Unfinished Stuff

I make a serious effort to paint every single day. Sometimes I cannot, but I start right back up whenever I can. I mostly work evening shifts selling electronics and electronic accessories which makes finding time to paint more and more difficult to come by. I usually can only find one or two hours to work on something. Usually I'm so stressed out about going to work in a hour or so I don't have time to calm down and think of a good idea or polish an old one.

So, which leads me to this blog post. These are just a FEW of the things I found over the past six months that I've left unfinished. I cropped and made them a little more presentable. But, I can't help but feeling I ought to start finishing things. I've got this "habit" where I feel done with something just as I think it up or scribble it on paper. I don't know if I'm lazy but I'm for sure getting bored quickly of my own ideas.

Enough ranting,

The above is just a corner of a larger picture. I think I can get more success if I can stay out detailing a painting. Iadmire the techniques where the entire painting is worked on rather than piece by piece. Those techniques take a lot of discipline which I'm still trying to find.

This is looking way cooler than when I last saw it. I've got the biggest crush and skulls. I've got an even bigger crush on jack-o-lantern style glowing things.

Another frustration I have is getting the painting out of order. I'm putting "opaque" paint down before the drawing is even done. My hierarchy in my brain is scrambled. . . this is probably where my sloppiness comes from.
I like this one a lot. I started out a 50X50 pixel canvas and I enlarged it and started to tighten. I don't know why I never finished this one.

You know when you think you've got a good idea but you didn't plan ahead to make it succeed. The above is that! Again! Which only makes it. . . a kind of decent thumbnail painting.

Going back to my roots here. It seems if I use certain tools I automatically revert to my "anime" days. I'd rather refer to the "anime style" as an "anime canon". It's humurous how readily it is replused. I think people can "smell" imitation and shortcuts so maybe that's why. I've been told by so many artists about what style is or is not that I don't think it really exists. Like "graphic arts" and "jogging" don't exist.

Anyway, I'd like to address the above painting as an issue of scale I guess. I like the large eyes and baby-like proportions much the same way dolls are laid out. Dolls are formed as simplfied humans right? I espiecally like when on a doll there a zipper or a seam which is regular scale on a tiny doll. The hair is another example of scale. A whole paint stroke can't be the thickness of one hair but, on a doll it could be. I seem to remember in that Alla Prima book he was painting dolls. Perhaps for the same reasons above. I ought to read that book more. He's full of that kind of hard work and guts discipline.