JJ's Studio

2012-02-06T22:51:00.000-08:00

my sketch of a most talented student... Nibha!

2012-02-03T11:15:00.000-08:00

a small watercolor for a friend :)

2012-01-27T20:57:00.000-08:00

2011-12-11T16:41:00.000-08:00

I promise- I've been making things!

We had a very successful show this past Saturday, Dec. 3rd. Thank you everyone for coming out and supporting the teachers at Drawn2Art.
(These two picture were featured in my series of hair drawings)

Also, I've been sketching these little ink drawings quite a bit when I can grab a free moment.

Anyone interested in prints or purchasing original pieces... feel free to contact me.
Merry Christmas :)

2011-11-14T23:40:00.000-08:00

house

2011-10-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

yes, i've still been making stuff....

a sketch for my next portrait:

Sir Kevin Laue the Great

2011-07-22T19:42:00.000-07:00

flower studies in oil... now part of the collection of Lisa Binzoni :)

2011-07-14T20:11:00.001-07:00

Get Real, Get Right from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.

2011-06-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

page from an old sketchbook
probably written in Fall 2008
pre-senior show ideas and thoughts
uncannily relevant in my life right now

2011-05-12T11:32:00.000-07:00

Monday afternoon

2011-05-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

this weekend I was reminded how much I love what I do

Sunday Landscape Study

2011-04-06T12:31:00.001-07:00

8:30am... I wake to the whistling of my alarm: Andrew Bird's Fitz & Dizzyspells.

The sun is shining, a pleasant breeze sways the trees outside my window. I think to myself "what a fine day for a jog:)"
Not just any jog. No set route, just an anonymous tip of where to start...

Grab the ipod, shades, strap on my new running 'kicks', and I set out for a simple adventure.

Here's a random selection of what shuffled on my ipod...

I notice my rippled reflection as I pass the store windows downtown; the green glare abstracting my running form into a mosaic.
I notice the subtle changes in temperature and light as sun morphs into shady tree shadows treading along residential sidewalks.

I hang a sharp left at a hidden gate. The aforementioned "tip" of where a secret trail starts...
I've lived in Pleasanton for most of my life, and I've NEVER seen this place before! Its nothing special. A crooked trail, some trees, beginning with a few apartments that trickle and disappear behind the horizon to the right.
I've seen better, more beautiful trails... but never jogged one.

The trail juts off. Swerves; more trees; just the sound of my steady huffing and my Nike's crunching the gravel.
A row of ginormous tree trunks all a kilter... I run past and tag each one "you're it!" My own little game.
I can't see where the trail leads, a moment of simultaneous hesitation and excitement... and I can't help but thinking "what a cliche, but appropriate metaphor for life"....

AAAAHHHHHH SQUIRREL! A little land mine! breaks my thought process. Of course, a squirrel WOULD get in the way! He's ballsy! Didn't run away until I was a foot in front of him, almost had to leap over it like a small hurtle.

Right, where was I? Metaphor for life... haha. Squirrels. Yes, still a metaphor for life!

I pass a stream. Some more houses appear behind the tree line. Where am I? Suddenly the trail dips and opens up to....

the FREEWAY! I-680. I found the mysterious trail that parallels the freeway!!! HAHA. I always wondered where that trail started.
I take a moment to stretch, wave to some cars, and continue on my way. It was almost time to turn around and go back, but I wanted to find a good landmark.

I stop at a telephone pole. Theres a giant sewage manhole too, demarcated by an obnoxious orange cone. I stand on top.
I'm delighted by the "plopping" sound the rocks make as I drop them through the small openings on the manhole.
I can be such a kid sometimes.

There's a fork in the road, but this is a good place to stop and turn around. That fork will be for another day of exploration. Plus, my knee was starting to hurt: (

I pluck a little flower on the way back. Its color is "wild watermelon" according to Crayola.

Back on mainstreet, I make one more observation:

I see a woman. A petite elderly Asian woman in a rosy-pink fleece pullover. She is small in stature, but her posture is upright, her face- puckered, her eyes- closed. Her face is non-other than... prayerful. She shuffles along at a slow pace as I speed past. I tried to absorb some of her peacefulness for the rest of my day...

2011-03-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

Hooray for commissions!

For the "most highly regarded" Maddie Flaig... it was a pleasure painting this for you.

2011-03-22T00:57:00.000-07:00

2011-03-19T20:06:00.000-07:00

2011-03-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

... more to come...

2011-02-28T14:07:00.000-08:00

two very random references... nonetheless providing my inspiration for the next four paintings.
Let this be a teaser:)

(John Singer Sargent "Spanish Dancer"/Apple ipod Ad)

2011-02-19T23:24:00.000-08:00

"Rapture"
10"x14" colored pencil

2011-02-18T19:27:00.000-08:00

raise your hand if you love paint!!!!!!

just threw out a beautiful nasty old palette paper...
yup, there's totally cat hair in there too, hah!

2011-02-12T22:23:00.000-08:00

this image came about from playing with photo booth on my imac

never underestimate the power of "play" in your studio pratice

beautiful ideas happen when you are patient in your work

2011-02-06T21:57:00.000-08:00

(I know this has been done before, but I've never tried it...)

I gessoed Sunday morning church notes on a canvas and am painting around them... the beginnings of my word tree.

2011-01-31T12:42:00.000-08:00

The Music Lesson
oil on linen
40"x30"

2011-01-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

Today I was revisiting Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to A Young Poet." I am reminded of a passage a very wise professor once read to me...
(substituting 'write/ing' with 'paint/ing'):

"You ask whether your paintings are good. You ask me. You have asked others before... Now (since you have allowed me to advise you) I beg you to give up all that. You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you to paint; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to paint. This above all- ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple "I must", then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it."

Some drawings by artist Ethan Murrow http://www.bigpaperairplane.com/index.php

I am inspired to keep working!

2011-01-24T13:12:00.000-08:00

A Monday drawing...
listen to the song with the image

Find more artists like Working for a Nuclear Free City at Myspace Music

2011-01-21T15:02:00.000-08:00

people people! get me to finish this painting!!!! Its been hanging in my studio unfinished for far too long (notice the yellow post-it in the top right hand corner, a list of things left to do) I dread the thought of working on it:(

2011-01-10T14:07:00.000-08:00

oldies but goodies...

2011-01-09T13:46:00.000-08:00

probably one of the most depressing chores ever: taking down Christmas decorations:(

2011-01-03T11:53:00.000-08:00

a study on presence...

2010-12-30T17:00:00.000-08:00

An update...

portrait of the lovely Katelyn...
approx. time: 2hrs in front of the model

The Christmas gift that had everyone crying!

... and the current state of my studio = many unfinished thoughts and paintings.

2010-11-17T21:08:00.000-08:00

... from my new student portrait series: Neha as "Peter Pan"

2010-08-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

In progress...

2010-07-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

"Waveswinger" watercolor

2010-07-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

Just finished building and stretching 8 linen canvases... time to make some paintings.
I'm behind schedule!

2010-05-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

recent paintings:

2010-03-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

As I lay in my bed one night, cat in lap, awaiting the sweet lure of slumber...
I notice a strange yet familiar form on the floor. It wrinkles and puckers and takes on bodily form.

This is my subject: A body pillow.

2010-03-13T19:42:00.000-08:00

Random still lifes I found meaningful from the backyard :)

"Wellspring of Life"

"I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag"

"Orangey Delight!"

2010-02-15T22:59:00.000-08:00

yes... I paint my brother a lot.
Why Cody is a good model...
What makes a good model...

Something in the way they carry their bodies.
Cody is tall and lanky with protruding bones and strong features... and he carries a lot of pain in his body.

2010-01-18T13:02:00.000-08:00

A portrait of great grandma Esther, "granny"...

Probably one of the most important portraits I've painted thus far, and a breakthrough with oils! Me and oil paint are now officially friends.

2010-01-04T22:14:00.000-08:00

new work...

2009-12-03T13:28:00.000-08:00

Last night I decorated my studio with Christmas lights, and suddenly I felt the urge to paint! I set the stereo on Sufjan Stevens, put on my apron, grabbed a wilting sunflower from the kitchen table vase, and this is the result...

2009-12-01T17:22:00.000-08:00

To celebrate my 22nd birthday, we went into SF today to visit the de Young and Legion of Honor Fine Art museums. I was in heaven when I walked into the Bay Area Figurative collection in the de Young...

by Elmer Bischoff

No lie, I almost shed a tear when I first entered... surrounded by David Park, Joan Brown, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff and Nathan Olivera paintings, I felt at home.

The best birthday present ever.

2009-10-27T22:20:00.000-07:00

"' The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.'"

The Lord of the Rings, pg. 269

2009-10-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

When I got home from work...

*sigh*... Feels good to draw.

2009-10-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

" 'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo.
' So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.' "
The Lord of the Rings pg. 51

Started painting again and I'm stuck and frustrated...

Going to Tennessee next month to visit friends and I am so excited...

2009-10-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

final progress?...

2009-09-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took a pleasant trip into the city to visit the SFMOMA. One painting in particular stood out to me during this visit: Matisse's "The Girl with Green Eyes." The modeling of pinks in the face are brilliant next to the girl's green eyes, and the subtle shifts of blue-green behind her orange shirt are a revelation! I've always known Matisse was colorful... but this day at the museum in particular, I realized his genius! And ah! the brush strokes! Thin washes of color in the background compliment the thick bold strokes in the details of the face, hat, and vases.

I also spent more time contemplating the Rothko painting on the second floor. Although I've always been a fan of thick paint, I don't mind the smooth gestures of Mark Rothko's color fields... they vanish around the edges like a haze settling in some foreign landscape. I always find his paintings beautiful, and I might borrow his blue/orange/neutral purple color palette for one of my own paintings someday.

2009-09-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

progress on William and Catherine Booth...

2009-09-08T13:52:00.000-07:00

My first figure class since college (and I'm teaching it!) This watercolor is the result...

And the Salvation Army commission continues! Here is an image of the basic drawing, longing for the first touch of color pastel

2009-08-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

The new MUTEMATH album is out! It's just as incredible as I remember from the listening party. Listening to this album has already inspired me to work in the studio more rigorously- I finally completed my first detailed drawing since graduating, and it felt good.

2009-08-13T19:18:00.001-07:00

"God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get- when our will strains after a path we may not follow- we need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair; we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to taste- and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and as broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it."
from Jane Eyre, pg 418

Egon Schille

2009-07-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

From Annie Dillard's "Teaching a Stone to Talk"

" Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?
The tourists are having coffee and doughnuts on Deck C. Presumably someone is minding the ship, correcting the course, avoiding icebergs and shoals, fueling the engines, watching the radar screen, noting weather reports radioed in from shore. No one would dream of asking the tourists to do these things. Alas, among the tourists on Deck C, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, we find the captain, and all the ship's officers, and all the ship's crew. The officer's chat; they swear; they wink. a bit at slightly raw jokes, just like regular people. The crew members have funny accents. The wind seems to be picking up.

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." pg. 52

2009-07-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

I am thoroughly enjoying teaching at Kids Art. Kids will never cease to make me laugh... and I think they like me alright too! My art-making, on the other hand, is getting easier and easier to set aside (which scares me). The effort it takes to start and finish something, and make it GOOD, is overwhelming. I find my attention span has gone from a steady 3 hours to an average 30min tops! Its time I start learning the discipline of a studio/art practice at home- starting by making a drawing a day...

On a lighter note- tonight I'm going to a Mute Math listening party on a tour bus to preview their new album before its released in August. I'm so excited! AND, tomorrow night my brother and I are seeing Andrew Bird and Death Cab for Cutie at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. It'll be good to soothe the quarter-life crisis stress with some good music this weekend.

2009-05-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

Opening tonight...

Yesterday I had the pleasure to help hang this exhibit with my friends/artists Dan Callis, Laurel and Paul. We laughed over our horrible math measurements (for the record, gallery height is 64" to the center of the artwork), and we finished off the afternoon sharing a meal of incredible Thai food, with Thai Iced Tea of course. Its a quality show and I'm excited to mingle tonight and visit with old friends. Two of my pastel portraits are featured in this show (and for the record I graduated Fall 2008!)

2009-05-13T09:34:00.000-07:00

Van Der Weyden's Deposition

2009-05-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

" The light shifts around the dais to the intermittent scratching of the chalk on the page, each line careful, considered, the result of a singular communion between the eye and the hand. It is a vibrant kind of silence that I am familiar with. I think of all the hours I have spent in similar pinpoint concentration, my fingers bent around a sharpened pebble of black chalk, trying to capture the head of a sleeping dog on the stairs or the strange ugliness of my own naked foot, and it makes me more patient than I might otherwise have been."
- The Birth of Venus

2009-04-26T19:02:00.001-07:00

I have a job! I am now training to be an art teacher at Kids Art... it really is a perfect fit for me, and I'm so thankful I'll be working within my field of study.

Quick studio update:
I've had 2 photo shoots for a new series I'm planning on painting, and I'm still formulating/hunting and gathering for inspiration. I've been pouring over paintings by Juspe de Ribera and Rogier Van der Weyden, scanning veiled sculptures and dilapidated backdrops on the internet, meditating on Bible passages about veils and robes, and I still can't connect all this research into a new image...
For now I'll have to concentrate on strictly OBSERVING and SKETCHING to get my creative juices flowing again.

2009-03-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

What I'm looking at:

Model by the Wicker Chair, E. Munch

Self-Portrait after the Flu, E. Munch

2009-03-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

Today I read Francis Schaeffer's "Art and the Bible." I wasn't sure how I would respond... if I would agree or just be critical, however this sentence was of immense encouragement:
"In short, if you are a young Christian artist, you should be working in the art forms of the twenty-first century, showing the marks of the culture out of which you have come, reflecting your own country and your own contemporariness and embodying something of the nature of the world as seen from a Christian standpoint."
I surprisingly agreed with most everything stated in the book- a good read, and beneficial to my art practice.

2009-03-10T19:55:00.000-07:00

I painted a small watercolor of a dead bird on our outside patio. He must have crashed into the window. Ants were crawling on him and flies had just begun to swarm. I thought...the least I could do is paint him. In some small way this acknowledgment made his death seem not in vain. I can't help but think of Annie Dillard, who recognized the horrors of the natural world...
Should I give him a proper burial? Dig a hole in the ground under the bird bath and hold a ceremony in the backyard? or let nature take its course?

2009-02-17T17:47:00.000-08:00

My ode to Alice Neel... this poor chicken still needed his neck cut off.
Life is still slow and I'm still bored and jobless. But I did adopt a rescued kitty from the humane society! His name is Sebastian and he's 6 months old so he still has plenty of energy... but he also doesn't mind cuddling during afternoon and evening naps.

2009-02-02T15:52:00.000-08:00

I've been messing around with my new digital camera- its still a foreign instrument in my hands. Though one thing I have noticed is how much more I think about composition when I take a photograph than when I begin a drawing or painting. Just taking photographs around the house today was a good exercise!
My next series is based off of these random still lives from around the house. Originally I was going to call it "The Disgruntled House" series... however these images have taken on a more somber, contemplative tone, so I will have to rethink that one. I'm still not sure what medium to work in. I've been dying to make a good watercolor (emphasis on GOOD), but oil paint, or even pastel might be the better option.

2009-02-01T13:58:00.000-08:00

So here it is... my Pleasanton studio. Space is limited (especially for storing paintings), but its nice to have a workspace to call my own. I've made several attempts to start a few watercolors and goache drawings, however I find I just can't muster the patience to sit longer than 30 minutes looking at something. Mostly I've just been rummaging through old art history books and my latest Link Plus order: Ribera, Menzel, and of course Alice Neel (which is a cheaper book declared "lost" from the library than if I were to purchase it online...just an observation:)
I still don't have a steady job. I've worked a few days washing dishes at the tea shop and that's about it. But I have picked up a commission from another Biola Art alumni, and its been good to have a purposed project in the studio.

2009-01-29T17:44:00.000-08:00

A Wonderful Commercial

2008-10-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

This is the basis for all artistic creation: to keep alert one's innermost conscience that lets us know for every expressed experience whether in this form it may be completely justified in its truthfulness and integrity. And this foundation would have to be created even when one's inspiration hovers in a state of suspension and is in no need, as it were, of any solid ground.
- Rainer Maria Rilke