he and him

I was his first,

uncomfortably happy with him

when I was in his arms,

voluntarily blind to his worst demons.

I saw their shadows and

the pointed footprints on his heart

and followed him anyway.

He didn't start the fire

but rather fueled it.

With his presence, the heat in him grew

to a towering height

I had never seen before.

The sweet warm flames in him

had changed into something dangerous,

but still I stayed near

and would give up neither

him or he

who I let in.

I think he broke him with his presence.

Trying to smother his fire,

never truly succeeding

and burning himself every time.

Never accepting a world where

his demons

could live with him

still whole.

Jealousy and mistrust added to my fire,

but it wasn’t really flames

so much as weight in my chest.

I was his until I wasn’t,

but for him

it was never understood.

Six days.

He kissed me

and I let it happen, but not at first.

He picked me up

and carried me away

from the heavy heat

to somewhere soft and new

where romance was a dream,

an escape.

He was sweet and kind

and silly.

Always a smile found

on his lips,

in his deep, dark eyes.

I suspect there is a boy inside of

the man he is,

behind his smiling eyes.

How could I resist?

He couldn't wait.

No patience.

The passionate and headstrong

never seem to be anyways.

I know I could never keep

neither he

nor him,

but I wonder

why I stayed by his fire,

why he kissed so sweetly.

A Little Too Little, A Little To Late

Hmm.. That reminds me of a Toby Keith song.

I've got some more pages from my sketchbook, as promised, but I feel bad about not going through with the timing of fulfilling the promise. I do have a lot more to add now, and I'll get my photos added onto this blog very soon. (And I really do mean this, this time.) But for now, it will be some of my recent interests in art, as well as some books I'm reading and a couple that I desperately want to have time for, but don't. 

Outlander (or Cross Stitch) by Diana Gabaldon, which is the first in a series of seven novels, and Witch and Wizard by James Patterson are two of the most recent books that I've been dying to read but have absolutely no time too. Heck, I hardly have time to sleep with all the homework and college applications I've been trying to get done, but that's high school for you. Not that my bookshelf needs any more unread books on it - its kind of overflowing with unread books right now, just a little bit...

I'm currently in the middle of reading The Lucky One, a Nicholas Sparks book, simply for pleasure. I had gotten about halfway through the book during summer, but I had to put the book on pause for summer reading and my English reading assignments. I'm reading The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver for my English Literature class. Its an incredible book so far, and I have high hopes for the rest of the book that I doubt will be let down, but the father, Nathan Price, frustrates me to no end. If I could remain mentally sane whilst strangling a fictional person, I would definitely do it.

"Sunrise tantalize, evil eyes hypnotize: that is the morning, Congo pink." - Adah Price, Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

So now for the art! I have started studying different portraits and the proportions of faces, and have found that this website was greatly helpful in beginning to learn the correct measurements and proportions of a human face. It even gives you examples of different angles of a face and has a video tutorial if you want to follow along with the lesson. I found inspiration in Roy Lichtenstein's pop art style paintings, one of which titled "Ohhh... Alright..." is pictured below. I attempted to follow a pop art style in one of my projects, though I didn't use Lichtenstein's trademark dot-shading technique also found in comics during the era, the mid 1900s. Its on a 12x12" canvas, but I had to crop the image a bit to get it to fit nicely. The subject of the painting is a bit off center to the left of the canvas, and the background is a solid bright blue.

A great site for learning how to create proportional, realistic and cartoon drawings is Lackadaisy, especially the gallery where you can see some of the artist, Tracy J. Butler's, processes in creating her incredible webcomics. Some of the most helpful pages on the website I found were on facial expression, character construction drawing, and figure drawing.

I think that's all I'll be able to include from my sketchbook for now, but I'll definitely add more in another post soon, with more pictures as well.

Catch Up.. To My Sanity?

So, I haven't really been able to update at all on this blog because of an overload of school work, but I have some extra time this week, hopefully, so I'll be catching up on posting about my sketchbook research and studio art pieces that I've done so far. I'm really starting to miss being able to read and write in my free time so I've been procrastinating on certain things (which is bad) in order to have quiet time to think, other than in the shower of course. Preferably at my laptop where I can type. 

Pinterest has gotten a hold of me and won't let go. So many cool things to do and see, and absolutely no freaking time to do any of it. I'll just have to be content with just looking at all of the crafts and projects that I want to do and pull all of the satisfaction I can out of "that would be so awesome if I could do that" and be done with it. Besides, I don't have enough room to put any of the things I see on Pinterest. My closet can attest to that.

I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road in my English Lit. class and I really liked it, despite all of the gloom and destruction. I loved how the boy was humane and good in such a grim and dark world and always showed kindness to strangers. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the book, I'll post any others if I can think of them:

"They set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire." - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

A Brave New World...

So, I'm starting my IB Art Design class this semester, and I thought it would be a neat idea to start up a blog about my processes and work during the year. I'll be uploading pictures of my studio pieces and sketchbook throughout the year, as well as posting some of my inspirations for pieces, and things that I like that may not necessarily be about art but more about me, like literature, good books, poems, songs and pictures.

I'm hoping this blog will help with gathering and organizing my inspiration and ideas, so we'll have to see where this goes this year. I've gotten  really excited, as well as a big dose of nervous, when I signed up for and started this class.

One of the artists I've been really liking lately can be found on Rachel Urquhart's blog, Pony Gold. I really like the southwestern and bohemian influences in her work. I absolutely love the photography inspiration. Its gorgeous. Another amazing artist is Alexandra Valenti. Her painted images here are simply incredible. I get the same natural and dreamy vibes from both artists.