Category: Painting

In the 14th painting, the twins have entered the quantum matrix of choices. Sometimes, abstract things are harder to depict. Having the freedom to show something any way I want to means that it’s challenging for me to narrow down the choices. Within the chapter, I talk about the “pathways.” I knew I’d depict those pathways as unpainted lines.

The hardest part was deciding what the rest of the painting would look like. I thought  a matrix should be primordially simple. But not like a black hole, sucking things in. More like a place full of energy and possibility. Didn’t take too much time to come up with a vagina. And since it should be full of light, the twins must be silhouettes.  As a matter of fact, painting the twins all in black made creating number 14 the quickest one I’ve completed since I didn’t have to get the fine details of body parts “correct.” As soon as I learn how to apply that lesson to future paintings, without making them all silhouettes, that’s going to put me at the next plateau.

In addition to that, I’ll have to get more serious with the manuscript. I think I know what needs to be done: edit more than a few sections daily. I need to discipline myself to read at least two chapters at once. That way I can tighten up the story.

Back in April, The George Washington Carver Museum sent an email, calling all local artists to pick up some supplies to participate in its annual fundraiser to support their educational program. The supplies included a 12″ x 12″ canvas, a packet of 3 paintbrushes and 4 giant tubes of acrylic paint. The only given supply I used was the canvas since oil is my preferred medium.

I sketched out a headshot of the title characters from The Adventures of Infinity & Negativa. I wanted extra practice painting those twins. Plus, given the smaller canvas size and the fact I’d not paint any limbs, hands, fingers, or toes, I’d finish in a week.

I underestimated their smiles. I selected two models with different smiles of Google images. I discovered my bias to paint smiles the way I thought they should be rather than how they were in reality. For example, I struggled the most with Negativa’s smile, the woman with the red lipstick. Originally, her lips formed the same shape as Infinity’s. Then I painted all her teeth straight across rather than in an arc. The only way I could correct her row of upper teeth was by painting the trapezoidal black space between her teeth.

Once I had the lips and space correct, the big challenge was to paint the underside of her molars. I could have saved myself a lot of grief by not having their heads tilted up, but I loved the idea that the twins weren’t merely smiling at a camera or for the painter. With their heads tilted and eyes looking up, they are clearly enjoying something: fireworks, aerial dancers, a concert, the bats leaving from under the S. Congress bridge….

I spent a full week reworking their smiles. To a lesser extent, I redid their skin. I had the haughty ambition to put an orgasmic glow on their face. I settled for  an attractive, even complexion. After all, there was only so much battle I cared to wage with a painting I intended to donate.

This experience has inspired me to do more Infinity and Negativa headshots. I like the idea of just focusing on facial features. Of course, that will be after I complete the 16 storyboards. I’ve got three more to go, but in order to finish, I’ll have to complete the manuscript.  That, however, is a different battle.

In this adventure, the twins are stretching “rubberband time.” I love how an abstract idea becomes tangible in their mathematical world. Compensates the fact that the action poses seem a bit off due to the length of their limbs. Nonetheless, I’m pleased with how it turned out along with the fact that it took me only 10 days to complete it.

After finishing the twelfth painting, I finally came to the conclusion that instead of having 24 paintings, 16 would do. At least until I finish transforming the story. I’m devouring craft books to improve my writing as quickly as possible. So far, I’ve deleted around twenty thousand words and I’ve barely added anything. I spend my time deleting what doesn’t belong and working out the kinks.

I’ve never bought into the idea of “writer’s block” and the latest craft book suggests that the main two sources of block is either stubbornness/fear or not writing in the correct POV/verb tense. As far as my stubbornness is concerned, I’m willing to edit the story any way it needs to be edit with the glaring exception of the story boards.

Once I complete a painting, it’s in the story. I feel my obligation is to write around the paintings to make the story match since I’m not going to cut a painting, the order of the paintings or dramatically change the text from  the essence of the painting. Besides, for someone who doesn’t set out to plot out much, I use these paintings as the backbone of the story. As such, I hope they’re strong enough to guide  and ground me.

As I walk past my gallery wall, I have a sense of pride and satisfaction to see a complete set of 12. Actually, it’s a half complete set of a possible 24. At this point, only the first 12 chapters of The Adventures of Infinity & Negativa are in place. Note how I don’t say “completed.”

The painting portion of this creative endeavor is far more tangible and set than the written part. As a matter of fact, I’m so efficient in my painting, now that I’ve transformed my life to accommodate my art, I must hustle to revamp the subsequent chapters before I can paint them.

Not that I’m complaining. This situation gives me extra motivation to complete the manuscript.
The 12th painting shows the twins floating in the water, daydreaming. I didn’t attempt to submerge part of their body in the ocean since I figured I wouldn’t pull it off. Yet, I represented everything they talked about while floating in the ocean. Another thing that I didn’t pull off well was Negativa’s body. Instead of looking like her body extends into the horizon, she looks like a little person. At some point, I’ll learn how to sketch and paint things in perspective.

All the hard work I put into cutting out leaflets for the marijuana leaf paid off. Prepping this canvas took the longest time because of that leaf and the wave. Yet, in the end, this canvas captures the essence of chapter 12. If all goes according to plan, this chapter will also represent a turning point in the story.

The combination of one scene and daily progress has allowed me to complete the 11th painting of The Adventures of Infinity & Negativa series after only nine days.  I’m optimistic about finishing the entire series by the end of 2014 if not sooner.

I tried a few new things such as playing more with perspective, shading and highlights in the form of sunlight beaming in. Like most of my first attempts, I’ve got a lot of room for improvement. What I like the most about this painting is that I captured the twins in natural-looking body positions. Clearly, Infinity is excited about the sunrise and Negativa still wants to sleep, sunrise be damned.

Moreover, I’m still learning my lesson about being a minimalist. I included just enough elements to suggest the setting and avoided cluttering the scene. In reality, two women should have luggage, clothes and stuff all over the room and on the night table. Yet, since these are fantasy characters, reality does not have its grips on them.

Some days, I lost myself in painting for three hours. Inevitably, I will get a telecommuting job and will have less time to dedicate to my own artistic pursuits. As much as possible, I will maintain a daily painting practice and not agonize over every brushstroke. The main stopper will be the weather since I paint on my balcony, using natural light.

Earlier in the week, we experienced a freakish cold front. I bundled up, put my canvas on the balcony while I sat in the warmer confines of my apartment. I angled the canvas so the wind would not whisk it away and painted as much of the background as I could. I’ve developed the habit of checking the temperature for the day so I can maximize the most pleasant time of the day in order to paint.

While I get the painting routine and technique groove down, perhaps I should settle on a plot so I can finish the manuscript as well?

For the first time since working on this series, I’ve enjoyed the daily progression of this canvas. The underlying beauty of it lie in the precise measurements I made when sketching the angles of the room. I put the protractor directly onto the picture so I’d leave very little to chance or “artistic ability” when creating the inner space.

The outside of the building was intentionally simple: blue sky, tan sand. As a matter of fact, the only purpose of the outside was to define the inside. This was also accomplished by taping off the section that represented the dive shop building.

I painted just enough things in the shop to suggest where the twins were without getting too bogged down with trying to depict everything that is mentioned in that excerpt from The Adventures of Infinity and Negativa.

When I chose the pictures to represent the twins, I especially looked for body movement. More challenging, but definitely the right call. Actually, I’ve attempted to do that in every painting. The body parts are in better proportion this time.

Now I can paint every day, weather permitting. I expect to have this wall filled with all the chapter storyboards by the end of the year. Hopefully, I will have the WIP completed by then. I’ve been slashing all the fluff lately without adding much. Once I have it streamlined to the essential parts, I’m banking on the fact that the story will be easier to complete. In the meantime, the adventure of bringing the twins to life continues!

Chapter 9’s storyboard painting took a little longer than I’d anticipated due to the battle of the icy cold weather, preventing me from going out onto the balcony some weekend days. My favorite weather-related term during that time was “thunder sleet,” which sounds like an anime character.

Another thing that consumed my time was picking up a part-time writing job, which was more challenging than I thought it would be. Fantastic learning curve, yet I could only work on that project during the weekend, which took priority over painting.

Nonetheless, I knew one of my spring break goals, other than recruiting artists for The Austin Writers Roulette, was finishing this painting. I painted nearly every day during vacation. At times, I spent two hours on the balcony during one setting. Although I know I’m becoming a better painter, I cannot help but be disappointed about how certain parts of the canvas looks, especially Infinity’s dreads in the 5th and 6th circles and the unattractiveness of the arms. I’m getting better at painting fingers, but not the overall hand. I’ve simplified how I paint the noses, which is great because I spend even less time agonizing over it.

Another thing I enjoy is playing with the boundaries of the “storyboard” format. Clearly, each individual painting has a story behind it. The first one has the clearest story, but is the worst painted. The fourth one perhaps has the second clearest narrative, but the rest need the text. I’m certainly not allowing my lack of skills stop me from rendering a scene. Seems with each painting, I’m upping the skill ante. Perhaps that’s why I don’t seem to make much progress with body parts when I spend so much time on the novel things, such as that magnifying glass or green skin.

For the next canvas, I have to draw/paint many inanimate objects found in a diving shop. I can already feel myself getting swamped in the details. Something to look forward to!

Thanks to the recent warm up yesterday, I finished the seventh painting in “The Adventures of Infinity and Negativa” series. The most challenging part of creating this painting was detailing the numbers. Although their bodies have slight errors in anatomical proportions, Infinity and Negativa have a variety of facial expressions and body positions.  I didn’t even bother to consult the Word doc of the pictures that I assembled to sketch the body positions once I started painting.

As much as possible, I’m trying to simplify my routine and focus more on putting paint to canvas. With at least thirteen more canvases to go, I still optimistically believe that my painting skills will improve by virtue of practice. Moreover, since the paintings represent the works of the main character, Nuru, I don’t need to focus so much on the formality of improving my painting skills.  In that respect, the paintings need to be incorporated into the narrative more.

Each painting represents the opening of a chapter, but I need to write the non-fantasy characters talking about Nuru’s paintings more. There are a few references, but as much work as I’m putting into this aspect of the book, I’ve got to make more of them–other than expanding my home gallery collection.