The Art and Rantings of a Middle Aged wanna be artist!!!

Buffy

2007-10-24T22:16:00.000-10:00

Rendered this old piece I did in Painter X.

Starting over...man I'm too old for this shit.

2007-10-24T21:48:00.000-10:00

Yeah, as you out there who might be reading this, I'm again unemployed. I'm frickin' 44 years old. Am i not supposed to be at this stage in my life, Married with a few kids in their teens, a house or home, steady and stable job, etc, etc. Right now I'm collecting unemployment, which still didn't even send the damn check yet and it's been 3 weeks. I'm still rooming with my close friend at her folks place. No real prospects for jobs because most employers don't even know what a damn Title Officer is, much less what they do. Severance pay is running out and I got bills to pay. You know, I'm not a suicidal kind of person, but I understand why someone would want to kill themselves, you know? This shit get fuckin' tiring. I was a hard worker who hardly if ever call in sick. Was on time. Never abused the system at work. Yet I was still laid off. I would be OK with it, but there were those who were kept on who called in sick every chance they got, always late and always slacking. Man, I just can't get a break or what??? The job market out there is mostly part-time work for retail and fast-food. And even for those jobs I can't get in. "Too Qualified" is the term. Or they just don't want to hire you for fear of you might do a better job than they would.

I'm just so fuckin' pissed off....and please spare me all the cliche's, because I've heard'um all and it just don't work in the real world.

Unemployed to the 4th power.

2007-10-17T21:01:00.000-10:00

On 10/5/2007 I have been rendered unemployed for the 4th time. Burned once again by the Escrow and Title industry. I've been in this line of work for almost 15 years. Looks like it's time for a new line of work.

Why am I even blogging this? No one gonna read this anyways. I'm just a statistic, just like this the ones I handle in my former job. A damn statistic.

Witchblade

2007-10-17T20:54:00.000-10:00

Getting the hang of doing digital art work.

Payscale and why I always seem to get the short end of the stick.

2007-10-01T12:57:00.000-10:00

So today I find this link on Careerbuilder.com that helps you find out what your present job title suppose to pay. The link is http://www.cbsalary.com.
I'm a Title Officer for an escrow company. This website say that national average for this type of job is about $36,440.00 a year and the avg. pay in Hawaii is $36,723.00. This chart also shows the low and high end pay too. The low end is $26,233.00 and the high end being $51,023.00. I'm barely above the low end with $27,000.00 and Hawaii has a higher cost of living than 95% of the United States. I've been in this industry for more than a decade. My company didn't even give out raises this year. Not even an inflation raise of 3% to 5 % which comes out to 41 cents to 69 cents. How fucked up is that??? In 2003 I made 32,500 a year salary, but I was always working 12-15 hour days as a Supervisor for another Title company. That fucked up because as a supervisor, I didn't get any overtime. That short end of the stick is my good friend....hahahahahha.

The Big Crap Shoot!!!

2007-09-24T11:28:00.000-10:00

A crap shoot. That what life is. I know God almighty gave us humans the gift of free will. We control our destiny by the choices we make. What we don't have control of when or where we are born. Some of us are born with a silver spoon in our mouths. And most of us aren't. There will always be rich and poor of the earth, yet sometimes it would be cool not to be poor. I live a fairly comfortable life I guess. At least I'm not homeless. Yet when I see the more privliged think or act like they are better than everyone else, that's when I get pissed. Or when you read about Celebrities in the new about what they're wearing, who they are dating, or how they are spending, who really give a fuck? Again, I'm getting off track. What I'm trying to say is we are not in control of the situation or enviroment we are born into. A lot of people take for granted that the stable families they are born into, and grumble and bitch about trivial shit like cell phones or the car they drive or the house they live in. And they are blind to most everyone unless they can use people for they're own personal gain.....typing this is making me pissed off and I forget what the damn point I was trying to get at. AAAUUUUGGHHHH!!!!!

I lead a boring life

2007-09-23T23:18:00.000-10:00

8/22/2007 I lead a boring life

It’s a Saturday. And like all other Saturdays, I can’t figure out with to do with myself. Same old question, “so what do want to do today?” asks Chris. And the answer is always “I don’t know”. Sometimes I ask her, and she say the same. There is stuff to be done, yet we can never decide what to do. Workout, go to the beach, crawl the malls. Chris isn’t the conventional girl. She’s not into the “foo-foo” girly-girly stuff, so she doesn’t like shopping to much. Me, I don’t really like shopping much either. Mainly because most of the time I don’t have money. I got this credit card recently that has a 20,000 dollar limit. And that’s like having a loaded gun.

Personal Space

2007-09-23T23:10:00.000-10:00

8/21/2007 Personal Space

I was going to start this with personal observations, but then I thought about something else. Personal space. Why? I'm no celebrity, but I think it’s a precious commodity. I don’t live on my own. I never have. I lived with my parents or should I say parent (Mom) till I was 31. Then roomed with my cousin Carla till up until more than a year and a half ago till I was forced out. But that’s another story. Presently I live with my constant companion and roommate Chris and her parents. So basically I have no personal space. No private time. Maybe in the bathroom when I’m showering or taking a crap. Other than that, almost zero. Something is always encumbering the situation. Can’t cook in the house because it gets to hot. Gotta wait till Chris’s parents to leave before we can wash and dry clothes, At work is the same. Work used to be my sanctuary, but since we moved into a new building, that personal space is gone too. In the old building, at lease I could work in some kind of peace in my own space. Now, I’m in this cramp room with 4 other people. 3 of which are loud when they talk. 1 of them plays his radio so damn loud, one can’t think above the noise. And it seems like a stopping station for everyone to talk stories. And the damn office is always so frickin’ cold. 65 degrees to be exact. Any thing more and the 3 fat one in our office start griping that “oh it’s so hot” and have the fans blowing all through the room. The dust and mold has led me to having a constant runny nose and watery eyes. Man, I think I’m getting off the subject. Getting back to the whole personal space thing, yeah I don’t have any. When I get mad or pissed off, I don’t have an area to just sulk or have quiet tie to myself. I could just get in my car and drive off somewhere, but why should I? Today I lucked out though. I called in sick from work and Chris’s parent’s went to hang with one of their relatives, so I had the house to myself. I had peace and quiet for about 6 hours. Ah….personal space. Gotta love it.

"Chris 2"

2006-10-19T12:11:00.000-10:00

10'' x 15'' acrylic painting on illustration board using a palette knife.
First ever attempt at this style.

Self Portrait 2006

2006-09-22T09:45:00.000-10:00

Here's a self portrait done for a class assignment. It's done on 18" x 24" newsprint using black conte crayon.

Color conte rendering "Rose"

2006-09-19T15:38:00.000-10:00

Rose, one of my friends on myspace.com, noticed my slide show of portraits and wanted me to draw her. So while at work I had nothing to do, I decided to grant her request. Didn't quite come out how I wanted, but time was limited. After all, I was at work. Took me bout 45 minutes to do this one.

Color pencil rendering "Sarah and Legolas"

2006-09-18T14:23:00.000-10:00

I did this color pencil rendering a little more than a year ago I think. My friend Sarah was all in love with the character "Legolas" from Lord of the Rings. So I did this more as a gag gift for her birthday. It came out pretty well I thought.

Japanese Idol sketch

2006-09-18T14:13:00.000-10:00

Just a pencil sketch of a cute Japanese girl. Just posting for the sake of posting.

Ink Rendering #8 "Carla"

2006-09-15T16:05:00.000-10:00

This rendering is of my "cuz" Carla. She had mentioned to me that no one had ever did a accurate drawing of her before. This was another difficult one to do since the picture was so dark. The drawing may not have come out exactly like the picture and had some flaws, but I think I did a pretty good job of capturing the likeness. So Carla, here's the first one. The picture was taken on her birthday bash at the nightclub "W".

Ink Rendering #7 "John Paul"

2006-09-15T15:23:00.000-10:00

"John", "John Paul", "JP", "JZ" or "Harvard". Another good friend in our crew. There were some good pictures of John, but most of them were too dark or he had his glasses on because the brand of Contact solution which he used were recalled because of contamination and he was force to use his glasses. But what does that have anything to do with piece? Plenty. I found only one decent shot of John when he and some of the crew attended a Iona Pear dance recital at Haleiwa Beach Park.
The picture of the rendering is a little out of focus since I used a camera for the lack of a scanner.

Ink Rendering #6 "Chris"

2006-09-15T15:13:00.000-10:00

This one is of my best friend, roomie and workmate Chris. She was very easy to draw since I've already sketched her a few times before when I was bored at work or when we were at Starbucks. The picture was taken at Liberty Grill where she and I eat breakfast before heading off to work.

Ink Rendering #5 "Cindy"

2006-09-15T14:54:00.000-10:00

This rendering is of Cindy. This picture posed a problem. Most of the pictures of Cindy, which I had at the time of the drawing, she was far back from the camera or at a weird angle. So I didn't have a good shot to work from. And again, the flash flattened out the features as usual, especially with Cindy. I had a hard time rendering her and made a few mistakes which was easily corrected with a little artistic know how and Prismacolor white. ha ha ha. The picture was taken at the Polynesian Exhibit at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

Ink Rendering #4 "Reid"

2006-09-15T13:29:00.000-10:00

This one is of my good friend Reid. This picture too, was difficult to render because of the straight on flash of the camera. Plus since Reid is usually the one taking the pictures of everyone, I had little to chose from. Also, since Reid lost something like 20+ pounds, I had to adjust the drawing to make him look as he is today, slimmer. The picture was taken at one of the Art after Dark functions at Honolulu Academy of Arts.

Ink Rendering #3 "Andrew"

2006-09-15T11:39:00.000-10:00

Here a pic of another buddy Andrew. It was hard finding a normal picture of him, so I pick this one because it captured the happy-go-lucky character that he is. The flash kind of drowned some of his features, so I kind of winged it. This pic was taken at a Obon Dance.

Ink Rendering #2 "Nobu"

2006-09-15T11:29:00.000-10:00

This rendering is of my buddy Nobu. I tried using a brush pen on this one along with a fine nibbed pen. I kind of made his left cheek puff out because I still had the whole caracture mentality stuck in my brain. I may redo this in the future. He smiles the same in most pictures. I picked this pic 'cause it was from a different angle. We were in Likelike Drive Inn while Alyssa was visiting this summer.

Ink Rendering #1 "Sarah"

2006-09-15T11:15:00.000-10:00

At first I wanted to do caractures of each of my close friends. As I started, I noticed that my style tends to be more on the realistic side than the cartoony side. With the progression of each drawing you can see that I got better with each one. Here's the first. Each one I drew a photo reference from one of my friends when they had sent them from an email or web site. I'll include the photo as well as the rendering itself. This one is of Sarah

More recent work

2006-09-14T16:17:00.000-10:00

So someone has commented that I show more recent work.

Here's a 9" x 12" pastel portrait of Sarah Michele Gellar.

Comments welcomed.

First ever blog post to Fame! Yeah right!!!!

2006-09-14T09:54:00.000-10:00

Never posted on a Blog before, so I'm giving it a shot here. I just need a place to post my artwork and get a little exposure. Or just a place to rant about stupid shit.
First I'll post a self portrait I did way back in the 1980's. ha ha ha