canananada catch up.

WHOOAAAA. It's been a long time since I posted. I apologize.

First, I got swamped with school. Papers, essays, finals, they suck the life out of me. Then, as soon as I was done with school and a sweet mini-comic that can be currently found on my dA called "Daniel Dreams of Crows", I was packing and going on a train to Ontario! 12 hours. After the first 4 hours, I was ready to die.

TCAF was amazing. Steph and Kate are awesome people, we met some awesome people...Paul Pope, Emmanuel Guibert, Michael Cho, Adrian Tomine, Liz Baillie, Nate Powell... Oh, and Toronto is a great city. I wouldn't mind living there or in the area (Kate is cringing across the border).

Anyway. Here's a big sketch dump from my trip.

Trying to keep up with Italian.

Fat Batman saves the day on train rides.

"Nobody's waving from between the bars at Kringsjø
or from the mines on 16"

We always need a little fucked-up Matt once in a while.

And angst-ridden Arthur.

Oh, an obligatory creepy mafia type.

pseudo-comics page

Um, yes, did I mention, the cabbage rolls Kate's mom made? Amazing.

sketchupcatchup April 11-19?

I'm not dead.

I'm just ridiculously busy with school, writing many many papers. It's not that fun.

Tomorrow or Tuesday I'm going to make a serious effort to get to my scanner and use it for something other than copying source material out of books for English Comp.

I'm also preparing for the Toronto trip.  That thing is a huge deal. 

And now, back to my Western Civ paper.

Catch up post, April 5-10?

Not even sure.

I've been having a minor conflict of faith.  It's a conflict that's always lingered in my mind, but Pinkie brought it up the other day and it's been weighing on me.  It's become clear to me that it seems like art is no longer a contest of skill.  It seems to have nothing to do with how well you draw or even if you're a genuine person or not.  It's like, "What's your gimmick?" What's your thing?  What's your quirk, manufactured or not?  How are you eccentric, weird, different?  And not in your art-- no, what kind of person are you?  Not whether you're a good person or a bad person, even.  How are you weirder than everyone else?  What is the front you put on?  

And I've realized, I don't think I have any of that.  I don't have a "thing".  I've spent a long time trying to be genuine, trying to be enthusiastic, dedicated, trying to pursue perfection to the best of my ability.  But I'm sort of a boring person, at the same time.  Maybe it's just high school, but it seems like the stranger you are, the cooler people think you are, the better people think your art is, even if it's not.  People chase being outside of the norm because they know it will make them friends who think they are edgy and cool, when they're not.  

I'm not saying people with quirks can't be or aren't good people.  But people are so fake, they fake weirdness, they pick to emulate something that is weird or different or not normal to be cool, to be marginalized and popular at the same time.  Is it for attention?  Do they doubt their ability to be themselves?  Do they realize what they're doing, and if they do, do they think it's okay?  And why do people fall for it?  Why does everybody love the 'crazy' person?

It's all rhetorical, but it's all bullshit, too.  It's all bullshit. 

hey guys.

Just so you know I HAVE been keeping up with the doodle blog thing...I just have not had the time to sit down at my scanner and properly scan stuff in.  I'll probably do a massive post in a day or two.

On another note, my passport came in the mail today, which means all I have to do is buy my tickets and Toronto and TCAF is so on. :)

April 4- free choice

Inserting Past into my existence at Starbucks. 

some woodblock printing fun.

So I'm a week behind in my Japanese Woodblock Printing class, taught by Chris Creyts.  The class is really amazing, it's a great group of people...Chris is a great teacher and artist.  But the class.  It's so difficult. It is so labor intensive.  Not only is the carving process really difficult, but the printing is difficult as well.  

However, the carving process is really zen for me.  I've never done wood carving in any form before, so not only is it a learning experience, it's kind of enjoyable for me.  When you work on just sketching and drawing for so long, making something 3-D and tangible is a nice change.  

Anyway.  here is my first block, on that has been driving me nuts.  Probably because the lines are so thin-- my poor judgement.  I gave up on it for now because I chipped so many of the lines. 

The whole block

Artsy picture, gives a better idea of how deep I have to carve...

Close up to see where the lines chipped.  The left side and the ears. 

So I decided to start a bigger, easier block so at least I have something to print.  

The block

The original sketch.

I'm supposed to start on a 5-colour print.  Yeah, okay.  I'll figure something out.