Critiques, comments, suggestions, thoughts and especially ideas for new charcoal drawings I could do for next year are and will be always welcome!
5)
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| Wishbone No Big Heads 2005 http://ryuyujin.deviantart.com/art/Self-Wishbone-in-Charcoal-24619323 |
Through much of college and young adult life I hated my picture taken. Very few photos of me from that time do not include me giving the camera the bird. I hated drawing self portraits more even though they were a common assignment in drawing class. So when I was tricked into entering No Big Heads, a yearly self portrait contest, by all three of my drawing teachers and my graphic design teacher, I took the most surreal and metaphorical route I could to illustrate 'me' without actually drawing me. It is still one of my favorite, most meaningful, and closest to my heart drawings ever. It unfortunately also started friends and family questioning my sexuality simply because my 'inner muse' is decidedly male. It did not help I had and still have several friends and an adopted sister who are not traditional heterosexual or heterosexual at all. But as I told the man hater lesbians in printmaking class who would not stop harassing me about my preferences: I like dick.
And I am happily married to one now. Love you Ryan. ^_^
6)
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| Iris National Juried Student Art Show 2004 http://ryuyujin.deviantart.com/art/Iris-42264677 |
Though one of my favorite pieces, and it hangs in the hallway outside my bedroom now, there was a lot of heart ache involved with this one. Inspired by Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, it summed up a lot of the internal conflict I was going through at the time. The slow realization I was suffering bad depression, that I had severe anger management issues and finally that I couldn't handle it alone and needed help, which I got. Counseling, karate, swimming and better nutrition did wonders to help me to start finally moving past some of the crap in my childhood, to let it go (I hate you Frozen for ruining that phrase for me), and finally start discovering who the real me was. I'm still discovering and the real me is still a bit of a work in progress full of give and take, acceptance, rejection and sheer stubbornness. But I'm getting there. I SERIOUSLY need to find time to get back into karate and/or swimming again though. I am so out of shape!
Checkered Bones was the 'prequel' to Iris.
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| Checkered Bones |
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| Mama Bear II The Mama Bear Project 2005 http://ryuyujin.deviantart.com/art/Mama-Bear-II-44705584 |
8)
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| Mama Bear III The Mama Bear Project 2005 http://ryuyujin.deviantart.com/art/Mama-Bear-III-44705567 |
I am beginning to realize 2005 was not a good year for me. This was one of the hardest and most emotionally and mentally painful projects I have ever undertook. The Mama Bear Project was a series of illustrations meant to tell a story through something personal to the artist, and through this story, make a political statement. Mixed media, but again mostly charcoal, this is one of those pieces that literally has my blood in it as I rubbed my fingers raw till they bleed to get the texturing effect I wanted with the charcoal. This tendency to unintentionally leave traces of my DNA in almost all my charcoal pieces has unfortunately carried on to today. At least I can say no one can really steal most of my charcoal art. Just DNA test the originals. Six drawings in all, these are the two pieces that people seem to be drawn to, or comment on the most. Sadly, like the LHS Project, part of the series was destroyed in the flood and the remaining pieces were damaged during moves before I could get professional photos of them. If you don't mind the slight fuzziness of my old POS instant camera, you can see the rest of the series here: http://ryuyujin.deviantart.com/gallery/181365/Mama-Bear-Project
I promise tomorrow night's installment will be much happier! Until then!
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