25 + 59 points
Create Art "Under the Influence" by Palindromedary
August 19th, 2010 12:16 AM
Approximately 4 months ago I got epically smashed at Captain Canary's going away party. The highlight (which I was told about later having blacked out and forgotten) was when I knocked over a table with a couple dozen glasses on it and they all broke. I woke up the next day in a friends house, wished them a nice day, and went out into the world.
It was a beautiful sunny day, I didn't have work, and I was still slightly drunk. It seemed the perfect day to go buy a child's art kit and start on this task.
There are two important things you should understand before I go on.
*Until I started this task I never did anything I considered art.
A few sketches of stick figures killing each other and all, but that was it.
*Until I started this task I had never purposely listened to a specific song.
This seems like even more of a stretch, but it is true. When a song came on radio at work I might enjoy it, but that was it.
The reasons why are complicated, but it relates to my belief in magic. Which is essentially the form my OCD takes. A pleasant form for OCD, but there you are. And I digress.
So no, as you have likely guessed, I will not be drawing while drunk, with the exception of the sign I drew for the homeless person on the way home. I will be drawing while listening to music.
So as I walked home, stopping to have a conversation with 4 folks with false mustaches who claimed to be from Seattle, I planned my task. "4 people with false mustaches from Seattle?" you say. "Sounds awful like the task where you have to pretend to be a tourist in your own city." you say. I explained SF0 to them at length, and they did a very good job of pretending they had no idea what I was talking about. Oh well. I digress.
For each artist I got into the same mind space, in a freshly cleaned room, and my materials on hand. My materials were the child's art kit (markers, crayons, pastels, colored pencils, protractor and compass set, watercolors), my special blue pen, a pencil that draws in many colors at once, my sowing kit, and binder paper.
Afterwords I would look at the pictures in silence and try to hear the music that inspired me.
Unexposed to music as I was I would be forced to get up and dance badly at least once per piece.
Each piece was named after a song and some lyrics. I tried to be consistent in my abstract style, always including a random credo.
I gave the Bach piece to a friend who drew something for me, the Grateful Dead piece went to a friend at work who got a promotion, it adorns her new office.
The rest stayed in the pad until I finished the last. Now they are all around me, and I can't help buyt feel that my insides are on the wall.
In a good way.
~Task ends here, what follows is a massive digression~
As I was working A few great changes came over me. I had suddenly broken the self-inflicted taboo that forbidden art. I created 65 webcomic strips:
http://intentionallyblank.smackjeeves.com/comics/865638/relaxation-is-fleeting/
I made dragonflies out of random materials:
http://hobo-of-destiny.deviantart.com/gallery/#3Doodles
I cut, I drew, I painted.
And I listened to music. I have now been to karaoke 5 times, and, amazingly, have even learned to spell it correctly.
I am currently in the third month a project that I can't explain yet, that could only make sense to me It is a task that will go on a year and get me no points here.
At one time I was going to have a meeting with the creators of SF0 and discuss why people always eventually leave.
I have one answer- SF0 taught me to do random tasks, do things differently, to break out of the norm, and that other people did too. Sure I was crazy, but now it got me points. Maybe, after learning that lesson people are able to move on and start doing tasks that they invent that only they will understand, that make them every day more who they are.
Of course I'll be back here from time to time, because as much as people change it is more of an evolution wherein the old behaviors can resurface under the current circumstances.
Coming soon: Art under the Influence of Nature.
Until then: Happy rest of forever.
It was a beautiful sunny day, I didn't have work, and I was still slightly drunk. It seemed the perfect day to go buy a child's art kit and start on this task.
There are two important things you should understand before I go on.
*Until I started this task I never did anything I considered art.
A few sketches of stick figures killing each other and all, but that was it.
*Until I started this task I had never purposely listened to a specific song.
This seems like even more of a stretch, but it is true. When a song came on radio at work I might enjoy it, but that was it.
The reasons why are complicated, but it relates to my belief in magic. Which is essentially the form my OCD takes. A pleasant form for OCD, but there you are. And I digress.
So no, as you have likely guessed, I will not be drawing while drunk, with the exception of the sign I drew for the homeless person on the way home. I will be drawing while listening to music.
So as I walked home, stopping to have a conversation with 4 folks with false mustaches who claimed to be from Seattle, I planned my task. "4 people with false mustaches from Seattle?" you say. "Sounds awful like the task where you have to pretend to be a tourist in your own city." you say. I explained SF0 to them at length, and they did a very good job of pretending they had no idea what I was talking about. Oh well. I digress.
For each artist I got into the same mind space, in a freshly cleaned room, and my materials on hand. My materials were the child's art kit (markers, crayons, pastels, colored pencils, protractor and compass set, watercolors), my special blue pen, a pencil that draws in many colors at once, my sowing kit, and binder paper.
Afterwords I would look at the pictures in silence and try to hear the music that inspired me.
Unexposed to music as I was I would be forced to get up and dance badly at least once per piece.
Each piece was named after a song and some lyrics. I tried to be consistent in my abstract style, always including a random credo.
I gave the Bach piece to a friend who drew something for me, the Grateful Dead piece went to a friend at work who got a promotion, it adorns her new office.
The rest stayed in the pad until I finished the last. Now they are all around me, and I can't help buyt feel that my insides are on the wall.
In a good way.
~Task ends here, what follows is a massive digression~
As I was working A few great changes came over me. I had suddenly broken the self-inflicted taboo that forbidden art. I created 65 webcomic strips:
http://intentionallyblank.smackjeeves.com/comics/865638/relaxation-is-fleeting/
I made dragonflies out of random materials:
http://hobo-of-destiny.deviantart.com/gallery/#3Doodles
I cut, I drew, I painted.
And I listened to music. I have now been to karaoke 5 times, and, amazingly, have even learned to spell it correctly.
I am currently in the third month a project that I can't explain yet, that could only make sense to me It is a task that will go on a year and get me no points here.
At one time I was going to have a meeting with the creators of SF0 and discuss why people always eventually leave.
I have one answer- SF0 taught me to do random tasks, do things differently, to break out of the norm, and that other people did too. Sure I was crazy, but now it got me points. Maybe, after learning that lesson people are able to move on and start doing tasks that they invent that only they will understand, that make them every day more who they are.
Of course I'll be back here from time to time, because as much as people change it is more of an evolution wherein the old behaviors can resurface under the current circumstances.
Coming soon: Art under the Influence of Nature.
Until then: Happy rest of forever.
12 vote(s)
5













ƟE←¤
5
Eidhnean entwines
5
Markov Walker
5
Lincøln
5
Dela Dejavoo
5
teucer
5
Togashi Ni
5
rongo rongo
5
Kate Saturday
5
Pixie
4
artmouse
5
Not Here No More
Breaking self-inflicted taboos - excellent.