New Website

Hey Peeps,

I am ramping up. I've got a new website. I am about to launch a podcast, publish several books, and I will be blogging about all things life related regularly. The theme is thinking for yourself and acting for yourself. Come check out the new website, and let's all get smart and powerful together!

Endless Unlimited

The new website!

Our narrow perspectives...

It's so difficult to walk in another person's shoes. You can't realize what somebody is thinking, feeling, or experiencing until you are there yourself. It is sad to realize that, though I have known we live in a very unfriendly country, understanding and experiencing this are two different things.

Of course, the disclaimer here is that it's a generalization, and there are plenty of kind people...

But when you're looking for some help, you suddenly realize all the opportunities you had to help other people out that you have passed on. Needing help is one thing, you have to rely on the kindness of somebody else, but in needing the help, I now see how I haven't really gone out of my way much to help other people around me.

Where does this come from? We're taught to be scared. Watch out for the sex offender in your neighborhood, or the murderer who lives in your state. Thieves and terrorists are everywhere. Everyone is out to take your stuff. Nobody is taught how to defend themselves in the case of an emergency, and in many cases it is difficult to do so (you have to get a permit to carry a weapon, and many other weapons (such as knives) are illegal). So we are a society of helpless, frightened people running around.

Remember, I am speaking in general terms here..

But it makes me sad to be waiting for some help, and to realize that there were many people that I could have helped myself, but didn't. Going to have to work on that. I'm not going to be frightened by people anymore..

How to sharpen a charcoal pencil

Want to learn how I sharpen my charcoal pencils?

New Drawings and Drawing Book Proof!

Hey peeps, here's a few new drawings. 25 minutes each.

Don't forget to check out that upcoming class in Maple Valley, starting this Thursday.

Also, I've got a copy of the book proof. I am hoping to have it fully corrected and released by the beginning of next month! Keep an eye out for it!

New Class next week!

Starting a new class next week! All about drawing from life, through drawing from the live models!

This is the cheapest class I have ever run, at 99$, and I am doing it so those of you with not much money can afford to take a class!

Hope to see some of you there! You can register on the Maple Valley website http://www.maplevalleyarts.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=181069&module_id=53680

Do what it takes..

I teach classes. I teach private lessons. I teach workshops at art stores. I'm about to self-publish my own book on learning to draw. I've got one show hanging up, and another going up in April. I think it might be easy to look at any one of the things I am doing and think that it just happens, or that these things just put themselves together, or the just fall into place. Oftentimes, it's impossible for another person to see what goes on behind the scenes.

I've been working my ass off to get my book done before my demo at Daniel Smith (Bellevue) on the 25th of this month. I spent the better part of the last three days attempting to get a proper cover image. I wanted to do a self portrait for the cover and, as I was attempting them, they just weren't turning out as I wanted. I thought it might take me one afternoon to bust one out. Turns out, it took me almost three whole days of working, and twelve attempts to get something that was satisfactory.

Twelve self portraits. Eleven of them sucked.

Just because I've spent the better part of a decade drawing doesn't mean that it just comes out easy. It's a constant progression towards better, and it is still a lot of work. I think it might be easy to think about how excellence just is. Wrong. Excellence is a lifestyle, and most of the time we only see the end product. We never see the hours and hours that professional athletes have spent training. We never see the years of research, development, and failure that goes into each new product. We never see the months or years of prep work that goes into starting each new business, or each new venture. When people see my show hanging up at Bauhaus in April, they probably won't think that it will have taken me over a full month to put together the show that will hang for a month. As far as they can tell, the work just shows up, and then new work replaces it. 

The point is, it takes work, and failure happens. You just keep going and you keep growing. If you're not willing to put in the work, if you're not willing to learn, and if you're not willing to take a risk, then you'll never accomplish anything. If you don't do what it takes to get that result, you'll never get that result. 

After eleven failed attempts, this is what I came up with. But remember, it took me eleven failed attempts to end up here..

Are you willing to do what it takes?

Do you live in Seattle? Do you like music?

A good friend of mine is going to be playing on the 26th of February at the Nectar Lounge. Her voice is amazing. Let her dazzle you... https://tickets.aftonshows.com/jackiesullivan

Listen to some of her other tunes www.JackieSullivan.net

Opening Night postponed for one week!

Opening Night will be postponed one week, and will happen NEXT friday, the 27th, due to the crazy snow now! Doors will open at 6:45, show will start at 7:30pm, and I hope to see you all there!

Wednesday Demo Cancelled!

100% chance of snow tomorrow morning, the weather says! It's supposed to get pretty nutty out there, so I will not be demoing at Daniel Smith in Bellevue tomorrow. Stay safe out there, peeps, and enjoy the snow!

Next demo will be in February at the Bellevue Daniel Smith store!

Opening night will be Friday, unless the weather continues to get crazy, and I hope to see you there! Stay tuned for weather update!

Opening Night!

Come check out the show I'll be hanging up, (purchase a drawing if you like it) and enjoy some of my friends performing poetry and music!

Do you want to learn how to draw?

In addition to teaching private lessons...

I've got a few FREE workshops coming up on the fundamentals of drawing from life. They've all been good so far, and peeps have walked away with a lot of useful information. If you come, bring something to draw with and a piece of fruit. Each workshop is 2 hours. The are at the Daniel Smith Art Stores.

Sunday, January 8th at the SEATTLE store, 11am to 1pm.

Wednesday, January 18th at the BELLEVUE store, 11am to 1pm.

Saturday, February 25th at the BELLEVUE store, 11am to 1pm.


Also, for those of you who are serious, and can get to Maple Valley at 630pm on Thursday nights, I am about to start up the next run of my class on the fundamentals of drawing. http://www.maplevalleyarts.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=181069&module_id=53680 It's going to be great. There are still two spots left in the class. Send me an email if you are going to register! We will start out simple, so you can get the concepts down, and then have live models for the remaining three classes.

Want to accomplish something?

If you want to accomplish something, you've got to have the power to do so. Do you understand power?


"Success goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an ounce of power must balance an ounce of weight. And, though a man cannot return into his mother's womb, and be born with new amounts of vivacity, yet there are two economies, which are the best succedanea which the case admits. The first is, the stopping off decisively our miscellaneous activity, and concentrating our force on one or a few points; as the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the tree into one or two vigorous limbs, instead of suffering it to spindle into a sheaf of twigs.

"Enlarge not thy destiny," said the oracle: "endeavor not to do more than is given thee in charge." The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation: and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine; property and its cares, friends, and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and drives us home to add one stroke of faithful work. Friends, books, pictures, lower duties, talents, flatteries, hopes, -- all are distractions which cause oscillations in our giddy balloon, and make a good poise and a straight course impossible. You must elect your work; you shall take what your brain can, and drop all the rest. Only so, can that amount of vital force accumulate, which can make the step from knowing to doing. No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken. 'Tis a step out of a chalk circle of imbecility into fruitfulness. Many an artist lacking this, lacks all: he sees the masculine Angelo or Cellini with despair. He, too, is up to Nature and the First Cause in his thought. But the spasm to collect and swing his whole being into one act, he has not. The poet Campbell said, that "a man accustomed to work was equal to any achievement he resolved on, and, that, for himself, necessity not inspiration was the prompter of his muse."

http://www.rwe.org/complete/complete-works/vi-conduct-of-life/ii-power.html

Some recent sketches and drawings.

Here's a few recent drawings and sketches.

FREE workshop at Bellevue Daniel Smith, Dec 7th, 2001 11am-1pm

I have another free drawing workshop coming up at the Bellevue Daniel Smith location on Wednesday December 7th. The workshop will run for 2 hours, from 11am-1pm. I'll be covering the fundamentals for the first hour and fifteen minutes or so, and then the remaining 45 minutes everyone will get a chance to draw while I come around and help. Please bring a piece of fruit and something to sketch with. I want to make sure everyone gets to draw for a little bit at the end so you can work out a few kinks and have some ideas to take home with you! Hope to see you there!

http://www.danielsmith.com/content--id-69#bellevue

A slight deviation

I want to keep the blog about my art and art related things, but a couple experiences recently compel me to make a slight deviation. I'm going to take a quick time out to mention a couple things not directly art related.

Remember back in the mid-2000's when everyone was talking about how great an investment real estate was? Gotta buy a house. Gotta flip a house. And then what? Lots of peeps got foreclosed on. Lots of peeps lost a lot of money in the stock market. When you turn on the radio, or read the news these days, you hear a lot of stuff about how, economically, we're "starting to recover" from the devastation of 2007-2008. Are we? I suppose that it's possible that we might be, but I've been studying a lot of economics lately, and there's a lot of evidence to suggest that we might not be. In fact, in studying, I have found people who were warning about the housing collapse way before it happened. They are few, and far between, but imagine if all the people who are suffering now had known what would happen ahead of time. Would they be in that situation? Some might be, because some people are just stupid (you can only lead a horse to water), but some might not be because in knowing better, they would have made better choices. Which makes me wonder... if the economy is such a keystone in our everyday lives, why do so many people know almost nothing about economics? It's because of the now general ignorance of the average person that all different kinds of people can get away with all different kinds of evil, and nobody is the wiser. So I would recommend to anyone who is interested in not becoming a hapless victim like the suckers who got foreclosed on and drained a few years ago... study economics! We all get taken advantage of, as a collective, because we don't know hardly anything. Get smart, peeps!

This second deviation, I almost wrote a month ago. Then I almost wrote a week ago. I get fired up, and I want to keep things about art, but it's just too much. I'd like to imagine that, looking at my drawings and paintings, people would get inspired to live and live in the best way possible! I am still at a rudimentary skill level, so the passion for living may not come across, but I am working on it, and so I'll supplement a little with some words here.

What have we become? If one person can look at another person and rationalize them out of existence, what does that make the first person? A monster? An animal? Not human? How many times do we walk past a person on street, in our own neighborhood or community, who is suffering, and don't even consider the plight of the person in front of us? I'm talking about those ever-annoying, always-in-your-way, always-inconveniencing-you-or-making-you-feel-guilty homeless people. Better to just ignore them, right? Otherwise they might guilt you into giving them some money or making you feel like you should help them in some way. Better to rationalize them out of existence. Pretend that they aren't there, or walk past very quickly.

Have you ever tried to imagine what it would be like to exist on the streets? Hassled by the police, no place to shower, no place to sit and rest, no place to be safe, hardly a place to use the bathroom, and no place to call home? Wandering around, desperate for help, being ignored by hundreds of people streaming past you with expensive, disposable goods? It's an impossible thing to try to even imagine, I think you can only experience it. My whole life I have had a place to shower and sleep. Most of us will not even attempt to imagine what life in another's shoes is like.

So there on the street is a total stranger. Of course, you shouldn't be bothered to help them. Would you help them if it was your friend? How about your friend's mom? Would you buy your friend's mom a meal if she was going without? What if it was your neighbor? If your neighbor got evicted, would you give them a jacket? How about your own parents? Or your siblings? Would you help them? And this is where the real hypocrisy starts to creep in... I don't want to live in a world filled with homeless people, and I would assume that you don't either, so maybe we should start doing something about it? What if we tried to help people become... not homeless? I realize this is getting pretty radical for the average american at this point.

But I wouldn't even urge you to direct action. (For some people, it doesn't make sense. If you're a petite woman, you shouldn't be approaching packs of homeless men) You should do whatever you feel compelled to do. But I do want to say something about ignoring homeless people, or pretending they don't exist, or rationalizing them out of existence. I used to be very guilty of these behaviors myself and it's one of the few things I am very ashamed of. If you go out of your way to avoid even thinking about the suffering person in your community, you disgust me. You make me angry. In the united states today, it is amazing how much wealth, technology, and everything else we have amassed. We, as a whole, are probably the wealthiest, safest people who have ever walked the face of the planet, and it is too much for us to treat the one in our community who suffers with at least an equal respect for their humanity.

What has compelled me to write this is that I have been making some homeless friends lately. These people do not just carry everything they own on their backs, but they carry larger bags of shame, guilt, and self-loathing. I've had several tell me recently how surprised they are that I am able to treat them as a person. Huh? ARE THEY ANY LESS A PERSON THAN I AM? If you're reading this in the comfort of your home, you've had the good fortune to have opportunities in front of you to have worked for a home, or to be living in one. Somebody doesn't have the same good blessings as you, and so they should be treated as human refuse? Should we just toss these people out? They're not good enough for us?

If you make some sort of excuse in your mind like "They want to be homeless" or "It's their own fault." I have a response for both. First, maybe one in ten thousand wants to be homeless. And sure, some of the exceptionally lazy ones might give a bad reputation to the ones who desperately want out but have fallen on hard times and are caught in the negative feedback loop. What if the person in front of you actually wants a meal? What if they actually need some help? If you actually think that homelessness is so cool that a lot of people aspire to it, I dare you to go live on the streets for a week and see how you like it. If you're not willing to try it out for a week, do the rest of the planet a favor and never think something so poisonous again. All of the homeless people I know have fought like hell to not be homeless and now seem trapped in a hole they can never escape. Second, maybe it is their fault. So what? You've never made a mistake? Should making a mistake that leads to homelessness be the end of a person's life? We should just toss their corpse in a dumpster? Obviously not, so never think that crap again either.

Obvious disclaimers apply here. I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy nice things. I'm not saying you didn't work hard to get to where you are. I'm not saying you should feel guilty or ashamed of accomplishing anything. What I am saying is that we, as a society, need to stop trying to forget that these people are suffering. Putting their suffering out of our minds isn't alleviating any of their pain or suffering, in fact, it is making it worse. There's a great line in "The Constant Gardener" where a character says "We can't help them all!" and the response is "But we can help this one". You may not be able to fix the problem, but each of us helping to fix the problem in front of our face can contribute to the fixing of the problem as a whole. And even if you cannot do anything directly to help fix the problem, at least quit making the problem worse. Quit treating these people as if they aren't human. It's okay to say hello. It's okay to look them in the eye. It's okay to say "No, Thank you" when they ask for some change. You think it's an annoyance? Imagine how much it must suck to have to ask a thousand people for charity so you can eat one meal. Get over yourself. It's not just everyone with money that I want to inspire to better, but also people who have nothing. They should aspire to better with the rest of us. They might need a little help to get there, though. The reality though, is that we all need a little help. So if I'm going to try and inspire homeless people to want to be alive, I'm going to need the rest of you to at least stop treating them as if they're garbage on the sidewalk. That's another person, just like you, with a vastly different (and probably a vastly more horrible) reality. If you don't believe me, talk to one of them. You'll see. Chances are you'll get heartbroken, and then you'll get angry. Angry at all the very self-important people rushing by who are so busy with whatever stupid ass video game or meaningless text message on their phone to pay another person the barest minimum of respect.

Can you get on board with that?

Next time you're out and about, look other people in the eye. Try to imagine somebody else's reality.

Okay, deviation over. Back to the art..

How I spent today

A new Art League possibly in the making in Seattle. Your chance to get on board and help make it happen.

I just received this message from Ned Mueller.


Hi Everyone...A few years ago we had what was called the Puget Sound Art League in Bellevue. It was established so that artists had a place to go mainly to develop their skills and get encouragement and support from others. We had around 200 members at one point and we had two studios where members could go every day and draw or paint from live models in life drawing, portrait and costume and also a lot of still lifes set around one of the studios. We had world class workshops with people like Richard Schmid, Harley Brown, Carolyn Anderson and Ron Lukas.  It was a very great thing to have...everyone paid about $200 a year to belong and of course a very good deal for those of us who took advantage of it. It lasted for around 6 years and for a variety of reasons faded out, regretfully so to many of us. The League was modeled after the famous Palette and Chisel Club in Chicago which is still going strong. There is a very good chance that this may start up again as I have been talking to Chuck and Lisa Mcknett who are very excited about getting something very much like it going again. Generally they are looking for a space for 3 studios and gallery space with somewhat the same format, but also more of a regular schedule of classes for people to teach and study with. They are looking for something centrally located, as around the 405 and I-90 area. The Art League was very successful in that it fulfilled a real need for artists to go to in all sorts of levels...beginners to working professionals and for those of you who were involved know what great  fun and opportunity it was. At this point we need to know just how much enthusiasm and committment there is out there to getting it started and so I am sending this first notice out to all of my many fellow artists and friends. Those few who know about this are very excited about it and so we are off to a good start and I need to hear from you if you would be interested in participating. It is open to everyone..no special elite group here...how could you not be somewhat enthused!! With everything going up, I would think the yearly fee would have to be around $250 to $300, they have to cover rent, heat, electricity, model fees and all of that, but it is still a good deal even if one would use it twice a month. Right now it is in the "Blue Sky" stage as they call a beginning project at Disney Imagineering and will evolve as we go forward. We would probably also have some free members, who are very financially strapped in these hard times who could get a lot out of this progam..probably in return for sweeping up studios and things of that sort. Probably if you have a Lexus or such in your carport you may not qualify for this. I would also  appreciate it if you could send this email out to any of your own artist friends or students who I am sure would like to know that this may come to fruition. Have them and yourselves email me at nedmueller06@comcast.net and so I can put you on a list..no obligation, and I am thinking that we will probably get a lot of enthusiastic participants. Thanks for taking the time to read this and have a great Thanksgiving. Ned Mueller

New Drawings and Painting studies

Here's a few recent drawings and a few painting studies done from life. Painting the Planes of the Head and cast of Diana. Hope you enjoy them, peeps! Keep whupping ass!

Spit in the face of fear!

You can't be afraid! Fear will paralyze you! Of course, a little bit of fear can be healthy, that's what stops us from running out into traffic, but fear works on the law of diminishing returns; if you keep increasing how much you are afraid, it doesn't make you safer.

Your art is a reflection of your life. Do you want a particular quality in your artwork? You've got to live that thing in your life. If you want to produce bold work, you've got to live boldly. If you want honesty in your work, you've got to live honestly. This is the way to a genuine result. The qualities will just come out in your work. There might be other ways to arrive at what you want, but it's like driving through Argentina to go from Seattle to New York; it's the long way. If you live boldly, the boldness will just come out in your work naturally.

The easiest way to improve your work is to improve the way you live. Tired of all the indecision in your work? Eliminate indecision in your life, and the indecision in your work will vanish by default. As for me, I don't want to have any fear in my work, no uncertainty, and no hesitation. So I am going about eliminating those things in the way I live.

The above picture was taken around midnight from the top of Mt Si last night with a poet friend of mine, Malorie. We hiked up to the top of the mountain, partly in the moonlight, partly with headlights, and always on the alert for animals. Why hike at night? Aside from the obvious amazing view in the moonlight, it's an exercise in defeating fear. It's something of a scary thing to hike 8 miles in the middle of the night, but we did it anyway. And once you've hiked in the cold dark for 8 hours, putting the wrong line on a piece of paper doesn't seem like such a big deal. In an attempt to overcome fear and uncertainty in my work, I am overcoming fear and uncertainty in my life, one night hike at a time.

(And don't worry, I was equipped in case of trouble. Bear repellant and a huge knife.)

Don't be afraid, peeps! Start overcoming fear in your life, and you'll find it simple to overcome in your work!

Reminder! Workshop on Saturday!

Don't forget, workshop this Saturday at the Bellevue Daniel Smith store. Demo is from 11am-1pm. I'll cover all of the fundamentals, and it's great for beginners or anyone looking to freshen up their understanding of the key parts of drawing. Bring something to draw with and a piece of fruit to draw! See you there!