Makeup and Hot Glue Guns

Anyone like lichens?  This is what I've been drawing in the sketchbook lately.

Sketchbook, lichens, Krystal Booth, 2013

After years of drawing pads, sketchbooks, and journals, I have found my favorite one - Crescent RendR No Show Thru Paper Sketchbooks.  The one I'm working out of now is the hardcover 8.5x11" version.  In terms of my excitement about this sketchbook, it can be summed up by the audience member (Amy Poehler) at 2:39 of this Oprah's Favorite Things skit on SNL.

I watched a couple of Ryan Trecartin's videos online this morning and I was certainly entertained, horrified, and completely disoriented at times.  It was as if I was watching my brain's understanding of what went on in my early twenties or what a condensed bad acid trip would be like if there were endless amounts of makeup and hot glue guns.  Trecartin made my morning coffee time seem like an experiment of the mind.  Would my brain explode if I actually made it to the thirty minute mark?  Will I go insane and never come back?

In the end, it just made me want to go play with him and his friends with costumes and wigs overflowing.

If you want to be confused, overwhelmed, annoyed, and entertained, watch these:
http://vimeo.com/trecartin/roamie-view-history-enhancement
http://youtu.be/Z5nclmEYkqk

Freud and Spontaneous Combustion: Influences

I looked up a music video for Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks" today out of curiosity.  The way their eyes appear enlarged reminded me of Lucian Freud's early portraits...but maybe not the way their heads combust into fireworks and fire.  None the less, I'm happily making the comparison.

First, Lucian Freud's early portraits:

And now for the video -

What do you think?  I haven't researched if the videographer meant to make that reference or not, but I think whether or not we intend to be influenced by particular visual images does not matter.  We can be influenced by anything and everything we see without being fully aware.

I've been somewhat struggling to figure out what artists I would claim were influences...there are so many and for so many different reasons.  I think it will be figured out more clearly as my own work matures.  We are all influenced in our day to day lives either negatively or positively, and it's nearly impossible to mentally be present and critically minded about this at all times.  What are you most afraid of sneaking in to influence you, and what/who would you like to be influenced by more?