There's a lot of ground to cover about this project. Sigh. Nothing to it but to do it I guess.
Also warning, this will get pissy and mean because this was written closely to the point of being hurt.
Originally, this art project was meant for nicole. We're not friends anymore. A lot of it is my fault, some of it is her fault as she decided to end things. This concludes my yearly project of making an art piece of her, every year, for a decade. Its a little sad that this art project has ended, but there's not much I can do. I'm replacable and if she wants a picture she can make it her fucking self or ask her numerous friends. I feel so goddamn stupid for giving someone so much love, care and attention and never having the awareness to realize she didn't care. Yeah, I'm supposed to make these to be better at art and to show apprection for someone blah blah blah blah fucking blah. But I was hoping I would get a little more than an HR text telling me to clear out my desk and leave the office by 2. Thanks for letting me know 10 fucking years meant nothing to you, but I hope you know they meant everything to me. Next time you have some sugary sweet words to give out that you don't mean, KEEP THEM TO YOUR FUCKING SELF. DO NOT TELL ME MY ART HELPED YOU THROUGH ROUGH TIMES, THEY CLEARLY MEAN NOTHING TO YOU. DO NOT TELL ME YOU APPRECIATE ME AND VALUE ME. YOU PROBABLY READ THAT FROM A BOOK! I HATE TO BE THE ONE TO TELL YOU THIS BUT WORDS AFFECT PEOPLE. EVEN THE NICE ONES! FUCK.
I originally met Kaitlyn at Sonic. We were kinda friends there. She was always in some kind of weird drama and was still a teen so I always kept her at arms length knowing, naturally, we were mostly incompatible. One week, she leaves to go to Disneyland and comes back with souveniers. She asked if I wanted the backpack to which I said yes. Long story short, I do not get the backpack. Calvin, our creepy manager, gets the backpack. I'm totally pissed from there and I let her know I didn't appreciate that and I proceeded to block/unadd her from my socials. She later apologized and corrected her behavior. Its rare I get an apology for being wronged but even more rare for the apology to be followed by actual change. I don't take that lightly.
I don't hold it against her about the backpack but these days she's expressed regret over letting calvin have it.
The timeline is blurry from here but we semi-regularly message each other, go to partys, shopping, parks, etc; and our bond grows.
2020-2021 was a horrible time to be alive. That said, she was regularly there for me during my lowest points. I am so grateful for her. I think she knows that, hence why I don't feel lingering guilt to remind her.
During a 2020 Christmas party, I drunk texted Kaitlyn. I try not to message people when I'm under any kind of substance but this time was an accident. There were a lot of embarrassing details in there I don't care to share but during that event I texted the words, "I love you." Those words were not a mistake and I never took them back the morning after. I am bad with those words. I don't tell my parents those words or anyone in my family that (except for Grandpa). I have a rule about never telling people nice things, compliments, or 'I love you," unless I absolutely meant it. It was somewhat liberating telling her those words. Its also nice that we can regularly express those words with each other.
I think its safe to say I care about Kaitlyn. I care about her cats, Rubi and Remy. I care about her life and wellbeing. Of all the important people in my life, she's right below Stef, which is pretty high up given how high a bar Stef has set. That said, why haven't I made art of her. Well, we did have one idea. Its private so I won't type it but Kaitlyn needs to be ready before I even think about that one. A worse friend, and person, would have never shut up until they got to do it. Anyways, this year I have two vacant spots for Super Projects. Given how important Kaitlyn has become to me, she's more than earned the spot. She understands the yearly obligation and didn't require much convincing so now she's in.
This piece is inspired by nicole's stupid disease. I'm not calling nicole stupid, she's quite smart, but her disease is totes stupid. I took plenty of notes during our time in the park when she vented about it. Before I even applied pen to paper, I made sure to ask. According to nicole, she was never good at translating ideas/concepts to art. She has expressed frustration that with this disease, she's never made good art from it. With her permission, I tasked myself with the difficult job of tastefully depicting this disease that's ruining her life. The key takeaway here is tension, the idea of tension and constantly being under tension. Muscles never push, they only pull when prompted. Muscles are long stringy tubes with striations. The more tension applied, the denser the striations. Now there's an idea, a great idea even!
Here are some scrapped ideas from worst to best.
1:Nicole is lying on the ground and the view is from above. Ideally she would be on a blanket. I would draw her as usual but the folds of the blanket would be harsh, fast, and aggresive, creating a contrast with her general peaceful look. It was an okay idea, but doesn't quite translate what I need it to.
2:In a corner of the piece would be one of those burnt out film frames that would imply where nicole is. She would have a look of overall panic. The rest of the picture would be a home (or apartment) caught on fire. Its simple but to the point regarding her overall health. It was almost too simple. I mean, who among us hasn't been in a point of conflict that's felt like being trapped in a burning house?
3:This one would have gotten a definite, "no," but luckily our friendship died before this ever got brought up. She mentioned how her back was the part that was affected the most and was even somewhat toned as a result. That said. I wanted an intense black and white picture of her facing away and only her back and curly hair are present. I would go for some intense detailing and the background, uh, I didn't get that far. But man would that have been something!
The idea itself was genius, but since nicole would be unavailable, I decided to recycle it with Kaitlyn. College and her day to day life can be quite stressful and it's had its way of affecting her too. Tension. Perfect. The idea is back to life. There's more nuance to this but I will only share it at Kaitlyn's approval.
So, what's the style really? How does it work? Glad you asked. Earlier I mentioned muscles and how they worked, unless you skipped to this part of the page and read nothing from above. If that's the case, impressive! Anyways I wanted to depict stress and tension. Straight lines are really good at showing unease, so I'm going to do that exlusively. The person would be filled with "muscle" segments, like a puzzle. For darker values, add more striations. For light values, less. The outline that houses the striations MUST be thicker than the striations itself. This whole thing falls apart otherwise.
One of the eye's has no values because it looks cool. The ring would lack value. It's a subtle jab at all of nicole's empty, words she's given me. The ring finger would have contrasting striation directions compared to the rest. This is regarding how much of a flake I view nicole.
Originally it was going to be a full body but I was having difficulty caputring the specific pose/proportions. I never got it right and for the sake of time, I had to pivot to making a portrait. The portrait reference shots were taken last. They weren't in my original plans but I figured I may need a back up since the photots were taken as late as November. Also Kaitlyn completely nailed the whole, "modeling," thing.
This wasn't difficult in the traditional sense, just time consuming.
I started with a light pencil outline. My markers of choice was from a brand called, "Super Black." They were real troopers for this project. The markers were also chosen because they were part of nicole's last birthday gift. I really wanted her to have "the good stuff," as she told me she was trying to get back into drawing. She's doing digital anyways so she can throw it out for all I care.
I started with the lips and teeth. This is the easiest part to screw up. If I was going to make a big mistake, I wanted it to be there first so I would know when to stop and restart. Luckily, it went well. Earlier in the year I practiced the technique to less success on Louis Armstrong's lips. That was before the concept was "finalized" so I won't be too hard on myself there. Once the lips were done, I had no real issue from there. I would pick a spot and work on it whenever I could. At work, at home, at open mic events, anywhere that had a flat surface. I just had to make sure various values and segments all went one way and that it visually made sense when connected. I love working myself until I feel like I'm dead but this was, again, surprisingly easy.
(I have no idea how to make the image smaller but also like, I feel one has unique perspective with how magnificent this piece is with the extreme close-up.)
Wow. I really outdid myself with that one. I am really satisfied with how went. Kaitlyn and everyone else seems to overwhelmingly like the project too!
After reviewing what I wrote about nicole's project from last year, and viewing the overall trajectory of our friendship from the rearview mirror, I think this may have been inevitible. I remember for years I couldn't even see her in person. I actually forgot the sound of her voice. Do you know how dead in the water a friendship needs to be to forget someone's voice? But I have a bad habit of not knowing when to quit. Friendships, especially long friendships are important to me. However, I don't think it was ever that important to her. I barely found out this year she had a cat. I barely found out last year about her disease. Hell, before 2023 (I can't prove it but I know its true) she would only read/respond to half of my texts. Like, literally, if I sent a message, only half of the message was read and acknowldged. Am I crazy for finding that frustrating?? She was one of the first people I told about my grandpa and she had no memory of it until we met up in 2023. And I always kept these messages brief too because I didn't want to waste her time and knew she was busy. That was also an issue, I always felt like I was wasting her time. Not intentionally, but between everyone else in her circle and in her life, I never fit in. I remember being so frustrated one year that she couldn't get the photo reference three times over because her friend didn't show. I volunteered but nope, no good. Eventually she took the reference shot herself and it fucking sucked and made the project more miserable than it needed to be. I don't think I was asking for a lot? If I couldn't even see her once a year, if I couldn't find out basic details of her life, if she couldn't even have attempted to talk things out with me at the party before things went bad, honestly, how much of a friend was she really? And finally, I think it was genuinely fucked up of her to call our friendship unhealthy and not elaborate on it at all. What was unhealthy? The fact that I cared about this 10 year long friendship. Getting sad over it ending? Being happy it was being rekindled? I let you into a secret, intimate part of my life and this is all you read into it. Fuck all the way off. I mean it. I don't want to make art of you anymore. I don't want to share my music. I don't want to show you funny memes. I don't love you anymore.
This was likely one of those really awful things disguised as a good thing life likes pepper in. Kaitlyn always rememebers my birthday. We constantly send each other funny memes and videos. We've watched funny movies together. We can talk openly about our lives and feelings. I've seen Ruby and Remi, she's seen Butterball. Isn't that what a friendship should be? Yeah, it sucks losing nicole but honestly, there really wasn't anything left. I deserve better and she's not it. From now on, I'm giving her the benoit treatment. She will be erased from my life going forward and we are never to acknowledge her again. Yeah, that sounds about right.