I'm not done here

First off let me preface this by saying I have been really bad at keeping this blog up to date. Originally I wanted to go with weekly updates and when that failed I wanted to go with by-weekly. I just missed the one month mark since my last blog. It's not that I haven't had things to discuss, it's just that life has been really hectic lately. I honestly have several incomplete blogs saved on Microsoft word that one day may see the light of day. In the future I am going to take a different approach with my blogs and hopefully that will result in more consistency with posts.

Here's an update on what's been going on with me and my artwork. The last blog I wrote about was about my tentatively titled series. Since then I have completed two more paintings and have been working on my portfolio to grad school which is my ultimate goal. Last summer I hit the road and got to see the country with a good friend and old roommate. I got so much out of the experience but at the end of it all I was ready to go home, buckle down and get things going with my life. It wasn't easy but things are finally back on track and now I have far less free time than I did when I was sitting around not posting blogs. I recently started to get back in the rhythm of doing youtube videos again and I have been trying to keep my facebook page updated as well. Ultimately the goal would be to make all of these pages more engaging and put a higher demand on me to want to do these. I'm not there yet, but Rome wasn't built in a day. So that's basically it for now gonna leave  with some videos and links. If you like my videos please take a trip over to my youtube and hit that subscribe button, leave a comment and show a brotha some love.


My latest video


My "Make me a Power Ranger" video


Radio Demo


Video preview that really got me back into making videos once again.

Also Check out my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Daneartwork

Dane vs. Dane 2: An update

When I started this particular blog, I didn’t realize that keeping it up on the road would be as difficult as it was. Over the course of this past summer I traveled through a good portion of the country and at some point my laptop battery decided to stop working. Battery power is important when you don’t have a steady source of electricity. Getting an internet connection is a hassle as well, especially when you don’t have a vehicle to travel around in. Now that I got that out my system, time to get to the point of this particular writing.

After returning from four months of traveling, a good deal of my time has been spent trying to find work, looking at ways to continue my education and most importantly doing my artwork. As my college career as an undergraduate student came to a close I had to really do a bit of reflecting in terms of my artwork and what I want to do with it. With the rejection of my application to graduate school looming in my mind, I had to figure out my direction now that I was leaving the cushion of undergraduate education. Upon reflecting the work I had done in order to get my application to school together I realized that at the time I wasn’t completely ready to go to that next level just yet. I also made a promise to myself that when admissions time rolled around again I would be ready and I would come at the schools I decide to apply to with full force.  

With the Dane vs. Dane series completed I originally had the idea to take a step back and reflect upon my work from before I went to college. I had so many notebooks filled with drawings and all these old ideas that before I buckled down and decided to become an art student went unheard. I started to conceptualize this series, yet the work I was still creating deviated from the concept of a retrospective series of paintings. The fact was I was moving on from my life as a college student and I was making work based on that, thus the beginning of Dane vs. Dane 2. So far I have completed four paintings out of this series, with one more still in development and more coming. This particular blog entry is my way of introducing those pieces and talking a little bit about each of them.

The first painting I have developed for the series is also the incomplete painting from the series. This particular piece was inspired by The Roots and their album Rising Down. Around the time of developing this piece I had been listening to that album frequently and usually music helps me move to different stages of my art and this time proved to be no different. I went from listening to Eminem’s albums Relapse and Recovery which assisted in the motivation to complete the Dane vs. Dane series to listening to The Roots. The main idea behind this painting was that I was moving on from school and part of me was dying, but the other part was moving on. One thing I must mention is that I have the tendency to overcomplicate ideas so that I end up needing to create an idea to finish my original idea. If I lost you there I’m sorry because I do not have a simpler way to explain it. Part of this reason why this painting is incomplete is because originally I was going to make a time lapsed video of me painting it to create a visual story of the thought process behind the painting. The other part is I wanted to paint something I never tried painting before which was turning the ends of the hair on the living side into roots. I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to do that and I couldn’t figure out how to do it and make it read as roots. Needless to say, I’m going to go with a simpler idea to complete this painting. I will tentatively have it completed in the near future.

This painting is currently incomplete.

The second painting took about 3 months to develop and is one of my last paintings to be completed. This painting is titled “Sacrifice” and depicts a pencil like gun being shot through the subject’s head with the lead of the pencil going through the other side of his head. This painting mainly has to deal with the fact that since I graduated with a degree in art I have been sacrificed to the world of art. What I mean by this is that creating art is not a hobby of mine at this point, it is a way of life and now I have to live and breathe art every day. If you were to look in my sketchbooks, I have this particular painting sketched about three or four times. The reason being is I wasn’t quite sure about particular details. In the final painting you cannot see who is pulling the trigger on the pencil gun. I did this because there are multiple possibilities as to who could pull the trigger. The subject could be pulling the trigger, sacrificing himself to the world of art or it could be society sacrificing him because of what it says on his degree from college. I wanted the piece to be open to interpret and for people to develop their own answers as to who is actually pulling the trigger. This painting was inspired by the Eminem song When I’m Gone. Personally as someone who enjoys music and listens to is constantly I develop my own interpretations of the music and I consider that song to be the moment where Eminem decided to get rid of his Slim Shady persona and move on with his music. I also needed to move on from the negative feelings of being rejected from the school I applied to and take my work to the next level.

This piece is titled "Sacrifice" it is oil on canvas.

After I initially developed those first two paintings I graduated and soon after graduation I began to travel. This became a transitional stage for me and I started to do work outside of my comfort zone and out of my particular style with stylized screaming faces. I also began oil painting on wood which is change of pace when you are used to painting on canvas. I created three paintings on wood and ultimately only two made it into the series.

The first of the two paintings I completed on the road was my attempt to step out of my style and it yielded interesting results.  As I sit here trying to describe this painting, words fail me. This piece is about losing yourself in a sense, the subject is not complete as there are pieces missing from his face and he has no body. This subject could be read as a mask but I don’t believe that would be correct due to the fact that he has eyes and the face has the depth and articulation that skin has. At the time I was experimenting with painting on wood boards for the first time and wasn’t sure how it was going to come out. I also created a sketch in which pieces of the face were purposefully missing and I liked the concept.

 

The second painting was an expansion of my first idea. I got rid of the confines of facial structure and just drew parts of the face on a piece of paper. The idea of day and night developed as I sketched the painting on the board and it gained a life of its own at that point. The main idea behind this piece is stepping away from what I know in one aspect and making something else out of it. I also consider both to be very dream-like. I consider this series to be about the death and rebirth of my creative side, much like a star explodes and destroys things within its radius and the remains begin to form together to create new stars.

This piece is called "New Life" represent current transitions.

The last painting so far in this series was created after my travels. Much like my piece relating to losing yourself, the subject is incomplete. In my opinion the subject is forming back together after being destroyed which is why he is not complete. This can also attribute to the blue background as opposed to the red background of the previous painting. Since the painting is relying on a subject that is not “complete” I rely heavily on contrast in this painting for people to get exactly what he is. 

Portraiture is something I thoroughly enjoy and while not fully deviating from the face, I did step away from the style I have been using doing portraits. While this variation of Dane vs. Dane is incomplete, I still thought it would be worth sharing what I am currently working on as opposed to talking about older pieces like I have done in my older blog entries. I hope you enjoyed it and I will work harder on making these more frequent.

Just an update

I am not good at keeping this blog updated, I need to put some frequency in my postings. Just making a quick post to keep you updated. Currently I'm working on a piece, I'm also running low on canvases so I need to acquire more soon. Been working on creating a youtube show on my cracked lemonade channel. Hopefully that will be up by the end of the week because I'm hoping to make it something I frequently do. I guess sometimes you have to put deadlines on yourself. I had another post that I was going to put up but it is incomplete so hopefully I will finish writing it and will post it at a later date. I'm trying my best to stay focused and keep busy and hoping all this will pay off someday. Sorry for such a short post, but I will go back to my normal postings soon.

Art Evolution

I love how many people will say that a picture is worth a thousand words but never acknowledge the inverse. The fact of the matter is that words can incite numerous images and thoughts in a person’s head. Words develop many different connotations as time progresses based on society and your surroundings. An example of this is the connotation of artists in this day and age. Many consider the archaic starving artist motif as well as misunderstand the creative power of artists. There is a high demand on the creative juices of those who can create and there is also an expected frequency in such creative actions. The fact is that some artists can hold up to frequent creativity and it takes others to receive that inspiration for them to go to the next creative state. If you are wondering where this is going, I’m gonna talk about my art of course.

  

The first painting completed from the Dane vs. Dane series

                Currently I have one completed series and am currently working on another series. It makes me feel good to say I have a number of completed paintings and to have so much stuff in the works. In a way, I feel backed up because I’ve been traveling which slows down various aspects of production in a number of ways. It seems as though I have a better understanding of my work long after completing it. It also seems like I really only understand what was going through my mind after the painting is done and I have time to sit down and reflect. In many ways I was deriving words from my imagery to help explain what I was trying to portray to the viewer. The writing only goes so far though, due to the fact that people are different and are going to develop meaning based on their experiences. This is where the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” comes into play. This is an aspect of art where the audience participates by reacting and acting with the piece. As an artist, it is an interesting aspect to view people in a gallery setting reacting to artwork. I can’t speak for every artist, but when people react to my artwork I thoroughly enjoy it. Personally, I find it interesting to see people react with other artists work as well, but there is something about when it is your own. I guess I would say it’s the challenging of my artwork that I really like, or maybe the discussion. Either way, I’m moving away from the point.

The Skecth for one of the first paintings from what is tentatively called Dane vs. Dane 2

The incomplete painting

                At the beginning of this blog I spoke about the inverse of a picture being worth a thousand words. I usually find this to be true during the creative process. Sometimes there isn’t always an image to put on a piece of paper directly from your brain to present to the world. Sometimes there is a cerebral process often known as brainstorming that takes place. Recently I have been in a bit of a slump without actually being quite in a slump. I was still sketching and coming up with some ideas, but I wasn’t painting and I didn’t feel like writing much. I took this period of time and it went from being about creation to being about introspection. I was examining my art work and the stories I want to portray in them for the purpose of changing a couple of artist statements of those paintings.  This is important because most time it is the story that sells the artwork more than the artwork itself. To be honest, most times the image comes before I develop a story to accompany. There are times in which I am inspired by a word or concept and I try to develop artwork around it. An example of this is when I first heard Linkin Park’s CD reanimation and I was completely into the concept of reanimating or reinventing yourself so I spent a majority of the time listening to that CD and trying to change the direction of my artwork.

another sketch from Dane vs. Dane 2

                While I was in Pittsburgh I overheard a conversation between two musicians about making albums and putting things together. There was advice being handed out in this conversation about putting together a demo. This advice given holds to visual artists as well and it’s to keep producing and perfecting your craft and things will begin to fit together and there will be some things that won’t fit but you can use those for other projects. I didn’t paint the paintings I had with the intent of creating a series, I created and at the end I had several pieces that had similar meanings and basically share a theme so that became my first series. My first series is entitled Dane vs. Dane: An Introspective look or Dane vs. Dane Part 1 for brevity purposes. The series has to deal with stress and emotions I was going through during my undergraduate studies. The title of the series was more or less inspired by the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World when Scott encounters Nega Scott and has to face him by himself (minus going out to brunch with myself). Originally I had planned for the Dane vs. Dane part 2 to deal with artwork and imagery I created before I went to college and I made the decision to become an artist. The only problem with that was you can’t always dictate where your art is going. I had that idea for part 2 only to make newer stuff based off of where my life was going at the time. This became the series I’m working on right now Dane vs. Dane Part 2 which is only the tentative title. Dane vs. Dane Part 2 began with a painting that I am still working on that was inspired by The Root’s album Rising Down and it evolved into other pieces including one I am tentatively calling “Sacrifice” because it deals with me giving my life to art. Other imagery in this second series either deal with concepts closely relating to death and dreams, it gets very surreal and I thoroughly hope to get what imagery I have sketched turned into paintings sooner rather than later. The theme came from the fact that I’m moving from one avenue of life to the next and there are things that are going to change for one reason or another. Hopefully I will be able to bring the retrospective concept back for my third series of paintings. Gotta focus on one thing at a time for the time being, and right now that is my second series. 

I will continue to work on this series as well as try to keep this blog updated.

A question finally answered

There has been a question that has been asked about my artwork for years. For those who know about my imagery you probably know what question I am about to address. For those who don’t, there is a recurring expression in my drawings and paintings and that is screaming.  While not all my images consist of this particular expression it is a consistent theme that shows up in my artwork. It receives mixed responses due to the fact that everyone interprets the emotion behind the expression differently. I consider this a good thing because art should be open to interpretation. One question that constant is why is the subject of the painting screaming? The answer to the question isn’t as simple and short winded as some of the answers I have delivered in the past.

The truth about it is that the theme started before I even decided to go to college and pursue art. At the end of my eleventh grade school year I spent my summer and 3 months into the school year in a rehabilitation facility. At that age I considered it to be one of the roughest, most mentally taxing experiences of my life (little did I know that in the next few years I’d lose my front teeth, become homeless, and go through a lot more worse shit.) When I was 16 though, 6 months with minimal contact with the outside world surrounded by a bunch of people I didn’t know from a can of paint was a really crazy experience. What was crazier was that during this time I was forced to confront past experiences and correlate them with the behaviors that got me into this facility. It was ridiculous and at times the situation seemed very hopeless and I began to question when the hell I would get out of the facility. It was then I got a journal and I began to draw in that journal. Before this I had only had one art class in high school and I really didn’t know much about drawing. I used to draw Dragon Ball Z characters in middle school, but for the most part I stopped drawing after ninth grade. Long story short, I didn’t have much of a drawing foundation, but I remembered some things about drawing the face from my one art class in ninth grade. I began to combine that with elements I remembered from drawing DBZ characters and I drew in my journals. During those six months and throughout my senior year I kept drawing those faces, but at the time I considered them personal due to the fact that many of them were accompanied with writing that depended on how I felt at the time.

 

In essence the drawings were a representation of all of the negative emotions I felt at the time. There was a transformation happening and in essence I was also documenting that. Many of my drawings at that time represented some sort of duality and internal struggle. I had no better way to express that struggle than through drawing faces for the main reason of not knowing how to draw much else. Even when I was released from the facility, I kept to myself and distanced myself from all the friends I did have in the past. I really didn’t want to speak on those six months and I wanted to move on so I continued to use drawing as my catharsis.

Having to start over in my senior year of high school wasn’t really a fun experience. Most of the time I just wanted to be invisible, but with me being over six feet tall, disappearing wasn’t an easy feat. So I kept to myself and just went through that last school year as under the radar as I could be.  Overall it took about 3 years after being released for me to really feel comfortable in social environments.

When I went to college and decided to pursue art I simply continued to do it because I liked the detail in a screaming face. It wasn’t until I was about to graduate did I realize that it was a continuation of my way of coping with things. I had a conversation with a very wise person to come to that specific realization.  While I may never really abandon that imagery, I have since been trying to move forward with other deviations to make myself a better artist.

I miss my teeth

I was in a thrift store in Colorado going through the book section when a certain book caught my eye. This book was a roundabout five hundred page autobiography about a professional wrestler named Mick Foley. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this man he is basically considered a hardcore legend in the wrestling industry and did not fail in writing a hell of an autobiography.  I spent like three dollars on a five hundred page autobiography marked at around $27, hell of a deal right? Anyway, after reading 300 or so pages of this book and reading about these crazy injuries that this man has endured including losing his three fourths of his right ear and other various injuries I got an idea. This is where this blog comes into play so pay attention. While I’m no Mick Foley, a full time wrestler, or even an athlete I’ve had my fair share of damages. As an artist I usually ended up depicting those damages in my portrait work.

An example of this was back in 2008, I was learning how to skateboard and had quite the accident whilst learning. I always had an interest in skateboarding ever since the Tony Hawk games (when skateboarding basically became ultra mainstream) but never stepped foot on a skateboard until years later in college. I had a couple of friends who skated and done so for years and needless to say I had certain aversions to some of the things they were doing. This fact could be attributed to my low skill level compounded with my low confidence level of being able to get to the level where I could safely perform said moves. One night changed everything and would completely alter my life for the next two years. I had witnessed about 4 skateboarders demolish this one hill on campus earlier in the day, so out of either stupidity, guts or a combination of both I went down the hill. It was a little bumpy at first and I was quite nervous about this whole scenario, but I persevered and made it to the bottom of this monstrous hill. Sadly I have no pictures of this hill, but be patient the pictures are coming. Back to the story, I made it to the bottom of the hill and was brandishing in the victory over this steep hill. In retrospect I should have been doing this from a stationary position, but I was still moving on flat ground. As I am moving I approach this less steep hill and without thinking about the momentum I still had from this previous hill on a high that only could only be quenched by the proceeding events I move forward. This wasn’t as easy as the steeper hill I just demolished, I quickly began to gain speed and more or less lost control. I knew I lost control and I knew I was going to fall and right before I reached the bottom of that second hill I wiped out. I hit the ground in a way that I still cannot describe, but when I got to my feet something told me to check my two front teeth. I moved my tongue to the spot where my trusty choppers should have been and panic began to set in. I did not feel my front teeth there at all so I grabbed my board and ran to my dorm room to which I heard the question “Are you okay?” from the people I ran past.

I got to my room and my roommate was there with his lady friend getting his pimp on and I headed straight to the bathroom. I was relieved, my two teeth were there just very badly chipped. I did my best to chronicle this moment and I will include pictures of the aftermath below. 

                                                              My leg after the fall

I woke up the next day with all the faith that if I made haste that the dental establishment would help me and my front tooth situation. Little did I know that I would have open nerves for about a month, then a temporary foundation for the tooth only for it to get infected which caused an abscess to develop and half my face to swell up. I was also blissfully unaware that after the infection left and I had to go to a specialist and get the tooth treated only for my dentist at the time to cancel my appointment for getting a permanent cap placed on and that she would disappear soon afterward causing me to wait another year for me to get caps placed on what was left of my teeth. This waiting period allowed major decay to occur on the teeth so when I was finally able to get caps, they had to drill the hell out of what was left of my front teeth. I had a picture of what was left of those teeth but the day after I took the picture with the phone I had at the time, it died and that image was lost forever.

                                                     Abscesses are evil

Now this is the part where I relate this story to my artwork. This experience had a huge effect on my drawings for those couple of years. Every portrait that closely resembled me had chipped teeth both in drawings and in paintings. I could show various examples of this due to the fact I have filled sketchbooks with different deviations of myself but will only show a few examples for the sake of space. Below are examples of said artwork during that span of time.

 

                      I even revisited the concept of my tooth being chipped a year after having new caps

Well I think that's all I have to say for this particular entry. I hope it was enjoyable even with the plethora pictures of me.