Preparing Surfaces + Planning Animation, 9/3-9/5/2025
September 3rd, 4th, and 5th.
It’s been a couple of very slow days in the studio. I haven’t had much time to spend here, since I have had a lot to do in terms of preparing my class for the new semester. The MTA moved the nearest bus stop about a five minute walk in the other direction which has really been annoying me, and for some reason setting up a mental block about coming and going. I’ve also been trying to get Karla used to coming to the studio but she’s a little bit annoying. She always wants to be on my lap and makes it hard to do any work at the desk. However, she is my cute baby so I can’t complain too much. On top of everything I got my period this week, which is always a huge energy suck which completely tanks my mood and self esteem. So, yeah, this week has kind of run away from me and is overall turning out to be somewhat of a flop. I’ve hardly painted at all. Despite it all, I am still making progress slowly but surely. I have been sending lots of emails about upcoming MFA applications. I’ve also found that a lot of my creative thinking has been taking place outside of the studio.
On Wednesday I had a work event from 1-4. I had planned to go in and paint for a few hours beforehand but was unable to drag myself out of the house in time, so I ended up going in after work for about an hour and a half. I wrote my 15 minutes of Frog Ephemera, then my studiomate Diana came in and we chatted for a little while. She gave me a magazine about the Disney parks– fitting, since I’ve been thinking about Walt Disney pretty much nonstop recently. The magazine was really good. It mentioned Walt’s lifelong obsessions with “escape and control” a couple of times, which particularly intrigued me. If I am being completely honest, escape and control are two major drives behind my artmaking as well.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about escape/control and the way Disney seemed to know that the animation medium is uniquely suited to achieve those goals. I thought that I wouldn’t take my rotoscoping experiment with the dog and the door any further but I was doodling at home the other night and drew a creepy little hallway with a door at the end. I’m thinking I’ll try to use the motion I captured with the rotoscope and layer it over a background with a similar mood to the doodle I did, completely changing the context of the motion I rotoscoped in the first place and giving it a little bit of narrative intrigue. I’ll need to paint the background, then re-trace the motion onto cels and paint those too. Then I’ll photograph it. All of this is to say that on Wednesday I started setting up a perspective drawing for the background I’d like to paint + figured out the scale at which I’ll need to paint the cels.
Yesterday I hardly did anything here at all. I went into the city for an appointment in the morning and I stopped by Blick while I was there. I got the 16” x 14” stretcher bars for my upcoming painting commission and a can of oil ground. I came back to the studio and built the 16” x 14” canvas, then realized that I wouldn’t be able to use the oil ground without first sealing or sizing the canvas somehow. I didn’t get any rabbitskin glue or PVA, but I do still have acrylic gesso, so I’m going to try applying a couple thin layers of it just to seal the canvas, then I’ll put the oil ground on top. I put the first layer of gesso on two canvasses today and tried scraping it with a squeegee thing to remove as much brushstroke texture as possible. Fingers crossed for a workable, non-rubbery surface.
I’m leaving the studio for the day but I actually am going to get some painting done. My friend Olivia has kindly agreed to pose for a portrait in her home this afternoon, something I’ve been wanting to try for a while. I recently saw an exhibit of Van Gogh’s portraits at the MFA Boston which particularly inspired me to start painting people that I know. My life drawing skills are getting a little rusty so this should be a great exercise, plus it will be fun to chat with Olivia for the rest of the afternoon. I imagine I’ll spend about 4 hours working on this.
Tomorrow Sam and I are going to see a tailor about fixing up her wedding outfit, then we might go window shopping for a suit for me. Not sure if I’ll be making it to the studio at all that day, but I am hoping for a nice chunk of time here on Sunday afternoon.
Over the past three days I:
Built a 16” x 14” canvas for a commission. Put the first layer of gesso on it + starting priming another canvas I made last week.
Decided to move forward with my rotoscope project. Started laying out a background + decided how I want it to look.
Wrote Frog Ephemera for a total of 45 minutes. I have 22 pages and it’s starting to get really good.
Painted a portrait of Olivia from direct observation
And that is that! Til Sunday,
–Finn
