The Process

If you take any art classes or spend any time in art school you'll most likely hear a lot about process or "THE process" or "MY process." It comes up a lot. Some people are very strict about their process and anything that messes it up will result in poor results. I have never been one for a set way of doing things. I have tendencies and habits while making art but I think a lot of what I make is sporadic, but there are certain steps I take when I'm working on a project. I figured I'd use this post to shed a little light on that.

For me, a large part of my process is mental. Obviously I can't show you that but I can assure you that I am thinking of and looking at things all the time in relevance to making art. Sometimes I don't see people, houses, cars, or trees, I see shapes and colors and the way things are put together. I don't necessarily make everything I say into a piece of art, but I try to take notes in my mind of all these things.

When I do decide on a topic, it's normally never too far out of my mind, and it changes a lot. Sometimes I'll talk myself out of something or think of a better idea. As I detailed in previous posts, a lot of what goes into a finished piece is experimentation and sketching. It helps you plan, sharpens your eyes, hands and mind, and opens you up to things you didn't think of on your own.

I've always had an interest in "grungy" things. I tried (and loved) painting on street signs, something I'm going to try and get back into. I really like graffiti and made a few paintings of that. And as you can tell from my first post, abandoned things really capture my interest. I am not sure why. It probably gives off the vibe of being lonely and depressed a lot which is certainly not the case. A main reason why I think this subject interests me is because of memories. They are proof of human existence and were at one time useful, happy, vibrant, bustling places. Now they are abandoned and their original purpose is lost. They do not really serve a purpose anymore. That fact I think really catches me but again I'm not sure why.

I did a few paintings about Chernobyl (most notably, Mechanical Graveyard, although that may be from Pripyat). Since I didn't want to exhaust a subject but wanted something similar, I did some research. I found plenty sources of inspiration and useful images that I will undoubtedly use, but the one that I was most interested in was San Zhi, Taiwan.

It contains this otherworldly quality, which may be another reason why I'm so interested in this subject. These are images that you certainly won't find in normal circumstances. It looks futuristic but ancient at the same time. The pod city that was abandoned due to hauntings looks too good not to draw or paint. So I started with a few sketches.

These are just pencils with some colored pens. They are also only three pictures from what seems like a ton of opportunities so I'm definitely going to throw down a few more and draw a couple larger ones and color them with markers before I bust out the paints. There is a lot to this to explore visually and I am pretty excited about where it could go.

That does it for my week. Next time I hope to have some paintings done. I have at least six or seven more sketch books so there will be more posts on that and I will definitely make a post about identity and portraits, which is another subject I paint a lot. So keep checking back to see what Paul gives us next week and Anthony and Luke after him. Thanks for the support so far and spread the word as much as possible, use the submission link on the side, and comment! I would love to talk about things that come up in our work with others. It's one of the reasons we started this. Thanks again!