Tag: life

  • Getting The Vibe Right

    I like to compose works that invite the viewer to feel a certain essence from the piece. For example, a playful, eerie, or soft and relaxed vibe. That is the first thing I want someone to say about the piece before they dissect it further. If I fail to communicate that, then I have failed with the piece. The whole thing falls apart. The artwork is total garbage.

    Over the summer, one of the big things I want to work on is effective communication. So hopefully, keep the conversation on topic. My work is more about evoking the feelings I feel. It really confuses me when a different emotion comes up. It annoys me. So that just means I have to get better at creating the right stimulus for the intended reaction. Which just means understanding design principles and manipulating them to achieve the outcome I want. Instead of wasting away and watching brain rot, I’ll gladly spend my time studying art.

    With the image I am using today, I was going for something that felt eerie, somewhat surreal, keeping it to a simple design and color palette. One of the design elements I was using was scale. For instance, to give a sense of distance between the bird and the tree, and to enunciate the important shapes. I used orange-red against the blue to really direct the eyes.

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    Maybe I am just a control freak, or autism doesn’t allow me to see a different perspective because of black and white thinking…

    I really want people to see the work as I see it.

  • Shapes And Stuff Change, And Move To This Way Or That Way

    How Medical Transition Opened My Creativity.

    I came out at 12, about to be 13. I chopped off my hair. I started binding around age 14. I socialized as a boy. Throughout middle and high school, I enjoyed the arts. I was in the band, a part of the theater stage crew, and took art during my last two years of high school. When I graduated from high school in 2023, I drew in my sketchbook here and there, but I would go months without creating. It was November 2024 that I switched to injections. I had already been on testosterone for about 6 ½ months, low-dosing with the gel method. By upping my dose and using a method that better absorbed the testosterone for me, I was finally getting to cis-male levels.

    I finally felt creative. I started working on projects. I remember being in the craft store, and seeing this large pad of bristol paper and buying it because I wanted to make art in a larger size. This was new to me, as I wanted to work in smaller sizes and draw my favorite duck species. Not only did I start to work larger, but I also decided to go to school for art, starting that January 2025. So I went in about a year on hormones, and I had no clue about my identity with my art. That I just wanted to create. While in my classes, I still had some creativity to make art of my own. I feel the need to make things.

    My theory is that giving myself the right levels of hormones and quieting my gender dysphoria enough to allow me to express myself properly in the things I create, but also in how I dress. I would not be where I am today without HRT. I got to be this creative man. Something that should not be radical but is. Going through puberty knowing I was a boy was hell, and it squelched my self-expression because all I wanted to be was not seen. I never had the chance to explore my creativity because I wanted people to respect me as a man. But now, I don’t care because I look in the mirror and see a guy.

    My art has definitely changed. I have not created fan art in a couple of years now. I have moved to abstraction and switched from digital to more traditional mediums like oil paint. Though I primarily work in ink now. Through my journey of finding my creative voice and settling into my masculinity.

  • Painting From Life

    Zoning Out With Oil Paint

    I decided to go outside and meet some people. We met to paint the surroundings. I went off to a shady spot with a bunch of picnic tables and eyed an interesting composition of trees. It was an enjoyable day, but it was hot.

    Translating the outside world onto a canvas is very spiritual. Forming the shapes and lines in my head, bringing out the colors I feel are shining through the subject, and making them subtly show through the assorted color gradations. It takes my mind to weird places. I lock in, ignore my surroundings, and focus entirely on the subject. I cannot hear what is around me. I am in a trance. Not even realizing that an hour has passed. It is weird, but strangely very calming. What I need after a stressful phone call and doctor visits. Working in this state, I still form a picture. The shapes are abstracted, but there is movement. The final image is still formed.

    The composition I picked had three trees in front of a wooded area made of bushes and trees, but leaves made up most of the backdrop. Oil paint was definitely the medium to choose. The trees’ grey bark leaned red in hue, a stark difference to the green leaves in shadow. It was interesting to look at.

    To add a bit of stress to the mix. I limit it to one or two brushes. Adds a bit of chaos. crashing into each other as they mix on the palette, the colors changing unpredictably as I paint. Keeping grounded, as I must think carefully for each brushstroke, or it will turn into mud.

    In the end, I am relaxed. I completed something, and I am proud. I view it as a portal to how my brain thinks. That somehow, in my process, I feel this calmness that takes over. It feels like I am dancing. Nothing exists till I am snapped right back into reality.

  • DREAMING

    Last summer in Delaware. It is bittersweet. But everyone is leaving, and so am I. Gotta grow up and spread my wings someday. It is not like I am going far, just traveling on I-95 to get to Philly. It is not like I can just take SEPTA down for a visit with family. I will be taking advantage of my time at Temple to make a name for myself. At what, I don’t know yet. Trying to manifest something art-world related.

    In this three-part collage series, I have been doing (I’m going to start the third one this week). Going for a dreamlike movement. A physical look into my mind as I am meditating. As I prepare for a gigantic step in my life. Then I ground myself as I try to focus on my goal. Which is getting into the University of Pennsylvania’s History of Art Master’s program. But I know I need to take my time and chill. That is what these pieces are about: slowing down, falling asleep, and dreaming.

    Recently, I have been trying to incorporate some visual movement in my pieces. A collage I created not long ago is an example of my trying to convey hyper-energy. Right now, with these two collages and the future third one, the goal is to show movement that is slow to the viewer.

    I am trying to take things slow because I want to enjoy my time. That keeps me chill, but still, apart from me wanting to show off that I am working hard, I don’t want to drown in this capitalist world. Like the tortoise wins the race, but society treats young adults like they have to be the hare.