Grayscale

The world may not be BLACK and WHITE, but it sure has a lot of gray, and that’s the kind of art I like to do. Charcoal, ink, and pencil are my favorite mediums, ignoring the abundant array of colors available to me. Roy G. Biv could never keep up with my amazing grayscale. I like concentrating on the shades of an object, seeing how the light highlights its point of impact, forcing all else into shadow. A few quick scratches with my quill and I create crosshatching, which although I only use one dark thick line, I somehow can make an assortment of tones. Who needs color when you can say everything in monochrome?

           

Grays are the hardest colors to make. First, start with two complimentary colors—let’s say red and green. Note, green in a secondary color, so first mix blue and yellow together, and then add red. After a nice brownish sludge appears, begin adding white. Magically, the color drains from the paint, but leaves hints of the reds and blues that once existed. Those little mistakes scream your secret: that no matter how much you see the world as gray, the color still shines through.

(Simply another piece I wrote for Creative Writing Nonfiction)

Turkey Dinner

All           our

                around       house, 

little turkeys watch with unblinking eyes from tables and cabinets. One stands proudly beside a 

PAIR of PILGRIMS, made of wood and painted in exquisite detail. Another, made of plastic has a ?questionable? hole in its back. Perhaps it's supposed to hold a cup? Nah, too small. One hides

_________a philodendron

under                         

in the dining room, peeking out behind the heart-shaped leaves to watch those who pass by. At first, you might not notice these strange birds all over the place, but after you find them, you will see them every time.

My family bought my mother these little turkeys as a joke, and every year the story gets told

again and again and again and again...

around Thanksgiving. My father tells it best, because he sat in the front passenger seat right next to mother. But I think I can tell a mean story as well.

In the summer of 2003, my family decided to travel around the continental United States. We drove across to

the   G  R  A  N  D    C  A  N  Y  O  N,

up to BrYcE and ZioN Canyon,

then finally over to MOUNT RUSHMORE

before heading back towards back to Ohio. My mother and father were the only two who could drive, since my sister Maureen was the oldest at 15. I had only been 13 for a few months, and Micheal came in last at 10. We relaxed in the back of my father's seven-passenger van with a pop-up camper in tow. On top of our van, we had an extra storage container known as a BIG MAC to hold a few extra objects and give us a bit more leg room.

The night before we arrived at the campground near MOUNT RUSHMORE, my mother was driving. It was late, and the rest of us (including my father in front) were dozing off... I had put down my book awhile ago when the sun went down, and now only barely registered the headlights through the front windshield. My eyes

kept...

        slowly...

                  closing...
          as sleep took over...

"I'm gonna hit it, I'm gonna hit it..." my mother hissed, her hands gripping the steering wheel. She had a tendency to repeat phrases when she became flustered and worried. My father shook his head to wake up and glared out the window. We three children in the back leaned to try and see better. A semi truck rumbled towards us, but it was on its own side of the road and nowhere near our van.

"The semi's not going to hit us, it's on the other side of the road," my father sighed.
"Not that, THAT! The turkey!" Mother said, jabbing the air hurriedly before latching her hands back to the wheel. We all squinted our eyes and tried to see past the blaring lights of the truck. Sure enough, a small speck of a bird had just crossed the double yellow line and was heading into our way.

 

                                                "Slow down!" Father said.

 "I'm trying!"                                                        

                                          "Swerve to the right!"

"I CAN'T!"                                                   

"SWERVE TO THE RIGHT!"

As my parents bickered, the bird came CLOSER and CLOSER.  My heart raced and I stared in horror as finally the turkey disappeared from view. Suddenly a large shape leaped into the air, thudding into the top of the windshield with a

THUMP!

Then it s k i d d e d across the top of the van, hit the BIG MAC, and flew right into the front of the oncoming semi.

A moment of silence automatically occurred inside the van. We looked about in disbelief and wondered what to do. Sleep became the last thought on our minds.

 

 

 

 

 

By the time we came to the campground, we started to find the fowl-hit-and-run funny. As morning arrived, it was down-right hilarious. Who knew turkeys could jump so high? My brother climbed up onto the top of the van to check the condition of the BIG MAC, but also to see if any feathers got stuck. ever since then, we have told the story

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10...11...12...13...14...15...16...17...18...19...20...21...22...23...24...

COUNTLESS

times and my family jokes that my mother should never cook turkey, since as my father says,

"we all know she'll just go out and hit one with her car."

This year, a few remarks were made and mother even thought of using black licorice to make tire marks on top of the cooked bird. We told the story to my sister's friend who came to visit, keeping the joke alive. In my mother's defense, she always replies,

"Hey, I thought turkeys could fly!"

I'm Back~

I'm now back in the US of A and doing work once again in my home university. That being said, I've already created a few new works in my Creative Writing: Nonfiction class. This piece, I quite literally just wrote, but I like it. It's an exercise to practice not using passive verbs such as to be. If you find anything of the sort, please comment because then I can go in and get rid of it!

Enjoy!

Liberty Trail

(The path beside Euclid Creek, off of Liberty Road South Euclid, OH)

            The creek bubbles and spits as it swishes over the shale stones. It sinks under man-made bridges, past houses of all shape and sizes, and hides between patches of tall trees. The leaves fall into the burbling water, running away from their duties as curtains from the outside world. Come, follow me to a magical place full of mystery. Sneak behind the suburbanized streets and into a land still untouched by man. The trees whisper secrets as they sway their branches back and forth, making the sunlight dance along the shale. In one direction, all becomes nature. In another, houses and domestic life peek between thick trunks. Ducks, deer, squirrels, and chipmunks dash in and out of sight, slipping gracefully away from the dangers of humanity. Invisible birds chirp from high in the canopy, lending their voices to drown out that of hissing tires and the laughter of small children, just now on their way home from school.

            One ford crashes together just barely out of the reach of civilization. Heavy rainfall pushes the rocks, transforming the creek’s personality. Sometimes crossing the ford can be an easy bridge over piles of shale and soil. Other times, only stray rocks from distant lands help the weary traveler across. Humanity pours opaque substances down into the clear water occasionally. The change forces away the innocent creatures until the weak current can pull the harmful chemicals out of sight. Until then, the creek acquires an even stranger appearance. Yet even as much as humans appear and fill the stream with plastic and trash, it pushes on. Euclid Creek has seen the time before man, and if for a moment silence could reign, all could hear its secrets.

English Countryside

The last thing I put up on here was about my Whatever Boxes, and since then I have been doing more research than works I can simply show. One of the things I have been working on is texture. I know when most artists find something to use as a focal point for their art, to me it sometimes seems like they focus on nothing else. As an example, take Lucio Fontana. He revolutionized art by cutting into the canvas, destroying the illusion of the painting. If you think about it, our eyes want to trick us into believing that we can step into the picture, but if you damage the image, the illusion is tainted and reality sets in.

I love the concept, and all, but I feel like I want to emphasize a surreal world more than taking it away. To me, that’s the magic of art; that you can escape and find your own answers separate from the world. What you get from a piece is totally different from anyone else, and that’s important. I’m not saying I like all art, actually if you do, you’re weird. You’re allowed to not like certain art forms, but not everyone will. Artists do art to explore and learn ourselves. Whether you appreciate it or not is up to you.

 Yet for me, I like when people can actually appreciate my work; when I say people, I mean all people also, and not just the artistic community because I like art that’s accessible to anyone. I use art to communicate and show how I’m learning as well. My latest experiments have lead to this painting:

15cm x 20cm acrylic on canvas

I call it English Countryside, because that’s what it is. It’s a tad bit abstract, but not by much. To be clear, abstract means to simplify, so technically all art is abstract (wrap your head around that one, ha!), but I prefer to still keep a little bit of complexity in the piece. It is all about texture, anyway.

My stitches. For some reason, it wants to be crooked...

What’s unique about this piece is that I took frayed bits of canvas and sewed them onto the stretched canvas to give texture to the bushes. It really hurt my hands, and I ended up cursing a lot, but I liked the final appearance. Seeing as everything seems to be going in the direction of 3D, so is my art.

My inspiration

From there, I simply painted with acrylics, and already have an idea for a second one. I’ve found I really like to work in a series, like my other project I mentioned at the end of the last post. I’m still working on that, but seeing as this is a reading week for me, I have a little more free time (reading week means I don’t have class to help get ahead in my studies… in other words, catch up).

Yesterday had been my interim assessment for my art class. It was intimidating, but at the same time really helped. We had broken up into small groups and talked about each of our projects. I learned a lot from my classmates as well as got some ideas for my own work (which is why the project is not done yet).

I also may be posting something I wrote for my Creative Writing class, but it needs some editing, so just give me a couple ticks and soon I’ll have it up too!

Whatever Boxes

Hm… I probably could have thought of a better title for them, but really, that’s what they are. So I had these four blank 5”x5” canvases that I had been able to purchase for only £1 each. A steal, if you ask me, especially since they were also already primed.

At first I had no idea what I wanted to do with them, and found myself simply putting them in different orders. I played with the idea of making them landscapes of London or something else associated with my new surroundings, but instead, they became something totally different. As I continued to mix them up, I thought up the idea of being able to put them in any order and making them work in some way.

I suppose there’s no real order to anything, but I feel being a perfectionist, there’s always some form of order. Even though the world is known for its chaos (I mean, really, Jackson Pallock?), but at the same time, I feel as humans, we make sense of our surroundings. With this project, I wanted to give anyone the chance to figure out their own order with my pieces. I guess you could say the idea is that I give you the pieces, but you help me with the art as well. It’s not just the artist who sees the world, but the viewer as well.

So here’s the final project:

It’s done in acrylic on canvas. I used masking tape to make the beginning lines, but as the project progressed, I came to more free-hand. I chose the background colors mainly because I had them at my disposal, and felt that they worked well together as primaries. I also have two warm colors and two cold. I played with the idea of putting white lines instead of black over the backgrounds, but decided against it, because the black is much more dynamic.

I simply chose an order for them, and if you look at them, you may see another pattern of some sort.

(These are just close-ups…)

There’s no reason to be trapped by putting them in some sort of square either. Really, go nuts, folks!

I apologize for the newspaper underneath them, but I didn’t really feel like moving them to some sort of white/plain background and rather like where they are at the moment.

As a preview for my next project, I give you these two pictures:

(note: I do not own these two images, thank Google...)

Let your imagination run wild as to what I’m doing. I’ll explain after I finish the first one. It’s almost there, but will need some finishing touches and such. I kind of already really love it already, even if it’s terribly out of my comfort zone.

Beware that shot of Tequila...

This is an exercise I did for my creative writing class, Writing London. I liked the tale quite a bit, and felt the desire to share it with you (I’m also procrastinating reading Gulliver’s Travels for another one of my classes, but I believe that’s a different matter). We had to write about a character we made specifically for the class, and put him or her in a certain situation. This is what I thought up, and I decided to play with present tense and second person, so if you’re not a fan of either of those things… well, too bad.

The bus seat feels so comfortable after a whole day of standing. You can feel your legs, but only because they are slightly sore. Even though the bus bounces and jerks in multiple directions, you try to lean your head against the cold window and close your eyes if only for one single moment of peace.

You hear a person trudge down the middle of the bus and feel your seat move as a huge force falls onto the seat beside you. You feel slightly offended that someone would intrude on your personal bubble, and decide to slit open one eye to see who the culprit is.

His boyish face looks familiar, but as to where you’ve seen him is too vague in your memory to recall. He smiles as a light of recognition illuminates his otherwise dark eyes, and you shift uncomfortably; pulling your bag closer to your chest. He turns his head to look more intently at you, making you shrink away.

He says his name is Craig, you know, from the pub last night? You look out the window, bitterly wishing you hadn’t had that last shot of Tequila which had made the whole night a2 blur. Oh, what a coincidence you both ride the same bus home! Craig has decided that you two obviously became best friends last night, and is recounting his day…

It was a long, tedious eight hours at the department store, he sighs, his eyes staring out the front window of the bus. This one girl came in though, and good thing she was pretty because her voice squeaked like a rusty hinge. He had to consciously force himself not to cringe every time she spoke.

You smile and nod, barely awake enough to follow his rapid speech. How does he fit so many words into one second? His hands move animatedly before him as he tries to say even more when words fail him. Suddenly his voice stops, and you relish in the abrupt silence.

Time ticks by, and you think to take the time to turn and look at him. He’s frozen in space, his face like a perfect marble statue looking out at nothing. You suppress the urge to wave your hand in front of his face to make sure he was still present.

Just as you reach toward him to possibly check and make sure he’s still breathing, Craig leans forward eagerly and begins to rummage through his rucksack. He mumbles something about his god damn notebook always disappearing, and where’s a pen when you need one? when he finally sits up again. In his left hand, he now holds a beaten up journal, and the other holds a ball-point pen. His sudden excitement has caught your attention and you watch with interest as he flips to the next blank page and starts to scribble on the paper. His notes are barely legible as the bus continues to move, and he struggled against the force of motion to get his thoughts written down.

He notices you watching him and his pen stops, but does not come off the page. A mumbled apology tumbles from his throat as he tries to explain how being a writer (which he had told you last night, remember?), inspiration may strike at any moment. His eyes turn back to his notes and he finishes the sentence that had been waiting patiently for his pen. The pen gets jabbed behind in one ear as the journal somehow finds its way onto your unexpected lap. Craig proudly flips through the pages, showing you sheet after sheet of messy notes. Turns out his handwriting sucks even when he’s not in a transportation device—or maybe inspiration strikes him only when he’s moving? A mystery to be sure, as is trying to decipher his many illegible notes.

The automatic female voice calls out your stop, and you immediately push the journal away as you stand. You almost fall over in your haste because the bus is still churning under your tired feet. Craig’s face falls into one of disappointment, and for a single moment, you have the crazy idea of staying on the bus just to listen to him.

Yet your beloved dog, Harold, is probably already pacing in front of the front door, desperately needing to relieve himself, and you know food is waiting to be made for your much anticipated dinner. Instead, you promise to meet with him again, maybe in the pub or on the bus another day, and wish him luck becoming a writer. As you exit the bus and step onto the damp sidewalk, you look back in time to see him waving. The bus rushes off to be replaced with other cars manically trying to drive along the narrow streets, and feel oddly refreshed after such a comical confrontation.