Quick Sketch

Sunday June 14th, 2009

quick-sketch

I’ve been working on a handful of drawings but this sketch represents the opposite end of the spectrum from them. I feel like I’m slowly honing in on what best describes what I’m thinking.

It’s easy to feel like I’m on to something when what I’m working on starts to take some sort of recognizable state. But I keep having to ask myself what is it that I recognize. I have to be careful to make sure that it’s what I’m seeing in my own head and not some technique I’ve responded to in someone else’s work.

I left the studio Friday with a feeling of exuberance, only to come in Saturday feeling like I was still way off the mark. I was able to turn that around by the end of the night by gaining some clarity through objectively looking at what I had done (which came out very heavy-handedly).

Recent Posts

  • State of the Studio

    State of the Studio

    Layering an old saw handle with salt.
    I’m dipping and coating things. Salt builds up a nice surface. On the right are a few small samples using different glues, epoxy, spray adhesive and Elmer’s. The Elmer’s won out. It stays white. I want the coats to eventually change the form to where it’s unrecognizable. I’ve also [...]

  • Tonight

    Tonight

    Not much to say except that I’m taking a slower, more layered approach to these drawings. Trying to build up the image over a longer period of time. I also painted over the last one. I have a clearer idea (although, it’s still pretty fuzzy) for them.
    I’m trying to post more. I don’t always have [...]

  • Last Night’s Drawing

    Last Night’s Drawing

    Untitled | gesso, charcoal, ink on paper | forgot the dimensions
    After growing a bit frustrated with the wall prosthetic I talked about in the last post, I decided to do more drawing to flush out some ideas that have built up. I tend to try to think my way through problems instead of working through [...]

  • First Coat

    First Coat

    The first coat of white to see the inconsistencies
    It’s moving along. The inconsistency of the first coat of white is actually pretty nice. Normally I would make sure the surface is fully opaque and consistent, but the variable quality of the color gives a bit more depth.
    But then again, as I’m writing this, I realize [...]

  • Studio Update #366

    Studio Update #366

    This is the progress since I originally started it long ago. Slithered in water putty after I spent an hour sanding off the liquid nail I used to adhere it to the masonite, this future wall prosthetic’s next step is another sanding, and as you could guess, it’s gonna be a doozy.

Blog

  • Jun 24

    Not all the spots are on the east side but it’s a beautiful time lapse video none-the-less. I need to try this with my camera.

    The East Side of Los Angeles on a Sunny Day on Vimeo on Vimeo

    After close to 2 years here I can name most of the places in the video. Can’t believe it’s been 2 years already. I remember back in Texas, reading the LA Times to start acquainting myself with the place I was about to move, feeling a cold sweat come over me on how enormous of a city LA was. It didn’t take long for it to feel small, in a good way.

    Comments 0

  • Jun 23

    “Money may be a shared commodity but it fractures perception; not only is it the most unreliable historical indicator of aesthetic value, but when art is rendered into a trophy and displayed as such, its role as a piece of communal experience, owned by all, is diminished. Nowhere is this more graphically demonstrated than in MoMA’s 2004 expansion and reinstallation, where masterpieces of the 20th Century hang like caribou heads in barnlike, one-size-fits-all galleries – not connecting, not conversing, not communicating anything beyond their spot in a predetermined timeline, as independent of one another as the thumbnails on the museum’s website.”

    Exactly how I feel when I go to the Broad contemporary art museum at LACMA.

    via Money Changes Everything | Art21 Blog.

    Comments 0

  • Jun 15

    YouTube – Tom Waits – Chritmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis.

    Comments 0

  • HardTimes :: Art Hour

    I miss ZeFrank…

    Comments 0

  • Jun 12

    C’mon, with art like this, who needs art?

    “With Children of The Revolution I started thinking about this idea of education and teaching and “passing the torch.” I went to UCLA and studied with Chris Burden, Paul McCarthy, Charlie Ray and Roger Herman. I feel that they’ve all been very influential on my practice. I always think about that “brotherhood” and the responsibility of sharing the information. Like the SKULL AND BONES Society at Yale, that secret brotherhood that a lot of big time politicians have been a members of, I sort of think about this brotherhood as being akin to that. A secret society where we share and pass on information that manifests itself in our works but that the general public is not really privy too.”

    tryharder: Children of the Revolution @ Federal Art Project.

    Comments 2

  • May 29

    E and I just went to dinner at Swinger’s and on the way there we saw a replica “Back to the Future” DeLorean. Of course I immediately pulled over and went to check it out. I was able to sit in it as it was on display at theater that was showing the trilogy. Boy, that sucker is small. I could barely get my legs in. But I was so damned excited. For some reason that movie still has a big effect on me.

    Comments 0

  • May 26

    Another excellent post over at David Byrne’s blog where he ruminates on the effect of viewing art , making art and personal anecdotes of growing up in Baltimore. His argument seems to fizzle as he gets to his own experience, though still worth reading.

    However, one thing led to another and connections, sometimes bizarre, were made. I painted a picture in high school of a phalanx of identical businessmen (who may have resembled my dad a bit), in a style reminiscent of George Tooker (I realize now) — standing against a wall of brightly colored, abstract empty picture frames and on a floor decorated with Northwest Indian tribal images, with hook-beaked creatures and densely packed biomorphic forms. It could have been a psychedelic record cover, and it referenced, or maybe simply imitated, everything visually available to me in suburban Baltimore that seemed wild and cool.

    via David Byrne Journal: 05.17.09: Art is good for you?.

    Comments 0

  • May 01

    I’ve trained Elizabeth well:

    Dear Ryan Fitzer,

    If it would please you kind sir, please make the following purchases at the local merchant of your convenience:

    coffee
    kitty doodles
    method dish soap (lavender, if there)
    horizon 1/2 and 1/2
    jus d’orange
    soy milk
    people morning doodles

    and any other items you may find appropriate to bring into our residence.

    That is all,

    love.

    e

    Comments 0

  • Apr 24

    Use more buzzwords in your résumé.

    Fluent in ASP, SQL, C++, HTML, MCSE, MCP+I, TCP/IP, CCA, CCNA, token ring and PCMCIA network interface cards for LAN connectivity. Assisted CEO, VP, and CSS with HPPD-related PKs and assorted AFM-oriented tasks. Frequented T.G.I.Fridays. Was all like OMG STFU.

    via The Non-Expert: Defenestrate Your Résumé! by Matthew Baldwin – The Morning News.

    Comments 0

  • I used to run all the time in Dallas and have been really missing it.

    It’s Nice That : Article : James Jarvis and Richard Kenworthy.

    Comments 0

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