Non-Fiction, Fiction, Femmes:

A series of anatomical studies
-or-
Sh*t Nobody Draws

I've been interested in anatomy for pretty long while. Well, since a few years ago when I decided to try to draw better.

To me, drawing is about picking and choosing what details you use and which you discard. Choosing what to draw well. Anatomy is interesting. Not the generic how many heads tall people are (which I don't really buy to begin with), but actual, real anatomy. I plan to eventually draw a muscular anatomy book, with diagrams and dissections of bones and meat. This isn't that book, but a strive in that direction. This is that interesting stuff. How skin folds, sags, how fat bunches, muscles strain, weight shifts. All these details are what I'd like to do well.

And if all these small details are the right ones, to the right degree, and done well enough, people won't even know what or where they are, they'll just blend into the rest of the image, helping it altogether, not just in a specific area. If you're successful enough with all the little details, it's hard to point out exactly what makes it good- it's just good.

This is a serious* study of the full spectrum of anatomy, with emphasis on varying sizes and shapes. (i.e., not teen-aged, slender, large breasted girls)

Additionally, some pieces are an exploration/exploitation of pin-ups. I find it a little off-putting how sometimes pin-ups are almost forced into this child-like, innocent sense of, I don't know, nostalgia, to mask any sexual intent. So, in some, I kind of make fun of that. For a few of these, I'm really pulling on some very old art references ideas.

*Serious-- because it's not just heavily airbrushed, 90's playboy models. I'm trying to include (where I can**), everything that's always excluded-- wrinkles, skin folds, fat rolls, hair, scars, stretchmarks, any "imperfections", all of it, anything I can think of.

**Sometimes, the manner in which I draw doesn't suit an overabundance of detail-- my drawing is simple, sometimes a sort of precision, and doesn't lend well to too many details. Sometimes, for example, I have to pick between stretchmarks or body hair, skin folds or scars.

Also, for the first time, I'm starting to really experiment with color. I've never been too interested in color. I never really like the way it looks. But, recently, I sort of decided (realized) that I should be able to color things. So I'm working at it. Right now, I'm trying to get a process down, and I'm starting to not hate how it turns out. So, as with experimenting, some turn out better than others. Some I like, some not so much. Part of the reason I can enjoy it is because, a lot of it, is out of my control.

I've tried (am trying) to recreate the old, cheap printing process, with an assortment of all the limitations and errors you'd get with it. I have an extremely limited palette that I color them with-- and there's an actual physical process with tracing paper and sharpies, so that I can get genuine accidental bleeds and out of the line colorings. Then it goes through a... degradation process. And it's there that I have almost no control-- it turns out how it turns out. Sometimes stuff comes out blah, sometimes the come out surprisingly beautiful. One turned out so well, I printed it at poster size. The faded, scruffy dots are beautiful.

And that's kind of the point. The encompassing idea is that there isn't one type of beauty, or one standard, there's a spectrum. It's not how young or thin someone is. I've wanted to do a pin-up series for a few years. I eventually settled on this idea, because I liked the idea that these mythic, undying, legendary beings would be unabashedly chubby or old, because they just would't care what anyone thought of them. They wouldn't try to be anything, they'd just be.

I also like the clash hmm... something like, reverse mirroring of (classic, classical?) REAL, "official" art. In older, more classic representations of these creatures, they were idealized. (See nearly all art pre-1900's)

In the end, I settled on Non-fiction, Fiction Femmes. Non-fiction, because they're not idealized. Fiction, because they're make believe. (Also, note: Femme, from the French, "fatal woman", not the more recent gender identification)

So, basically, this is a series of about 24 drawings that are of imaginary creatures drawn as real people, at least as much as how I draw things will allow. Or the idea will allow.

P.S.- If the nudity bothers you, well, you must not look at much art in general. I think it's a little elitist to say it's okay for an oil painter to paint a naked faun lady, but not me because it's not oil paint.