Best picture of Till Lindemann. 

Ever. 

My recent artistic-fixation-obsession has been charcoal for a while. I believe I first gushed my affection for the medium sometime over the summer wherein I reveled its wondrous capacity to aid one in plotting out a painting as a tool for a pre-pre-drawing. Or something like that. I’ve begun to also come to appreciate it as an artistic medium of its own.. since coming to New Orleans and moving into my new dorm, I’ve been having to look at some awful harsh, empty walls. And given that I LOST MY GODDAMN OIL PAINTS and am thus rendered unable to fill up paintings to tack all over my walls, I’ve begun doing charcoal portraits of people in my drawing class but also of pretty much everyone I’ve ever found fascinating and/or inspiring. This series is no where near finished.. I’ve really only just begun this venture. And it bothers me immensely that I’ve yet to finish a portrait of a male role-model thus far. Ah well. The time will come. In any event, this here art dump is among so of the most recent of my activities, and I’ll be updating it more frequently soon enough. 

I simply adore the flexibility and forgiving quality of charcoal. People often complain that it’s incredibly messy and difficult to work with, but I personally find it one of the most approachable mediums out there. And I love mess. So it works. But jest aside, once you get past the smudgey factor and develop a method of approach, it just flows, and for me at least, seems to cooperate. I love the intense values you can work with, and the resulting intensity of the finished product. I would marry charcoal if I weren’t already married to oil paint, hummus, and 99% of my friends. 

I’m also working on my first major piece involving Rosalind in for-fucking-ever. And I need to have it done by the 31st, as I plan to enter into the undergraduate drawing contest here. And I’m so grateful to have a deadline looming over me otherwise I know I would never get it done good lord. Anyway, it’s going to have brains in it. So many brains. I’m really stupidly thrilled about this. 

In news more mundane: I survived Mardi Gras, mid-terms, and now Vz and I are going to GO SEE ANGELSPIT TOMORROW NIGHT !! I don’t think it’s really sunk into me yet how cool this is going to be—mainly because I haven’t really had too much time to think about it. But anyway, even though Angelspit is no longer really in my primary library of music that I listen to every single day anymore, I think the majority of my friends remember that year-long phase (approximatly Junior year) in which I listened to Angelspit non-stop, everyday, for hours upon hours on end. I even drew ZooG and DestroyX fanart and sent it to them with an email in which I spewed my undying affection (and ZooG actually wrote back; it was so vindicating.. this is what I love about small bands). Even though it would have been ideal for me to see Angelspit for me when I was 17, it will still be a powerful evening, I’m sure. Angelspit was my go-to music during a very turbulent period in my life and it in turn gave me a sense of security and in truth, opened a lot of doors. I identified with Angelspit—but not in the ‘I’m angry and Angelspit is angry and we’re all angry and gwaaaarrrr!’ sense (even though I would never deny that that was a part of it :P), it was slightly more complex than that. Though it falls back upon the somewhat tired themes of conformity and disillusionment with society and rejection of the sources of authority that don’t give a flying fuck about us, on a deeper level, Angelspit is more about self-affirmation in the context of fighting to maintain one’s creativity and not getting sucked into a thoughtless auto-pilot. And I think people often fail to appreciate and understand just how easy it IS to allow your creativity, originality, and even personality to some degree to be snuffed out by mindless routine and the complete bullshit we allow to be pumped into us by the mainstream media. Because, to me at least, Angelspit, through its cacophony, screaming, and unapologetic deviance does absolutely tap into the struggle of trying to remain your own person with your own ideas. When it comes to your own voice—take the Queen, ditch the rest. 

So yeah. I’m excited, despite the fact that I don’t really listen to them every single day now. Hopefully HOPEFULLY the venue will be small and intimate enough that Vz and I will easily be able to hog the front and make spectacles of ourselves, and maybe have the honor of hugging them afterward as well and be awkward and fan-girl like and tell them how much they mean to me.

This has to be my favorite picture of Emilie Autumn of all time. I think, in all honestly, it’s the way that tea bag is just dripping so seductively from her bottom lip. There’s just something so weirdly erotic and badass about it. There’s also the hair, of course, and her beautiful collarbone demanding so much prominence. Anyway! I think this portrait turned out to be the best I’ve done so far. It’s also the most recent. But everything just fell together very well, overall, in my humble opinion.

Yes. I do like Lady Gaga. I am not an obsessive I-will-cut-your-throat-if-you-don’t-approve-of-everything-she-does kinda fan. Just the I want her to be my baby daddy and impregnate me with her alien children kinda fan. 

Shaddup.

First off let me begin by saying that this reaaallllyy needs to be redone. I suck at drawing anyone under the age of 18. Drawing children, pre-teens, and adolescents is far from being in my element. And this was probably one of my first attempts ever of wandering into that murky terrain and actually trying to look relatively realistic. 

Anyway. I could ramble on forever and ever about why I consider Anne Frank one of the most amazing human beings ever. To be short, her wisdom and maturity for a girl her age was remarkable. And her innate trust in the basic goodness of humanity despite her circumstances is mind-blowing. To find an individual today who trusts in the goodness of man is rare to begin with. To find it in a 13 year old girl who was eventually murdered by Nazi’s for something so trivial and so beyond her control is nothing short of a miracle. 

Of course, no one will ever really know what became of her simple trust and innocence when she and her family were ripped from their hiding places and condemned to death in Auschwitz. But I like to hope that, despite everything, despite the horror and brutality and the unquestionable evil that that poor girl confronted, she still had that trust, that goodness, that innocence when she fell to her premature grave. 

I like to hope so, at least. 

Btw. That song is ‘Holland, 1945’ by Neutral Milk Hotel

Ha.. yeah.. did this in about 45 minutes for my drawing mid-term. I didn’t get a chance to correct the eyes a bit. But for the most part, I think it looks like me. Not that the vast majority of you would know anyway 

This is my friend Kyle. This was a 15 minute drawing. But I forgot to spray fixative on it, so it’s a tad smeared. Anyway, I accidentally made him look 15 years older than he really is. So I gave him enormous hoop earrings. Not sure if that had the planned effect however…

So I’m organizing this rave at a Church

and the Priest of said Church just facebook

RSVP’d as ‘maybe’ attending. How should I 

respond to this? Should I friend request him?

It iisss his Church, though the event was 

cleared by someone else who works at 

the Church. 

I’m trying to imagine what this might end up 

looking like. 

….

This is so weird. New Orleans is weird.