times I must seek her out.
I call my muse by sketching, looking at art books, watching my favorite movies ad listening to my favorite painting music. Anything that triggers that side of the brain for me really. The things that work for me may not work for others, for example, I find watching Hellboy II or V for Vendetta to be massively inspiring. The visuals and use of light just flick a switch inside.
Other times I will load one of my quick start Daz scenes and just play with posing my model like a doll until I get something that works. Sometimes I will sit with my iPad or even an analogue sketchbook and just draw. My favorite music currently to paint to is by Ayreon and will often send me straight to thinking about creating.
Knowing how to access your muse is key to getting into the studio every day and working with purpose and inspiration. It’s a key component of being an artist.
How do you find your muse?
Nude of the week – inverted
This is the last render created with my old iMac! My trusty iMac is no more, the hard drive has died. The good news is that I now have a very sexy new iMac on order, the bad is that I don’t know how much data was backed up in my time machine backups because I had been having problems. The broken hard drive is accessible and I should be able to get my most vital content off it. I’m looking at having to install all of my Daz 3D content all over again! I just did that! Ah well. As long as my photographs are safe i’m happy. A lot of my data is backed up somewhere, but I would prefer non compressed.
This render came to me in a flash, then the pose came together very easily. I discovered these goggles in my runtime and was just so excited! They are fantastic! Here you can see one of the problems of 3D though, her hair just isn’t sitting right.
I have at least a week before my new Mac arrives. Luckily I have a few works to be getting on with, and my iPad for keeping up to date. I should be able to last!
Friday nude quotes
see more WTF Pictures and WTF videos by Picture Is Unrelated
Sorry i’ve been off the radar this week, i’ve tried and failed to write several times. I seem to have terminal writers block ATM. Hopefully it will be gone soon! This is just some silliness till then.
7 reasons why virtual models are better than life models.
Life models vs virtual models: round 1
Something someone said to me the other day made me think of the many reasons I choose to use 3D as reference material for my art. In my mind, 3D has so much potential for artists, in so many ways. I often laud the cost savings of using virtual models as opposed to real ones, but that is such a small part of why I use it now. I have models lining up to work with me, I spend a lot of time and money on my 3D and I frequently bang my head against the wall while working on a render. So why do I prefer it? You see, the beauty of 3D is that it is based in reality, but only limited by your imagination.
1. It’s always available. Unless you live with your model you are going to have to wait for them to get to you- losing valuable inspiration time!
2. It’s patient. Even the most professional model won’t sit in their pose while you adjust the lights, the surface textures, the colors, the room, their skin, for hours and hours. And hours and hours. Then go away for a day and come back to it and tweak it for a few more hours.
3. It’s forgiving. I don’t want to offend my model of the day by telling them that I need to add a little more here or shave off some there, and If I change things up in the eventual piece it’s not going to create an issue. I know most models won’t care, but I always worry offending people- and worry gets in the way of art. There is no place for misunderstanding in 3D.
4. It’s flexible. I can have a model hovering in a backflip for as long as I need, I can freeze a moment in time while I tweak the lighting and the colors, the volume and the mood. I can use any angle, I can make the pose very mundane or I can take it beyond the realms of the human norm and distort and abstract things while still maintaining a sense of reality.
5. It’s quiet. I’m introverted, I need privacy in my studio and i’m very demanding. 3D allows me to do what I need to without worrying about feelings or being interrupted. I can be my own, caustic self without feeling like I have to put on a front. It also means that the only person I talk to is myself, and I talk to myself a lot! It gives me space.
6. It’s..3D.. A lot of you may be thinking that I could achieve a lot of these with photographing the live model and using the photograph for my reference. And you would be right, but photographs are a limited painting resource. The reason so many pieces taken from a photograph look flat is because they use a 2d resource. Now I can hear you thinking, ‘but isn’t that what render is?’ And yes.. But days later when i’m trying to work out what that dark blob is or where the arm went because I changed the angle of something I can virtually walk around the model and see. I can rotate it, change it up as often as I like, and everything is crystal clear. I don’t have to try to re-create it, it’s there exactly how I left it.
7. It’s a guide. The render is not the finished piece, it’s a path along the way.
It really is the best of both worlds! As long as you have the patience and understanding to make it work. It’s harder than life models in a sense, but, for me, it’s the best choice. This may be because i’m a control freak who prefers mindless bots that do my bidding, it may be because i’m a geek and it’s cool and requires no human interaction but mostly I think it’s because I can take my time and get the exact results I want, how I want. It’s my process and it works for me!
Friday nude quotes
“I’d do a nude scene for world peace or if I were facing some serious jail time, but I’m also a sucker for a good bottle of wine and candlelight.”
Why is female nudity more acceptable than male?
@naturistnews: @minxdragon why is female nudity more acceptable than male nudity? Why is nudity considered shameful?
I was asked these questions via twitter, and there was no way I could answer them in 140 characters or less and do them justice, in fact, I don’t think I could satisfactorily answer them in an entire blog post! I will try it in two.
I think female nudity is generally more acceptable than male nudity for a number of reasons. largely, however it seems to come down to aesthetics and homophobia.
Despite all our efforts to the contrary we still live largely in a patriarchal society. While males dominate industry, advertising and the media there will still be a slight locker room mentality. While nudity remains mainly sexual in the minds of the general public, it will be more acceptable for that locker room mentality to gaze upon nude women than men.
Many men fear nude men, but women do not fear nude women. I do not know why this is. It could be media and advertising, it could be that we grow up seeing semi nude women constantly or it could just be that there is a homophobic backlash still in effect.
Women are more aesthetically pleasing than men nude. It’s the truth. No matter the shape of the woman she is beautiful. Men are interesting nude, but not necessarily beautiful. There is an inherent charm in the swell of a hip, the curve of the breast. We have been taught since ancient times to revere the female figure.
Nude of the week -Motive- a nude world of Warcraft painting?
Motive is the finished painting for the upcoming exhibition Fanboy vs Artboy in Artboy gallery in prahran.
I want to take a moment to tell you a little about the story of this piece and why I chose to do something so different.
I play World of Warcraft. I love it. I’ve played the series of games as far back as I can remember. Throughout the original games is woven a love story filed with all the classic intrigues of an opera.
Jaina Proudmoore was with Arthas Menethil, son of the king, everything was happy, she’s a Mage, he was a glorious paladin. But the relationship didn’t work out. And slowly but surely Arthas started to go insane. There were outside forces to be sure, demons, beguilements, a spear and magic helmet – sorry, I meant a magic sword and helmet, and Arthas became the Lich King. Terrifying and loathsome.
Meanwhile, there was a standstill kind of war between the humans and the orcs. The leader of the orcs was Thrall, mighty shaman and respected leader. during diverse adventures he was rescued by Jaina from the grips of humans and dragons and together they built a friendship, and perhaps a little more.. It’s alluded to, but never seems to come to fruition. Now Thrall has gone off and is single handedly holding the world together at the center of the maelstrom.
Now, i’m not saying that Jaina is the reason Arthas went mad, nor am I saying that she ever really did have a relationship with thrall, but, it’s all rather…interesting… If you ask me! And what is Jaina’s motivation anyway?
I wanted to return to classical composition for this piece, I rarely get to work on anything different and I decided it was time to let my inner geek out for a bit of a play. I wanted to see Thrall, bent like atlas, I wanted to see him with the weight of the world in his hands and on his shoulders. I wanted Jaina above it all, spurning Arthas, seeking Thrall, but he’s too consumed with the troubles of the world. She’s consumed with herself and her desire to help, and Arthas, well, Arthas is being consumed by evil.
do you remember the line in Billy Madison, ‘I drew a picture of a blue duck because i’ve never seen a blue duck before and I wanted to see a blue duck’ that’s what this painting is, I wanted to see what would happen if I painted them all in the nude, classically posed. I wanted to stretch myself, challenge myself and have some fun!
If you are in Melbourne come by and see me, Motive and other game inspired art works at ArtBoy Gallery on Friday!
From the ugly comes poetry
Ugly
This wonderful Poem was written on the wall for my painting Ugly on Redbubble, recently featured in their explore section. I’m always humbled when my work inspires poets and writers, thankyou Ivo!
Friday nude quotes
Pylons, those pillars Bare like nude, giant girls that have no secret.
-Sir Stephen Harold Spender ‘Pylons’.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
friday nude quotes
Ask not what you can do with no pants, ask what no pants can do for you!
The Least I Could Do – Beginnings (Read the full comic strip here)
6 years on – why I started Blogging
Redhead, 2005 (my first full ochre piece)
What made you decide to start a blog? If you’ve blogged about this before, go back and read it. Is that still the reason? What’s changed?
[From Topic: Why did you start? | The Daily Post at WordPress.com]
I started a blog because I was bored and in pain and everyone was doing it. no seriously! before I had heard about blogging as a marketing tool, before I rediscovered my art, I was in a bizarre limbo state as part of my dealing with my pain and the loss of my job and ability to work a full time desk job ever again. I oscillated between different varieties of denial and came up with a million random entrepreneurial ideas (I suffer from chronic entrepreneuritis – symptoms include glassy expression, a constant flow of business ideas, inventions, books, applications.. anything you can create a business around. I get it from my dad) and decided to write a book. my blog was a way for me to get those book ideas down, and to be emo and stuff. but I didn’t like being all emo and whingey and I really didn’t like writing a book! so I started painting again to while away the hours, and blogged about that instead. you can see the blog click over from random nothings to art and how excited I was about it all! it turns out, the more I experimented with painting and enjoyed myself, the less pain I felt. and sharing with the world enabled me to create the career I have today.
sometimes I wonder about taking down those old posts, they’re a long way from where I’ve come today, and I worry that they aren’t in keeping with my “brand” but I look back fondly on them, they’re part of my journey. this blog is the history of my career from the beginning, an online visual diary and a fun diversion. I lost some aspects of that along the way, but I’m hoping to recapture some of the best aspects again.
I’ve come a long way!
Over to you- why did you start a blog?
Renoir Nude on the line for superbowl wager
Bathers with a Crab – Renoir
In a friendly but also serious wager, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art are each putting an Impressionist work of art on the line for their favored Super Bowl team.
How lovely would it be not only to see the Packers win but also to have a nice little Renoir to gloat over, sent by the losing Pittsburgh-based museum to MAM.
“I’m confident that we will be enjoying the Renoir from the Carnegie Museum of Art very soon,” said MAM director Daniel T. Keegan in a statement that barely concealed his ardor for the dappled painting of lounging, fleshy females. “I look forward to displaying it where the public can enjoy it and be reminded of the superiority of the Green Bay Packers.”
Keegan, incidentally, is a Green Bay native.
Of course, should the Packers lose to the Steelers, MAM will have to pack up one of its very best artworks, “Boating on the Yerres” by Gustav Caillebotte, and send it off to the Carnegie. It is one of the finest examples of Impressionism in the permanent collection at MAM, a museum that is not rich on Impressionists in the first place.
[From Museums wager Impressionist art on their Super Bowl teams - JSOnline]
It’s that time of year, the frenzy, the colors, the joy …of the superbowl. this year it’s particularly exciting with two historical enemies sharing the field of battle. the Greenbay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers. the excitement has been running high since the championship doubleheader last week and has just been sweetened, in my opinion, by this latest public wager.
The museums have agreed to loan the paintings to the winning museum as a treat for the curators and the public. It isn’t the first bet of it’s kind, Last year New Orleans Art Museum and Indianapolis Art Museum had a similar bet and a Turner was regretfully handed over.
I love the fact that this is bringing the permanent collections of these museums into the minds of the public, it’s raising awareness for the arts and bringing it into the now and into an area where it doesn’t necessarily receive much coverage.
These comments in Press releases don’t count as trash talking apparently…
MAM and CMOA were quick to express interest in the bet once MAN suggested it on Sunday night. MAM director Daniel Keegan is a Green Bay native and I’m told he was particularly eager to fly the Packers flag. “I’m confident that we will be enjoying the Renoir from Carnegie Museum of Art very soon. I look forward to displaying it where the public can enjoy it and be reminded of the superiority of the Green Bay Packers,” Keegan said in a press release.
CMOA director Lynn Zelevansky shot back at Keegan, also in the kind of press release that art museums only issue when they’re having fun. “In Pittsburgh, we believe trash talk is bad form,” she said. “We let the excellence of our football team, and our collection, speak for itself. It will be my great pleasure to see the Caillebotte from the Milwaukee Art Museum hang in our galleries.”
[From We have a Super Bowl bet! | Tyler Green: Modern Art Notes | ARTINFO.com]
but we shall see as the countdown begins to game time next week.
So Remember, Go Renoir! I mean.. Go Packers! 
friday nude quotes
If you are a nude model for an art class, do not eat beans the day before. It’s hard to hide the fact that you’re holding in a fart when you are standing in the middle of a room naked. It’s even more embarrassing when that fart slips out. #LFMF
Submitted by: The Joys of Modeling
Su Zizi – artistic purity through nudity
Nude modeling is a controversial career in China. Some think it is shameful, while others think it is brave. But for Su Zizi, a 19-year-old student from Beijing-based Renmin University of China, nude modeling offers her the chance to pursue pure art.
“In my eyes, nude modeling is a career that needs to be respected, and it is a kind of art I will explore in my whole life,”Su told the Global Times.
“Being a nude model doesn’t just mean wearing nothing for me, it also helps me to know my body better and express my attitude toward the world.”
Su has worked as a part-time nude model for nearly nine months. As a student from a poor family, Su decided to be a nude model to earn money. However, she gradually fell in love with the career and took it as a path to deeply examine herself and society.
there has been some heated debate online about the career and recent exhibition of Su Zizi. the original article on the Beijing News sparked a great deal of backlash online and off throughout China. Sadly, I cannot find the original article, it appears to have been pulled from the site due to the sheer volume of vitriol. this excerpt describes the original article, it’s the closest I could get.
A female college student is at the center of a heated debate over whether it is morally right for her to pose nude for artists or art classes to earn money for her tuition.
A recent commentary in “The Beijing News” suggests that people respect the fact that the student is trying to support herself through a legal job, which is more responsible than relying on money from her parents.
The commentary points out that there are still those who believe nude modeling is an unacceptable business and tend to criticize everything related to it.
But the commentary argues that because nude modeling for artists is just one particular type of modeling, there is no reason to single it out by questioning the morality of those who do it to earn to help themselves.
Moreover, the commentary says if people could change their way of thinking and view the issue from a “healthier” prospective, they would appreciate the student’s courage to be self-reliant through hard work.
The commentary concludes by pointing out that people should be more open-minded and tolerant, because the student did not do anything wrong by trying to be a responsible adult. If the public viewed the situation in this way, it would send a positive message to other young people and encourage everyone to learn more about nude modeling without making any snap judgments about it.
You all know my views on the nude, and on posing nude. what I think is interesting about this story is the way that Su is handling everything. her exhibition was quite successful and she has appeared live in an interview to discuss her views. she’s not shrinking away from the controversy, or the hype. I recommend her interview in the GlobalTimes above, it’s refreshing to hear such a love and appreciation for the nude and it’s power. Su Zizi appears to be a gal after my own heart!
Beijing is gathering steam as an art capital recently and Interestingly, nude photography is quite a hot topic at the moment in China with a trend towards nude photographs to celebrate weddings also making headlines and controversies. I wonder if the growing cultural center is bringing these things to the fore more, if it is the pressure valve for the community.
Friday Nude Quotes
I know, you thought because I was a landscape painter, I knew nothing of the figure didn’t you? I can paint a better landscape because I spent a great deal of time in front of the figure. If you want to paint anything well, you should too.
Loathsome I’ve become.
Acreature so undome.
Wretched and broken.
Cannot find my faith.
Any God will do.
Nothing said is new
Nothing said is true.
Fly away my hope….