Activethought Weblog

Trip Stuff!

activethought — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:51:52 +0000

This is an odd post but these three images were some of the random ones that I did while visiting home. The first one was done in a bus station waiting for the morning to start and the bus to arrive. I was curious about the assembly of objects in a 2d space across a perspectival grid. No conclusions but that’s what I was thinking about.

The next is a sketch I did after reading a story about a Math teacher in France who immolated herself during recess on the playground of her school. Normally I wouldn’t sketch something like this but the story struck me as incomplete and sensational. The article focused on the lunacy of the teacher and the poor students who witnessed everything. But it occurred to me that we shouldn’t forget about the teacher as a person. How terrible of a thing must have happened to her or within her life that would cause her to do what she did? How could a simply unstable/insane person have become a school teacher? What more was there to the story?

The last sketch was one that I did during church in the room where we meet. I’m pretty sure that it was almost if not exactly a golden section and the space itself was really simple. At this point the services are oriented in an odd direction just because of simple technological and service elements that are permanently located in the room. However it is actually a sorta contemporary space and has alot of potential…

bum de bum bum bum….. ciao! com’e va? UPDATE! : )

activethought — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:26:44 +0000

Yikes! it has been a full month since I posted anything! Argleschmidt. Oh well, moving on. Now that I’ve got a job (coffee related!) I’m going to try getting back into this, and, in the mean-time I’ll be posting the sketches I’ve been doing this whole time from places I’ve been and ideas I’ve had. : )

Ths furst poest whill bee frum mmeye ohldest xkeches, which happened to be an unusually productive bus trip. : ) I expected to be somewhat bored throughout the trip (especially with the 3hr layover) but ended up getting alot of stuff done. The sketches I did are of an idea I’ve had to represent Revelations 12 in a more Japanese form of illustration. Christian art is good and there’s a strong history of the arts within christian thought but the biblical representation is somewhat stagnant for me and I just want to see something different. Plus, given the reality/purpose/intention of “the message” it seems more than logical to use another culture’s influences in representing it. After all, the understanding was first given to the Middle East, not the West, so it kinda makes sense for it to continue its globally influenced/influencing transformation. : )

I broke the chapter into 15 events so, ideally I guess, there will be 15 Illustrations and at this point I have settled on only 7 of the compositions. If you want to know more detail you can follow the link to the chapter I’m referencing and I’m thinking of starting a working blog specifically for this idea… still thinking about it. Enjoy! Let me know what you think. : )

arglschmidt!

activethought — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:48:34 +0000

So, life has be ridonkulous and I haven’t been posting at all!!!!! for shame!!! I know. So, here are the couple things I’ve managed to do over the past (to many) days. : ) I ended up doing some fun things with the dude sitting in the chair that I took from the previous Japanese images I had done; such as minimalism, contrast and placement but I haven’t really checked it to see if it followed any layout or proportional division. The funny lookin dude is a first draft of the Mad-Hatter on his actual birthday. I figured he would either explode with excitement or be incalculably ticked off so this is the version of him ticked off. It’s kind of fun to think about so I may redo this idea in the future.

funky week

activethought — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 01:23:45 +0000

This week my focus is decidedly elsewhere…namely resume and portfolio places…but I’m still going to post some slightly embarrasing and dinky little sketches over the week. These sketches will be little blurbs of ideas that I’ve had in my head and just haven’t worked out even in a thumbnail version. So, this first one is the initial pose/idea of an angel. This isn’t and won’t be a “typical” angel with wings and everything. It’s going to follow more closely along with the description in Rev 10:1 [... another mighty angel coming down from heaven clothed with a cloud and a rainbow was on his head, his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire...] It’s kinda fun to think that the rainbow is caused by the water evaporating from his heat, and that the body is entirely heat/energy that transitions in temperature from “surface of the sun” at the head to “big fire” at the feet. So, yeah, will be working on this in the future…

Italy….

activethought — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 02:16:50 +0000

So, today’s sketch is actually one I did some time ago in Venice of the Ca’d'Oro. Good time… fresh fruit, sitting on a dock, sketching, Italy : )

Harkitecture

activethought — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 02:13:30 +0000

(funny phrase)(cute words) Finally some architecture sketches! (back story) So other than that, the big news is that I drew these with a Staedtler pen… I hope my ballpoint will forgive me…. Have some sketches : )

I drew a heart

activethought — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:56:31 +0000

Simple little sketch but big idea… inspired by thoughts from 1 john 3.20 – ish and other “heart” ideas. The image is of a dead (or mostly dead [there's a big difference]) heart inside of a much bigger and alive one that is fueling the smaller, weaker one… The colors are starting to have the affect I was looking for but this would heavily benefit from further iterations…

Sally-mander

activethought — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 02:56:04 +0000

Here’s a water color sketch of a Salamander that a friend found in the woods. : ) Cool little thing….no notes on it today though : (

Friday/the weekend….

activethought — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 22:25:37 +0000

So, here’s the habit. I’m gonna post every weekday, for that day, and “friday’s” post is going to happen sometime friday-sunday. Das ist gut. : )

The weekend/friday’s post then is the following sketches…. some done while watching “Dr. No”, some done while playing/watching a game of poker, and some done while sitting in at a new church with very white white walls and intense wood structural ceiling. Enzhoi!

redo : )

activethought — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:42:21 +0000

So I ended up going ahead and redoing this sketch… : ) mostly because someone said that the first one was really good and instead of disagreeing I just did something I thought was better than the first one. ; )

So, here they are next to each other. You can see that I’m trying some new things. This is a first but it’s fun; adding a bit of oddness, graphic-ness, etc to how I see everyday events…I went with the orange and purple cuz I saw a pretty awesome image on this blog … http://johnhendrix.com/portfolio/sketchbook/Church5/ … that I pretty much loved. Enjoy. : )