Prisoner's Cinema

Something that has always fascinated me is phosphenes: the little sparkles of chromatic energy that are always there if you care to look-especially in dark places- like with the eyes closed. Soon these little guys form patterns and waves of energy, and if you're in the right state of mind- either a humorous state or bordering on sleep, strange places and things materialize ( i never get these visuals when i'm all stuck up and serious, or critical).

There is a method I found for getting good closed eye visuals that I've never seen mention of before-simply draw with your eyes closed and watch. Of course you'll get a shitty drawing on the paper, but it reaaaaaallly prompts visual activity... I must ad though it only works if you are in a humorous mood. Its funny because I saw a study recently where some science types showed that people in a humorous mood solve visual puzzles easier-theres definitely a connection there. here's the study

heres some pictures trying to capture things I've seen, I like it cause I see stuff that I wouldn't consciously design...

this first one i saw with lamplight shining through the eyelids- a really cool thing you can do is change the space and the mood of the visuals just by the amount of light shining on the lids, opening them slightly has an effect too. It amazes me how much designs like this have been found the world over, the mandala or sacred lotus type form.

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this one was seen in total darkness (blindfold)- one thing I can't capture about this stuff is the scope, and there is always constant motion or change-even if the form of the visual isn't transforming it will rotate or my point of view will pan around it. Nothing sits still.

 Here's a bizzarre one I've never been able to repeat, words started forming into "giant" walls of text as I (or my point of view) flew through them, then they would break apart and new spaces would form-

another abstract form, it seems lonely in this picture, cause when my brain produced this stuff there were hundreds or thousands of these planetoids. What amazes me is how lighting in the phosphene visuals will be so consistent. Or how real things look, the brain is such an amazing painter from the start, but it takes the human ego years to learn how to put anything like it on canvas. I notice a pattern of formation with these things. Generally it starts with a silhouette and then value patterns form in (which shows light on the form). If you are focused enough you can follow it into a full color, crystal clear visual, but this happens rarely, usually they slip through like trying to grab jello with the fingers.

 Now this one is very different from the others, and it shows the variety of imagery types that the living brain produces. I had been doing something I call "seeding", that is looking at reference pictures of the type of stuff I would like to see in the phosphenes right before closing the eyes. I was also drawing at this time, just closed eye sketching, because it encourages the visuals x 10 . I think it has to do with the sense of feel, you start to 'feel' out the picture by drawing with your eyes closed, and then the brain conceptualizes it as an image that will pop up on the eyelids. It will start changing and rotating very quickly though, and similar yet various forms will start appearing. I was drawing aircraft and then this bizarre pontoon jet flew through my vision. I ended up doing this painting trying to describe it.

some experiments

Been experimenting with new ways of doing things recently-taking time to fail! What I've learned has to do with layers and painting underneath stuff.
1. painting edge indication and then gradient and textures underneath-

2.painting on watercolor

3.doing simple gradients in a selection and then doing textures underneath

4. sortof like pointillism, very gradually trying to influence the image into reading with small shapes and textures-also some glazes. trying to keep the texture reading through for as long as possible before covering it up.

some new stuff

GOODNESS GRACIOUS its been too long since I've been posting on this thing, well, time to update a bit...
  I'll just post some that I liked over the past 3 months or so. I'll start posting and rambling more and more-for I've learned alot since I last posted!!! or at least think I have!

hyuuh I'm a big angry dude!

Camel! its a camel!

put NOOOOS on my car, this happened I swear

Ride the mammoth to work everyday

theres a lack of vegetation and life after I spilled weed killer in  the pool

house paintings

just some life, or not so life studies around the house :)

some assorted sketches

I have been thinking about the silhouette of stuff lately, just how much can you tell from the outside edge of something? letters are all silhouette, and we tell alot through them

uuuuur the king is about to puke!

I am a shiny knight maaaaan!

tonka ekranoplan haaa

tough girl waa waaa waah

some architectures

always been fascinated by the mood of nice buildings and spaces, just to walk around in an interesting setting is always nice.

there's a place like this underneath the building where I live

the bridge just goes out in the clouds somewheres

been playing with a little 3d too, trying to figure out some good ways of masking so I can get uniform shapes but then still get the variety in the surfaces.

tree and a couple knights

Lately I've been rotating forms in my head and trying to use that as a way to explore and study planes. Its is very fun and worked well when I'd do line drawings, but I was having real trouble as far as painting goes.

an old acrylic got eaten up to make this

Painting is different from pure line drawing in that you explore the opposite functions in a way. As far as a line goes, mainly it serves to go around the edges of forms and planes, and when it goes around the edge of a form, that is a surface that is curving away from the viewer. But in a painting you explore the surface that is facing the viewer. I know I know, line drawing does some of that too. Especially with shading, and paint explores edges that curve away. I think though that line is primarily about edges while paint is primarily about surfaces of planes. So in a way they overlap but cover those ends of that spectrum.

dunno how you see while wearing this

I realize what I was missing while I was painting is that when you rotate the forms and place them in the scene you have to see the light on the surface, and study how it looks. It was easier in line because I could just see the planes and draw lines around them, but in paint you've got that other element of color (value/hue)... I'm not that good at it yet, but i feel better :)

horse butt lol