Photo Portfolio

Here is my final portfolio for a class I took this semester: "Intro to Black & White Photography".

I took each and every one of these on my hefty Pentax Asahi K1000 (what?) and I printed them on Fiber Base paper.

Downloads

1971 - The Fish Inside Me (Zach Condon at age 16)

Arcade Fire - Cold Wind

Justin Vernon - Frail Sail

I wish to do something Great and Wonderful,
but I must start by doing the little things
like they were Great and Wonderful.

- A. Einstein

Normal Nashville: Aesthetics

Alien:
School

I don't know if I'm misunderstood all the time or just a lot of the time. But who cares? Some lady is talking about this talk-show-host she has a crush on.


Chicken Salad Sandwich:
Watkins Cafeteria

I cannot believe I don't know the cashier's name! I see her everyday and tip her reasonably.
Sometimes I don't visualize a person as a person.


Cigarettes:
Austin's front porch

I've got nothing to say, but I'd like to say nothing. We've been in the same city for a while.


My choice quiet spot:
abandoned barn near the street of Pasquo

I love walking my dog when she sniffs the wind and understands it.


Whiskey at night:
My spiritual back porch

I've never noticed until now; there are so many holes in our screened-in porch.
Hummingbirds trap themselves in here all the time, during the day.
At night, they flutter less
and use spider silk to bind their nest to its support.
The nest expands with the growing young.



My love is not blind
for I see everything.

Drunk 21

So my dear friend, Garrett, turned 21 on Saturday night. Lawrence, Luke, Garrett, Bo, Nelson, and me and a few others go out to this bar (The Backroom) to celebrate. Garrett is already pretty drunk when we get there.

Well my friend, Lawrence, is the kind of guy who likes to waste money on people when it's his or her b-day. He likes to buy people drinks, basically...it doesn't matter what day it is. He's just a very generous fellow.

So he's making circles the entire night (from the bar to Garrett to the bar to Garrett), passing him whiskey shot after whiskey shot. Garrett becomes more and more ridiculous, laughing like a little girl, screaming, "I love everyone!" and stumbling over himself, and somehow being surprisingly skillful in a game of Stripes & Solids. I'm kind of freaking out and being a mom, yelling, "Guys! No more drinks for this man!!!!"

Lawrence is still trying to pass Garret whiskey shots and I'm standing in his way.

I'm yelling, "Lawrence! No more for Garrett, man. Look at him!"

Lawrence is saying, "Will! Get out of my way, man!!"

side note: (Lawrence, if you read this. You mean well and I love you)

Lawrence passes Garrett 2 more shots and as Garrett turns his back, I grab both shots and gulp them down and put them back in Garrett's hand. When Lawrence turns back around, he is like "Whoa Garrett! Geez!"

Garrett's public drunkenness escalates rather quickly (considering he's had at least 15 or 16...maybe getting close to 21 drinks). Not only Lawrence is giving him drinks...Bo is also giving him drinks and so is Luke and so is some random girl.

Luke turns to me and says, "Will, we need to get Garrett home. We can't have him in the bar like this. He's gonna start puking soon."

I volunteer to take Garrett back to Maplehurst (where Garret and Luke live). Luke says he'll follow behind me, considering it's a 2-man job carrying Garrett to his bedroom from my car. So I get to Maplehurst and sit there for about 10 minutes. I call Luke and he doesn't answer. I call him again 20 minutes later and he says he is with the cops and for me to wait a bit (his wind-shield had been shattered). So I wait for about another hour. Garrett falls asleep, snoring loudly with his head on my gear-changer. I try waking him up to see if he can walk or even talk, but he just isn't waking up.

Luke FINALLY shows up after about an hour and a half of me waiting. Luke rushes over to my car and opens Garrett's door. Garrett is asleep, so Luke starts slapping Garrett's face and yelling, "Garrett, wake the hell up!"

Garrett is not responding.
Luke starts worrying a bit more.

Luke and I are staring at each other, wondering what to do.
Luke decides to call Lawrence.

All of a sudden, Luke screams, "Will Will Will...Garrett is throwing up!!!"

We turn around and rush over to my car and open Garrett's door. He is throwing up all over my passenger seat, all over himself, all over his arm, all over my pants, all over my arms, all over his face, all over the place.

Luke and I are trying to get Garrett to throw up on the ground without it going on any of us, but Garrett's whole body is limp. His right arm falls down in his throw-up and as we're lifting that arm up, his other arm falls down in his throw-up.

Luke says, "Will, we can't both lift him. I'm gonna go grab Zach or Kristian."

Zach and Kris live in Maplehurst and are friends of ours.

Zach and Luke end up coming back to my car.

The 3 of us wipe Garrett down with a towel...and my legs and arms. We somehow figure out a way to lift Garrett out of my car. The 3 of us manage to carry him all the way from my car to his bedroom...2 flights of stairs between us.

So we get Garrett up to his bathroom. I'm basically hugging Garrett (from behind) for the next 2 hours. My right hand is on his forehead and my left is on his stomach...the toilet just directly below Garrett's head (I'm trying to get him to throw-up). Garrett is completely "not there" at all and thinks the toilet is a pillow and keeps trying to force his head down. My arms are starting to hurt from trying to keep Garrett from getting a concussion.

Zach is at Garrett's feet and Luke is standing there in the doorway.

I look over at Luke and say, "Dude, we need to all 3 pray for Garrett."

Luke says, "Dude, I've been praying."

The 3 of us are encouraging Garrett to throw-up. We are also trying to get him to speak just a word of English or to even make a noise.

Garrett starts groaning and this seriously excites us because he's making a noise.

Garrett is throwing up off and on for about 2 hours. Well, he then starts throwing up black bile.

Luke looks over at me with these scared eyes and says, "Will, we need to rush him to a hospital. I have heard that if someone throws up black bile, to rush them straight to the E.R."

So we 3 have to carry Garrett back down to my car, going down 2 flights of stairs.

I speed the entire way to UT Medical Center. I run through about 4 or 5 red lights.

When we get to the E.R., 2 men rush out to my car with a wheel chair and wheel him right in.

The front desk lady tells us that he should be out by about noon the next day.

Well, here it is, 6 in the morning. So we decide to give them our cell numbers and head home.

Luke and Bo end up going back the next day to get Garrett. Bo tells me that Garrett was in a good mood.

Garrett apparently had a catheter inserted into some part of him. The doctor's had to pump activated charcoal into his system to dry out any poison.

Garrett tells me later, "Dude, my nurse was cute and so I had my way with her. I just wanted to get out of there."

Bo said that Garrett was wearing one of those gowns with the open back. Bo said Garrett's butt was just "there" for everyone to see.

I'm glad you're alive, Garrett. I love you, man.


Left:Zach
Right: Garrett

Blankly Knived Grouper

I'm not supposed to sleep
right now,

but my thoughts
won't keep me up,

worthwhile
like a grouper blankly knived

for no one to eat
and no one's supposed to sleep

right now
because we're all getting

pretty old
and the wrinkles are starting to show.

Bride

She'll organize my sadness
And paint louder colors on my paintings.
She'll direct my movies.


I basically think she'll shape my career
and I'll be nothing without her.

Jill Andrews

Paste magazine reveals E.P. details here.

Oh....and Sam has announced something rather exciting....an album possibly coming out in January? *sigh* (finally!)

Something Needs To Penetrate My Nerve

Something Needs To Penetrate My Nerve

Often, I stare at my invisible self and I obviously don't see anything.

Something needs to penetrate my nerve, maybe perhaps I grow more appreciative of the busy traffic outside the window, what with it being a 3-way intersection and all.

Minds will stammer and falter and will not drip.
Art is a person and he intimidates.
Not Art Garfunkel. The art itself is something of a metaphor.
It can embody J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan or something pretty similar to it.
Something I'm childish enough to understand.

God floods flowers in bloom all over the backyard.
Like a glacier calving and the sound of it breaking off intensely gently like 5 million suns scientists hesitate to acknowledge.

God fiercely cusses marks all over the horizon and we're pretty dumb to walk away not moved a bit.

The ocean takes itself too seriously to laugh. But at least it concentrates.

Alaska

My family and I went on a cruise to Alaska. Everyone that went: me, my brother, Audrey, my mom, my aunts Harriet and Mary Ellen and uncle Rainey, my cousins Liz and Annette and Lacy, and Granny J (my mom's mom).

Highlights of the trip:
1) Watching whales jumping out of the water and seals and jellyfish and glaciers and black bears and bald eagles and salmon...etc etc
2) Drinking cocktails on top of the ship at night while listening to Feel Good Lost ("Artic Kiss" included Finlandia Vodka and sparkling wine...and "Grizzly Bear" included milk and Amaretto and Jagermeister and Kahlua)
3) Watching messed up cartoons at night with Ben...ever heard of Banana Split? or Danger Island?
4) Becoming a glutton for a week...Dessert Extravaganza.
5) Being annoying...just to make Audrey laugh....Whitey
6) Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, and Victoria
7) Ben proposing to Audrey

Part 1 -


Part 2 -

Red Carpet Martinis

I've always wondered how celebrities become such good friends. Do they just meet each other on the red carpet with Martini's in their hands and say "Toast"? Jimmie Stewart and Donna Reed are probably standing there on the red carpet and see that the host of that year's 1945 oscars, Jack Benny, is walking towards them and so they start talking to each other in order to escape an awkward interview. And so then they strike up this conversation and realize all that they have in common. They both like Martini's. What could go wrong? It is a wonderful life. Or I bet some actress heard some musician's No. 1 hit on the radio and just dug his groove. And so maybe she called him up and asked him to meet her for coffee. Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe probably got caffeinated a lot together when 5 & diners were the shit.

Evidence of A Night's Porch Conversation

From my front porch, I see
The moon is loving his spot in the sky.
You notice I'm loving his spot in the sky.

"Pay attention, honey!"

I feel sorry.

She says something to me
and I don't hear it
and as she starts her next sentence,
the smoke she took in
comes out
as if it was waiting til she spoke again.

Oh, shit!
I forgot she's talking.

The smoke hugs her planned face
and I'm lost in her words.
But are her words as planned
as how she tries so hard with her face?

Well, her and I read Thoreau and Poe
to recognize how to listen to each other
and not get distracted by
the looks
of what's happening.

listen

She diffuses her clove's red Hot
and I hear it
become dead and tossed into the ash tray.

This gives tomorrow morning a true account of
what we did last night.

3 A.M. Night Drive

The literature I wrote sorta slipped off my tongue. I was strangely impressed with how it just came out of nowhere. I'm not typically that good of a writer. I think it just happened so easily, because it was completely what was on my mind in that very moment.

Writing:
I can't sleep and likely won't for a while. I'll catch up to it, though. It gives me something to try against, sort of a challenge and all. And I've got a lot of thoughts that run inked down in the late dead of night. It's something about the pace, that there is no pace...you drag your feet or jump around when you're the only one - thumbing through wonder, sorta skipping thoughts, not ever really focused on one, but all in the same, I'm documenting my life, whether it's doing me any good or not. Filming is just one way for my neuroses to manifest themselves.

A sort of deja vu grips me every time I am doing these solo night drives, because I'm the same sort of thinker every time. There's this thread of memory striking me each time at this time behind the wheel and it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

Music:
Riceboy Sleeps - "All the Big Trees"

Film Audio used:
1) Good Will Hunting -

Sean (speaking to Will Hunting): "I can't learn anything from you I can read in some f***ing book. Unless you wanna talk about you, who you are. Then, I'm fascinated. I'm in."

2) Almost Famous -

Penny Lane - "Do you wanna come?"
William Miller - "Yea, yea."
Penny - "You sure?"
William - "Ask me again."
Penny - "Do you wanna come?"
William - "Yes. Yes."
Penny - "You gotta call me."

3) It's a Wonderful Life -

George Bailey and Mary: "Buffalo Gals,
can't you come out tonight?
Can't you come out tonight?
Can't you come out tonight?
Buffalo Gals,
can't you come out tonight?
And dance by the light of the moon."

George: "What is it you want, Mary. What do you want? You, you want the moon?! Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey, that's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary."

Mary: "I'll take it. Then what?"

George: "Well then, you could swallow it, and it'd all dissolve, see? And the moon beams'd shoot
out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair.

R.I.P. "King of Pop" :(

____________________________________________________________________________________
Billie Jean
Millions of people are watching this video as we speak, so it might be pretty glitchy quality.

I remember my dad showing this to me when I was maybe 4 or 5. I was in awe. I also remember my science teacher, Rebecca Allen, being convinced into doing the moonwalk in front of our class Freshman year of high school.

Basically, Michael Jackson taught me how to dance.



Will You Be There

Complacency

So, I've had many people mention to me that the "sweet lil gal" line is pretty cheesy in this video.....trust me, I know. And I don't expect anyone to understand why I say it. I say, "Did I have a re-occurring dream where I meet that sweet lil gal and we go slow dance down by that barn", because I am mocking my own dreams. I am complacent towards my dreams, because I think my dreams are boringly re-occurring, which always invalidly disappoints me and starts my day off on a bad foot.



So I spent a pretty long time on this video. I think this video is a breakthrough for me, because I learned a lot by experimenting with new ideas and I grew a lot by committing to the undying nature of meticulousness. I now see the worthiness in editing patience. This was all filmed on my Sony Handycam and all edited on I-Movie HD '06.

The first song (Andrew Bird's "Simple X") is a song you can go pretty in-depth with, as far as song analysis goes. Andrew Bird said in an interview once that the song is a bit about breakfast, or that period of the day, being a possible key to world peace. There is a reference to Serotonin.......low levels are associated with depression but we all feel a bit groggy when we get up. Food releases endorphines which release serotonin and makes us feel better. This song is about breakfast in which case it basically is referring to how having breakfast will make you feel better.

Writing:
"Will, wake up...

*sigh* I hate this.

Why'd I just take that pill? I don't have a headache.

What did I dream last night? Did I have a reoccurring dream where I meet that sweet lil gal and we go slow dance down by that barn?

I feel complacent. I worked out yesterday, right? I think. Yea, I did. My muscles are really tight, but I think I'm just...not very excited about today....I'm always tighter when I'm not excited.

I think...I'm supposed to just...sit.

But I hear the dogs next door bark and the spirits leave the room because I am too angry for them to tolerate. It's as if I need to be shot in the arm.

Things start moving in slow motion the very moment I realize I've disappeared from everyone. And it all goes black right before I come back."

Music:
1) Andrew Bird - "Simple X"
2) Wilco - "This Is New (The Explanation)"
3) Múm - "K/Half Noise"
4a) Wilco - "This Is New (The Explanation)" --- mixed on Garageband...messed around with the treble and reverb and pitch
4b) Wilco - "Poor Places"
4c) Sound effects taken from http://www.freesound.org/searchText.php : ice clinking in glass, underwater, iceberg collapsing, etc.
5) Sigur Rós - Með Blóðnasir

Neon Pink Sunset

This is one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. Adam and I are on our way to Nashville from Knoxville.

God Has Spirits

His spirits are in every room. If you sit and breathe deep, you might be able to listen to their silence. They try not to be heard because God tries not to be seen. Seeing is believing and most think believing is seeing. Well, I'm having a hard time with that one. But I think God has a lot of patience.

Summer Night

I edited the video a good bit. I like it a lot more. Very pleased with it. Let me know what you think.



Music:
1) Yo La Tengo - Let's Be Still
2) Priscilla Ahn - Good Day (Morning Song)
3) Wheat - Closeness
4) Riceboy Sleeps - Atlas Song

Cassie's Wedding

My good friend, Cassie Gilman became Cassie Roskelly a couple weekends ago. I had a camera at the wedding. So I decided to film the wedding. And then I decided to edit it. Why not? Weddings are presh. jk.



Music:

Ryan Adams - Elizabeth, You Were Born To Play That Part

F.Y.I. Cassie's middle name is Elizabeth. Hince the song, ya know..

Falling out, falling back in

Falling out of love...I find myself.


....That's it -

myself.

And that's about it.


And as far I'm concerned, lust leaves
because I'm a fool and my love is not blind.

You're not "Sexy" for a while
because I'm an animal and want Liv Tyler.






Falling back in love...I find you.


...That's it -

you.

And you're about it.


And as far as I'm concerned, it's about you.
Your voice makes sense again and grabs me
in my most attentive state,
You're singing Billie Holiday
and gesturing Luciano Pavarotti.

Wherever and whenever you're "Sexy" again
the sun will drop on the bridge and fall behind it.
God's spirit will be there.

I'll never forget any of it

Jónsi is screaming and stretching his veins in his neck.
It sorta hurts to thinks about how long he is resonating that note,
crooning an angelic pierce like hungry humans
some hungry for attention -

Some have that fervid pump in them
that you can see in their chest from forever away,
becoming a song that reaches for forever away,
ripened into something more familiar and homey
and calming -
but always an acquired taste,
like an ice cold goose flesh bath
that will probably take a certain bruise away
always sucks getting into at first
but once you're good you're good.

Uncomfortable couches that all remind me of staying up
three hours too late on CPA school nights-
waiting for Carson Daly the tool to come on
and have terrible talk show guests that I watch
only because Sigur Ros comes on last
but worth it more than enough
since I still remember it
more memorable than most things I've seen in life.

It happened when I was in 8th grade maybe a Freshman and I'll never forget it
but really I'll never forget any of it,
really it's all historic.

Favorite Live Moments

Includes:
1) Angels and Airwaves - The Adventure
2) Jeff Buckley - Grace
3) Ryan Adams - Blue Sky Blues
4) Devendra Banhart - Freely
5) M Ward - Fuel for Fire
6) Grizzly Bear - Shift
7) Beirut - Nantes
8) The everybodyfields - Dream
9) Bob Dylan - Just Like a Woman
10) Conor Oberst - Cape Canaveral
11) Mark Kozelek - Katy Song
12) Thom Yorke - Videotape
13) Jeff Tweedy - Sunken Treasure
14) Andrew Bird - Sectionate City (or Section 8 City)
15) Sigur Ros - Vaka (Untitled #1)
16) Priscilla Ahn - Dream

Our skin

Our skin is marked like the trunk of a tree.
Each wrinkle is a year, some less visible.
Those less visible are the years more forgotten.
The skin ages with sags, folding strangely,
but deems us more human and delicate.

Autumn falls down and winter ices over
each season bringing its song to fruition.
We will all die someday,
some of us will just have more
noteworthy tunes stuck in our heads.

Journey

Here's a song I wrote, just some guitar riffs built over each other on garageband.

I mixed some "Alice" by Pogo in there for the "chorus" lines.



Song lyrics:

How do I know
this isn't lust?
Beach turns me on
oh pretty well.

I want to know what is
leading me straight.

I just suppose
I'm to love it.
Okay, done, right
so I'm happy.

There is no final place
so I'll keep running.

"too did"

I was a class-clown in middle school. For example, I wore zip-ties and vests (that were too small for me) and grew my hair out way past the dress code's limits. I thought I was pretty freaking cool. This personality of mine carried well into high school, where I then became jaded by the world's darkness and decided to become mysterious and introverted. (Not to be too dramatic or anything.)

Middle school carries a plethora of golden story-telling opportunities for me.

I remember this one time…

I was in 8th grade. At the time of this story, I was in Bridget Puckett’s English class. She was probably in her late 20's. Red hair. Angelic face. We all thought she was quite the attractive one. I mean...really, she makes the pickup line, "Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?", less cheesy and more realistic, because I probably would have asked her that, being legitimately curious whether or not she fell from Heaven.

I was in her class with my good friends, Austin Manuel and Bob Hooper and John DeWitt and Tony Beuerlein. We always sat next to each other.

Our class was seriously envied by guys in other classes. Everyone wanted to be in the same English class that all the "clever" class-clowns were in. Every time we would take bathroom breaks, we would pass by Mrs. Dincauze's class and we would make eye contact with my friend, Tarek Merritt. He would then ask Mrs Dincauze if he could use the restroom. We would then all go into the bathroom and have a huge mosh pit, people taking turns to jump off of the counters (where normal people would wash their hands) into the arms of fellow class-mates.

One day in Mrs. Puckett's class, we are reading some ancient Greek Mythology. We are doing the whole ‘popcorn reading’ thing where people take turns reading paragraphs from the book. This is paraphrased, but I’m reading something like, “Leopold squanders the Trojans with his warriors who surpass all enchantment, but his predecessor, Homer, too did this.”

When I read “too did”, I just started smirking and completely stopped reading the next sentence. No one else was laughing or knew what was going on at all. I looked over at John DeWitt and he then knew what I thought was funny. Then it was like dominoes among my fellow class-clown friends…Austin and Bob then started laughing. And then my friend, Tony, starts laughing. But of course, all the girls in the class have already matured and can’t dumb themselves down to the poo-poo/pee-pee minds of us boys.

Mrs. Puckett then puts her hands (always gently and never raises her voice…what an angel) down on my desk, and asks me, “Will, why are you smirking. Can you not finish reading your paragraph?”

I then look at her with puppy eyes (always calming the teacher down and making them feel sympathetic for me), “Mrs. Puckett, I’m sorry, it’s just that ‘too did’ sounds an awful lot like ‘tooted’”.

Mrs. Puckett just stares at me for a few seconds and says, “Unreal. Continue reading please.”

But to this day, I think she laughed a little to herself on the inside.

I Wanna Be Broken

I've been thinking a lot lately about brokenness. My brother, Ben, and I have been reading David Dark's new book, The Sacredness of Questioning Everything. It's really really well-written, probably my favorite book he's written so far. Check out his other books, The Gospel According To America and Everyday Apocalypse. In the book, he talks about this song by Leonard Cohen, called "Anthem". He talks about how the song really hit home for him...how the lines, "There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in", really changed his perception of what it is to broken.

So I wrote a poem in my journal the other night...basically just out of frustration..I just want to be broken.

The song I use: "Happiness" by Riceboy Sleeps, which is a side project from Jonsi (lead singer of Sigur Ros) and his boyfriend, Alex Somers. The album is due in July.



I'm not really sure
what churns and burns me
but to whatever does
I pray you come
and come fast.

"There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in."
- Leonard Cohen once said that.

But what about the corners
hidden
from those who shatter their pieces.

A jug of wine kept deep down in its' cellar
where no drunk passes
where no one can shatter it.

We are all pretty obsessed
with our cellars.
We don't want
anyone to crack us.

Well I wanna be broken.
Break me please.
I badly wanna break.
I wanna shatter.
Everything is perfect,
but nothing ever moves me.
I wanna be broken
so I can feel.

Sam Quinn and Japan Ten

I don't know who of you are fans of the band, The Everybodyfields. They're one of my favorites. If you are a fan, then I'm sure you know by now that Jill Andrews and Sam Quinn are working on separate projects right now. Jill is working on solo stuff and Sam is working on stuff with his trio, Japan Ten.

The Everybodyfields have grown a lot on me in the past few years. Not only do Sam and Jill live in Knoxville, and not only have I gotten a chance to meet Sam at Barley's and talk to him for a little bit (*sigh*, blushed cheeks...i wasn't really that star-struck, except I was), but Sam Quinn's crooning voice just hits really close to home for me.


I love the 1st song they sing a whole lot...without the lyrics and all, it just sounds really melodic to me. I also really like the lyrics in the 2nd song a whole lot:
"Because I did it one time doesn't mean a damn thing to me now.
Every day I'll get it right in the middle of the night.
I'm calling out, 'Who's that in your way now?' "


Here is their song, "Hello":

Sam Quinn + Japan Ten: "Hello" @ Ramseur Records HQ from Ramseur Records on Vimeo.

*BANG!*

Cowboy and Indian

3 Screens

I had an idea to have a video jump from laptop to laptop screen. There isn't much concept behind this. I was just experimenting with this idea I thought might be really cool.

This is a lot cooler in person. If you know me, ask me to show it to you sometime.





p.s. I love Kala.

Installation Art: Photo Collage

I made a collage of photos. I took pictures of some doors in the art building and then collaged them together and hung them from twine in front of the doors.

Adam Brimer helped me document my project with his amazing camera skills.

Angel Falls

Jeff, Marty, Sam, Ben, Adam, and I all went backpacking at Angel Falls. We camped out very near part of the John Muir trail. We camped out on this rock that was 100 feet up on this overhang. The Big South Fork River ran through this valley below us.

We brought some Bacardi lime rum with us and mixed it with some apple cider. It was strangely delicious.

Spring Break

Ethan, Jeff, Gary, Bo, Michael, Brent, and I went down to Destin, Florida for spring break. The 7 of us crammed ourselves into a hotel room for 4 nights. It was great.

Painting: "Beautiful Night Out"

For this painting, we find a comic strip and copy it exactly in the form of a painting (and I mean exactly). The point of this lesson is to learn how to mix colors better and to help you control your hand by painting lines in a very controlled manner. It was pretty tedious and most of the time I just wanted to move my brush across the whole canvas in one fluid motion, but I had to be really careful not to mess up the whole time. It was pretty frustrating at times.

So the comic I chose is completely irrelevant to me. I just searched "funny simple comic strip" on google images and this is what it gave me:




So here's my painting, it's 4x5 feet tall:




The purple sky was for some reason really hard for me to get just right. It just never turned out. I had to do 3 layers..trying to get it just right, but alas. Her shirt and his jacket were really hard too. I couldn't figure out what colors to mix to get them just right. I obviously need more yellow in his jacket.

I wish I had chosen something more relevant to me, maybe a cartoon I watched as a kid or comic strip I would read in the Sunday paper...like Tom and Jerry or something. But this painting actually works strangely well with my 1st painting (the abstract one), they work really well as a diptych.

No One Does It Like You

I just watched the music video for Department of Eagles' "No One Does It Like You" and felt like I had to put it on my blog. It's so cool.



What's also cool is that on March 24th at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC there was a special premiere of the video, produced by the Directors Bureau, directed by Patrick Daughters and Marcel Dzama, and featuring costumes and sets designed by Dzama. The screening was followed by a Q&A with Daughters and Dzama, moderated by MoMA curator Sarah Suzuki, and a live performance by Department of Eagles.

Intaglio: Aqua Tint

So with this project, you take the plate from the hard ground project. You get a Sharpie and draw on the places you want lightest. Then put it in acid wash for 10 minutes. Then draw the medium shadows. (Light: 30 minutes, Medium: 20 minutes, Dark: 10 minutes). And on this project, we were able to do a lot more with color.

Intaglio: Hard Ground

Sufjan and Garneau

Is it just me or do these people look like twins?


Sufjan Stevens:



Chris Garneau:

Will, Kiss Mom

I am 3 years 1 month old here. My dad is filming and my mom is cooking. We are in the kitchen of my 1st home. We lived on Castleman Drive in Green Hills of Nashville, TN.

I remember this was the night before easter, because my brother (5 and 1/2 years old) is in the other room coloring in pictures of bunny rabbits for an easter egg drawing competition. I'm watching my mom cook and asking her, "What's that?" and giving her kisses on the lips. What a great childhood.

Sorry for the bad quality. It was bad quality to begin with and then compressing it for youtube made it a lot worse.



Me : "What's that?"

Mom : "Oranges, want one?"















Just a random tidbit. Hal Ketchum bought the house from us. This guy:

Intaglio: Collagraph

Anyways, I did 8 prints for a 6 print project. Here are my favorites:

Concert Poster

Experimenting:



More exmerimenting:

Sketch

It's All Gonna Break

I made this a while ago, but I really like this and thought I might as well put it here:

Intaglio: Monotype

I already put up 2 prints from this monotype set. I hadn't put these up just because these aren't exactly good prints. I was only experimenting, I guess you could say. Oh well..think of them what you may.

Everything Erased, White

I wrote this about my childhood on Castleman Drive in Green Hills. Just picture me as a 3 year old and Ben as a 5 year old...it's snowing outside and we're playing with action figures in a tree house.

Oh, and if you can't read my hand-writing, then just stick it, ALRIGHT! Just kidding, if you think it says "lovered" on the 2nd page, it actually says "covered". Logical enough, right?