Evolution

I have been thinking about evolution recently. I don't mean humans and their upright apeness. My musings are more along the lines of consciousness: at what point is consciousness evolving and at what point is it merely changing? I can see changes in myself, but the question that haunts me is whether I am truly becoming a better, more sociologically equipped adult, or whether I am merely changing into a different person. Either way, while the face in the mirror is the same, the person is different and I'm not sure if I like him as much as the other guy.

Sometimes I feel my shadow has more color to it than I do.


Or perhaps my life is just a sort of washed out dream.


Maybe it's just that age changes you. Each moment is a further experience to confirm or deny ideologies of the past. Enough denial forces an ideological change. Ideally, the weak and sick ideologies die and the strong survive. Okay, so less of the philosophical talk. I'll talk about a different kind of evolution. Artistic evolution.


With this one, I drew it first in pencil and then started in with pen. By the time I got to paint, the motorcycle had driven off.


I was more secure in my abilities when I did this one so I just sketched with pencil before I started in with paint, but it's floating without a background.


This one has a background.I decided to paint this one without using a pencil lay-in.

So, besides these motorcycles becoming more motorcycle like, I just realized there was a hair on the scanner. Extra points to those of you who can find the hair in each picture! (I guess future personal artistic evolution would include examining the scanner to make sure that there are no hairs.)


Another example: this is an early drawing of one of my dear friends, Michael Montafi. It looks absolutely NOTHING like him. (30 min)


This one is a lot more like him. (10 min)


This one is more developed, but is ultimately not a great deal better than the one above it.
The gentleman on the right is Michael, the gentleman on the left is another very dear friend: Joe Raffanti. Unfortunately, this is one of my first attempts at doing a portrait of Joe and it is lacking in Joe-ness. (20 min)

So, I have decided i am frustrated with technology. I could have rendered this computer in the time that it took me to upload these images. I have to remind myself that I am lucky that I don't have to set the type for these words, but still--This post took me three hours. Perhaps someday I will have a more evolved sense of how to deal with ones and zeros as a medium of communication. Until then, have a beautiful day!