I kept thinking it was Friday for the last two days and now Friday is finally here, I’ve been so busy that I’m writing this blog post at 11:30pm. I have been excited to return to my weekly writing, and talking about the things I’ve gotten done.
First and foremost – I have completed two new paintings! One is of an angel and the other is a landscape of my town. I spoke about them briefly in my last post but they’re finally finished and I can show you!
I have to admit, the landscape of my town is a piece that panders to what I think will sell, but I have taken creative liberties to ensure that it isn’t just another piece to pump out and forget about. Neither painting uses any black, instead opting for a deep pthalo blue mixed with burnt sienna to create a hauntingly dark colour that deepens the shadows to their extreme, instead of a black that can sometimes flatten a painting when not used correctly. When I say no black was used, I really mean no black at all, not even in the mixing of any other shades. I’ve been pushing colour theory to its limits, using bright yellows for light areas and blue for the darks, playing around with inherent values to exacerbate form.
I’m quite happy with both pieces, they aren’t the best things ever made, but they are important practices that will further my understanding, and will make for good wall pieces when the time comes for them to find a new home. The angel’s face, I will admit, leaves something to be desired, but the primary focus of that piece is the beautiful robes and flowing garments she wears, as well as her arching wings. Considering I used no direct reference, I consider this to be huge for my understanding of clothing and cloth. I am also quite fond of the bushes behind her. I think the landscape of my town is also slept on, and is quite a gorgeous and colourful display without compromising the integrity of what is shown. I’m quite proud of what I’ve done there, and the purple to blue water along with the reflections scratches a positive itch in my brain.
In more personal news, I have been playing a combination of My Winter Car and GTA San Andreas. I have a long history with My Summer Car, where I garnered a good audience and used to stream it on twitch, to the point where I even made like £100! So I decided to pick up My Winter Car, which so far has been fun to play if nothing else but for the taxi mission. As designed, it is a difficult and frustrating game, and I cannot see myself being able to dedicate the proper amount of time that it requires. On the other hand, GTA San Andreas satisfies my desire for nostalgia, both from my memories of it as a child and because of its setting in 1990’s LA.
I have a certain obsession with the American aesthetic, especially from the 90’s and early 2000’s. It is hard to quantify, but from white picket fences from the American dream to the low income areas of ‘the hood’, these often media driven depictions of real world conditions that are so often glamourised in TV and film take me to a place of satisfaction. I have a lot of fun just cruising around as CJ, looking at all the low resolution textures of real life places; from corner stores, off licenses, mattress shops, casinos, houses, and offices. There’s even a laundromat that takes the place for my favourite in-game building. Something about the mix between that Americana aesthetic and the low resolution of PS2 games that I love so much, and makes GTA San Andreas a game that I can literally play for hours and do functionally nothing. Though I will role-play going to Cluckin’ bell, taking one of the various in game girlfriends out, or cruise around in a lowrider with nothing better to do. Another thing that sets off this nostalgia that I love so much is Judge Judy, but I think that’s because it used to play on our TV all the time when I was a kid.
I try and recreate this feeling I get from all this American media and old stuff, by playing around with old software, looking at windows 95/xp, messing around with old cameras, creating the style of video so often seen on my Videos page, Or just playing old games from that early 00’s era (like the sims 2). I cannot get enough of it, but painting it does not scratch that itch, and so rarely do I paint it unless one day I find a way of doing it that I do enjoy. I think I enjoy painting for completely different reasons though, and though I know I could theoretically paint png sprites with each pixel, memes from the era, or areas from games of the time, painting these things does not sound fun to me. Maybe I’ll change my mind.
Anyway, I cannot believe the speed in which Friday has rolled around again, but I have been looking forward to writing this so bad that I’m glad I’ve kept up with it.
Next week I’m gonna look into entering some art competitions, I’ll see what happens. But I’ve also got some slides that I bought from a charity shop, and using a projector my darling wife bought me, I’m going to create some small paintings of landscapes using them as references. Just simple paintings, probably in the style of Hiroshi Nagai type of thing. I want to create something cheap for people to get their hands on easily, since so many paintings recently have taken ages and been extortionate. I also think it would be a cute collection and would be really cool little collectible items. I’m gonna buy some cheap frames for them too so they look nice and pretty.
Thank you all for reading anyway, I cannot wait to write the next one.
Cya!
Nathiola
Gif of the week: This bizarre gif I found of Elijah Wood (which doesn’t even move), but it was on a website full of gifs from pirates of the Caribbean, LOTR, League of extraordinary gentlemen, and for some reason just Elijah Wood. I say loads, it’s an old website, there’s probably like 50 max and they’re all in a narrow column on the left of the screen. God I miss the old internet.
Leave a Reply