me

I made some paintings over photos recently because I was thinking about all the old fun stuff I used to do a lot when I was super into constructing books or taking a very heavy collage/junk journal kind of approach to journals. I would do so many strange little experiments with putting anything and everything together, or printing out stuff and getting it wet, or painting on it, or tearing it up in some way.

Sometimes I really miss that stuff, all that messy and thick and weird journaling stuff. Things that feel so tactile and things that don't work and that are rough and hanging, torn apart. It's that kind of chaotic, and hurried, and collected creativity, where I'd make these dense and nonsensical things. I guess I've done so many straightforward drawings lately and used so much clean and inviting paper, separate sheets that invite a certain kind of neatness and cheerful mode of drawing, that I've sort of forgotten about this kind of stuff.

I also was thinking a bit about author photos and things like that. I've been editing a portfolio site that I made a while ago and left to sit lonely and incomplete, and I thought about making a painting over a photo that could work as a nice introductory self-portrait for that. A nice combination of some kind of art feeling (a satisfying painty texture, perhaps) and my actual face.

I really like the way this one turned out. An old picture of me in the woods turned into a strange, dark, fairytale space. And of course, a bunny is here (to judge).

I haven't really done anything art portfolio-like since my art school days, but there's something really satisfying about having some place to sum up some part of you. I guess that's what people like about using listography as a sort of digital business card. It's nice to have one place to point to to say "this is me and my things", and it's really easy on social media to just sort of not to do that, and have a jumble of links. So I thought, maybe I should focus on having a portfolio again, at this point. And looking at my old portfolio(s) made me remember more of all the old fun, experimental stuff I used to make, and I want to try and make more of this very particular, very scribbly, very swirling, and very "me" stuff more.

I also want to do some kind of very singular thing there. A page of just horses. Just a lot of horse drawings. Something like that. You go there and you know. About the horses.

There's something so satisfying about painting on photos, too. I was thinking while painting some of these that it would be so great to make a hand tinted film with some black and white footage - or maybe I could collage over the frames to make some strange collaged film. Just one little idea splintering off from this (and that's a reason I miss this sort of experimentation - it feeds a million little ideas). I can film a rose fluttering slightly in the breeze, me emerging from the bathtub, shots of pouring water. It'll be an art film, it'll say "fin" at the end in a serif font and everything. But I'll need some more printer ink first.