_ Over the next few weeks, I am going to be sharing the process of the initial sketches and the completed paintings. This is the first in the series. It is interesting to see the progress of what a few months of experience and good influences can do for a person. The first picture was from the original digital sketch in October and the second is the recent completed painting.

One thing about blogging is the fine line between respecting personal privacy and being able to candidly express thought and emotion. Yet when a particularly emotionally charged piece of artwork gets shown to a public audience of sorts, the vulnerability becomes more exposed. In the end, this outcome has been very positive all around and it's been a really great experience completing this work.

There are things that need to be unsaid so my life still feels like mine, my personal moments still feel personal, and are needed so that I can grow and process this new path in my life. The things I feel comfortable sharing is the difference in the process from the first work to now. If I look at both in reflection, it feels like the experience and changes as well as all the new artistic influences in my life have changed the way I look at everything.

There are things that are undeniably visually obvious in my painting habits and style of doing things. As it goes along, the "voice" of what I am trying to express becomes more clear so this has been a really great experience. I feel like the painting can pretty much speak for itself of how I was feeling at the time a few months ago. The second attempt at painting the work was different because things had already moved on and it was a strange distant place to visit at this time in my life.

One thing everyone does need to know is that I did not want to move forward with this work without making sure it wasn't taken in a derogatory manner or offensive. Something that really bothers me is if I am doing something openly offensive to someone else in such a public manner. I changed a few things that were going to be included that would be more controversial. I knew there was a way to effectively be able to execute the same kind of intensity without being as extremely vulgar. The good thing is while I got the green light to go ahead with the sketch; the new painting got a really great response. This has been actually a very healing process of getting things to continue moving forward. Even though this is one of the later sketches, I felt like it had to be the first (and most psychologically challenging) one to complete. If I could finish this then I could easily go through the more fun and vibrant paintings I am planning to do. It was quite freeing and liberating to finish this.

I am still learning perspective, composition, lighting, shadows, and how to translate three dimension human anatomy into two dimension. Watching the video, I can see how the same way I start sculpting is the same way I start blocking the painting. I start from one end to the next, scaling as I go along, and building from a messy blob into the more defined features. I have seen and tried other painting techniques but when I am free form painting fast, I noticed this weird quirk with how I paint. I can't say it is right or wrong but it is what I have been noticing when I paint since I was a sculptor first then I started really learning how to paint.

I still don't know if this art thing will be what I am going to do with my life. I have some real reservations about some parts of it that I didn't like before when I first started out with art. But I think those reservations are part of one of many options on how to go about doing art as a career. There's many ways to go about this kind of a career and be true to yourself. I think there are a lot of people in any kind of industry that are elitists, cliquey, and take advantage of people any chance they get. It's hard to find anyone real in any circumstance. But once the fake people get filtered, the real people do so much more than make up for it. They completely enrich your life. The many people I have come across and had the fortune of learning from have been so invaluable. I cannot express how fortunate I feel being able to finally incorporate artwork as a integral part of my life. I am sure I would have stubbornly done this anyway but the good people in my life have made this entire transitional period so extremely pleasant and fulfilling.