THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you spend a large chunk of your day eating delicious food and chatting with family and friends. I hope you think of a couple things you are grateful for and then I hope you take a long nap!

For today's post I wanted to share some of the things I am grateful for. For the last couple of Sundays leading up to today I have been drawing things at church that I am grateful for and I have been sharing some of them on Instagram and Facebook. (Check out #sillysundaysketches)

I think my favorites from this one are the Old Spice Deodorant, The R. Mutt Toilet, Tacos and maybe the Snickers bar that totally doesn't look like a candy bar. ha ha

This was the first one I did. I am grateful for modern day plumbing, hot chocolate, and fries!

The Sketch for what comes next...

I came to the realization that I could never actually draw all the things I was grateful for and came up with this idea of drawing this! All the things I was grateful for & More!

Here I explain what each thing means to me.

Thanks for reading this long post. Now go eat some more Pie!!!

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

WINTER!!!

Recently I sat down and started applying for some freelance jobs and a lot of people asked about my website. This blog is my only current website so I thought I would post a couple of things I have recently made so that you can be excited about them just like me!

This one is called dreaming of Skiing! I actually prefer to snowboard, but I am ready for the snow to come. I hope you are too!

Joseph and his Coat of many colors!!!

Early Bird gets the Worm

An old ancient proverb: "The Early Bird Gets The Wor..." Hey where is the M?

The M could stand for what is missing in your life because you aren't willing to make the needed sacrifice for it. (This sounds like my YES/NO post. Go Check it out!) That could mean money, time, happiness, etc.

Another proverbish like thing my father always told me was that the fisherman that had his hook in the water earliest and longest caught the fish. Now if you have ever been fishing you know that this is true and sometimes untrue. It depends on where you are fishing, what bait you are using and your skill at hooking the fish and reeling it in.

My goal in writing this blog post is not to convince you that you should get up earlier, but if that is what happens because of it I will count that as a win for me. The truth is that people that get up earlier usually have a lot more accomplished then those of us that sleep in by the end of the day. I mean think about it. When I sleep in I feel groggy through out the day and then at night the only good thing I can think of doing is watching Netflix or surfing the internet.

This week I woke up early and I started thinking about fun art projects I wanted to do. So instead of sleeping in I got up and wrote down a bunch of thoughts and then today I decided to execute one of them. It was this typography piece that appears above.

At this point I could take this blog post in so many different directions. For example:

I could talk about how people just need to start doing what they want to do and stop waiting for the right amount of money, a better job, more time, the moon to line up just right. Just go do it!

I could talk about what kind of bait you should use to catch the fish you want to catch, but then again that is up to you. You should be smart and find the bait that you like to use and that catches you enough fishies.

I could talk about the best fishing spots, like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, your local Cafe, or Tumblr! This also might come down to you trying it out and finding out which works better for you.

And then I could talk to you about waking up early and getting worms! The truth is I just dare you to try it a couple of times. Purposefully wake up early and do the things you need to do and then the next day sleep in and wake up when ever you want to and write down what you have accomplished on both days and tell me which is more productive for you.

If you decide to take my challenge shoot me an email and tell me your findings. (guapolsen@gmail.com)

I think there is another proverb out there that says if you Hoot with the Owls you won't be Flying with the Eagles.

5 Lessons I Learned This Week About Art or Life.

This week I had the opportunity to go to an art class with J. Kirk Richards. I wanted to share some of the things I learned this week with you.

Monday- Look at art! If you want to be good at making art you have to understand what others have done with it before you. 

Since I like to try to tie art things to life I am going to tell you this applies to everything! You want to be a good parent? Look at what other good parents have done! You want to become an amazing singer? You have to look (Maybe listen...) at what other singers have done. Do you want to become the best web developer out there? Look at what other web developers have done. Do you get the idea? Take a look at who has come before you!

Study what they have done and really see how you could apply it to your own work or if you want to go in a different direction at least you will know what they tried to do.

Notice color patterns, shape patterns, and all the other patterns you can see. It is really kind of fun.

Tuesday- Day Two! START!!!

When we arrived on Tuesday all I could hear Kirk say was, "Just start!" I think people in general are blessed with some inspirational thought or plan or something and all they have to do is put some action in to it, but so many people fail to start! I am not saying that a magical painting will appear if you start painting, but at least you will have something on the canvas and that is better than what was there yesterday.

I believe Thomas Edison attempted over 1,000 different materials before he discovered tungsten to be the magical key to making the lightbulb work. Then when he was asked about it he didn't say he failed 1,000 times, but rather he had discovered 1,000 different ways to not have the lightbulb work! It is a mind set thing. We just have to START!!!

Wednesday- Good Music always helps. I think this one is self explanatory. Find some music you like to listen to and that will help you get into the groove and then go! I mean Start!

Thursday- I learned about modeling today. This is where you start to do little cross hatching lines to make the details in the form of something you are painting that turns it from a side in light to a side in shadow. This also applies to life. You have to take some time in your life to see the little details. Some of the subtle things in life make the biggest difference. This also means that if you don't have the big picture all together then your little details will be out of place. Think about this one for a minute. It is definitely tied to my last blog post.

Friday- Endure to the end. If you want a good painting you have to keep pushing it and never give up.  The only way an artist fails is when he or she...

I think the of the tortoise and the hare story. The hare is very prideful and fast and the tortoise says he thinks he could beat him at a race. So they put together a race and off they go. The hare is definitely winning, but stops to take a nap! The tortoise is slow and steady and wins the race!

Be steady and keep going! I think that is the key to success.  

(Maybe someday I will talk about not measuring your success against others as well...)

Thanks for reading!

No one told me it was Wednesday!

I can't blame this post being late on anyone, but I can say I was a little disappointed to not receive an email asking about my missing post yesterday. I will be posting something tomorrow though to try to stay on track and you get this post today. Yeah!

I don't believe in excuses. I believe that people have priorities and they get done what they feel like they must get done. If they really thought something else was more important they would do it. Would you agree?

You don't have to agree with me, but hear me out:
I think artists are a peculiar people. The ones that are really dedicated and can get by on caffeine will do all nighters because they have determined that making art and reaching a deadline is more important than sleep.

Other artists (Like myself) are not able to pull all nighters. Sleep is just more important to us than art making at midnight so what does that mean? It means if we want to reach those same deadlines we have to say "NO" to other things before that deadline so that we aren't forced to do all nighters.

The word "No" is just as powerful as the word "Yes". In fact it can be even more empowering. When we say NO to something it allows us the opportunity to say Yes to other things. Take a minute and think about your day. What are you saying No to and what are you saying Yes to?

Doing this exercise myself looks like this:

This morning I decided to say "NO" to waking up when my alarm went off. What that means is that I was saying "Yes" to being late to work. I was saying "Yes" to being more stressed at work. I was saying "Yes" to eating out since my lunch wasn't prepared. But It also meant I got to say "Yes" to an extra half an hour in my warm bed.

Hopefully tomorrow I can say "Yes" to my alarm clock so that I can say "Yes" to a better lunch than a hamburger off the dollar menu. So that I can say "Yes" to more money since I will be at work longer. I will also get to say "Yes" to less stress too!

Do you see how this works?

This principle works with your time, with your money, with everything!

Something that I have recently been able to say Yes to was taking an art class with J. Kirk Richards. He has been a wonderful mentor and boss for me this past year and when he offered to let me take his class with him this week I just knew that was what I was going to do.

To iterate I would like to tell you all the things I said No to, so that I could say Yes to this class. Every year for the last couple of years I have gone with a really good friend of mine to his parents house up in North Idaho. It is right on the edge of a beautiful lake. His parents have a boat, three wheelers, and not to mention wonderful company!
Here are some pictures of it!

This year I said No to that so that I could say Yes to learning how to paint better.
My wife also said No to this so we could say Yes to another week of work and the pay check that would come from that.

Here is a progress shot of what I have been working on in the painting class. It is a master copy of one of my favorite artists, James Christiansen.

Stay Tuned to my blog. I will be posting the finished product in about a week or so.

Also thank you for reading my blog. I realize that at this point most of my readers are friends on face book. I hope to share my journey as a maturing artist with some insights for everyday life. If you get something out of a post share it with a friend. Thanks.

Also if you have feedback for me please feel free to email me at guapolsen@gmail.com

Take Care

Artist Inspiration Collages

A couple of years ago for an art class I had to create a collage made up of artists that inspired me. The first one I did for school was filled with some really cool art, but lots of different genres of artists. I then had the opportunity to teach an art class yesterday and thought I would do that activity with my student again, but this time I really tried to focus on the artists that inspired me as an illustrator.

I thought it might be really fun to share both of my collages with you and maybe some thoughts on why I like the artists I chose.

This first one is the most recent one I made:

1- Tomie DePaola- I loved his fun shapes for people and big noses. I also really love his color harmony.

2- Maurice Sendak- Everyone knows where the wild things are. He has incredible fun little details on every page. His monsters are delightfully fun and his colors are really well controlled as well.

3- Scottie Young- This artist was introduced to me in High School and was on the cutting edge of drawing superheroes at the time. The picture I have here for him is of Wolverine. He has recently done a wizard of oz book with a delightful lion. I love his curvy lines and fun twists on things that I have see before.

4- James Christensen*- This man is a master of paint. His paintings are so smooth well designed. He has an amazing ability to put straights with curves and fun colors that work with each other to create a story of some sort of thing from another world!

5- J. Kirk Richards*- Kirk has let me be his art assistant for over a year now and I just couldn't leave him out. He has definitely influenced me. I have loved learning about how he thinks and getting to even do some of his under paintings for him. I would have a huge list of things if I listed all the things I have learned from him: the importance of hard edges and soft edges, having detail and when not to have it, warms and cools and much much more.

6- Dr. Suess- What amazingly fun imaginative creations from pen and ink! I have always been mesmerized by his fun shapes and characters. His colors have always been really nice and although bright they are controlled and limited.

7- Quentin Blake- This is a favorite artist of mine that illustrated books like Matilda and the BFG. his style is loose, but with a sense of great anatomy. He knows how to make some quick lines look like a person and then with some water colors he brings them to life. 

8- Shel Silverstein- Amazing Man. Don't look at the pictures of him though. He looks kind of scary. (: I love how fun Shel was with his poetry. His loose pictures that look like they were just scribbled out on a napkin, maybe even the napkin he used to write the poem on the back of, are so fun to see and take in!

9- Jake Parker*- Jake is a more recent addition to my lists of inspirations. He has a comic book style of doing art and has inspired me with his amazing caricature design as well as use of pen and ink. 

*For fun I put the stars in to show the ones I have actually met in person.

Below is the first one I did for my class:

Matt Wisniewski- I think I may have found this artist on Pinterest. I really love his stuff though. He is a photographer that takes pictures of people and then of mountains and other things and mashes them together. I love the details you can get in a photograph as well as this carefully and brilliantly placement of to pictures together to make one.

Gustav Klimt- "The Kiss". Klimt was an amazing painter that used really cool shapes, patterns, and color together.

Andy Warhol- This guy was kind of crazy, but kind or really awesome. I love the processes he used. Screen printing and other things. He was an artists really interested in getting people to think. I really like that about him.

Andrew Beck- Andrew was actually a friend of mine from High School and has gone on to be a graphic designer in Amsterdam. I really admire his fun style. He has great use of curves mixed with straights. He was wonderful textures and colors. I also really love how his images tell a story.

James Christensen! He made it on both lists. When I made this second collage I was looking at some of his more realistic work, but I still love him because he knows how to really paint!

James Nachtwey- James is a photographer that travels to distant lands and takes pictures that really move you. A lot of his work is done where there has been a war and sometimes right there in the gun fire. I really admire him for his work, but I could never do it because I value being with my wife and living more.

Zander Olsen- I think I may have found this guy on Pinterest too. He is an artist that makes installations out in nature. Doing this takes time, patience, planning and a really good eye for artistic things. He does it really well.

Bottocelli- This artist is an oldie but a goodie. He has some really fun repeating patterns in his paintings and was really good at controlling his colors and lines. I really admired his art when I learned about him in art history.

Ansel Adams- What a photographer! Great black and white images that are simply put, epic!

Andy Goldsworthy- Antoher Nature installation creator. This guy is based out of England I think and just puts tons of time, thought and planning into his images. I really like his stuff.

Jonathan Harris- Is a photographer I learned about while in collage. He travels to far away lands and takes some really cool pictures that tell some awesome stories.

Levi Jackson- Another High School friend. He is doing the installation projects with nature and it is really cool to see someone I know doing that sort of thing.

JC Leyendecker- I love this guys straight strokes! An incredible illustrator that I also learned about while in school. He painted at the same time as Norman Rockwell and even inspired Norman to become who he was. JC always painted from life and did an amazing job.


If you have read all of this I am super proud of you! I hope you enjoyed this post! I am sorry I have been missing this blog. I have been working on my final show for BYU and had some other projects come up as well. I will be posting my Senior project as well as hopefully getting back to posting twice a week. I am thinking that posts will go up every Tuesday and Thursday. So if it is Tuesday you should check the blog for something new and if it is Thursday there will be something new as well.
If you check on Saturday there might not be anything new... Unless you haven't checked since Thursday.

Thanks for Reading.