Humans

Have I mentioned recently how much I like the website Humans of New York? It is just this young guy wandering around New York and taking photos of the humans of new york and asking them some questions about their lives. It is amazing and addictive. What is astounding about the project is how just asking people to tell us a bit about their lives ends up being deeply humane and compassionate and moving, and also so profoundly humanist. It is one hundred percent non-ironic. Fully genuine. So refreshing. In one image and a few lines of text, you see people's lives, and an entire city, laid bare.

Here is a watercolour illustration of one of the photos from the blog. I'd love to get to the point where I can do these things like Wes Anderson's brother, who does all the watercolour illustrations for Rushmore and the Royal Tenanbaums and all those other dvd packages. My stuff is way too awkward and mannered. And the line work and painting is too dead on the page. Maybe I just need to do a bunch more to get over that? I hope I don't have some sort of art-related genetic defect.

As a technical aside, I think that weird splotch on the one pant leg is water pooling while I paint. I think this is really common with people who have no idea what they are doing while painting. I'll figure that out at some point. But I do like the effect of the blue squiggly backgrounds. That feels like some sort of progress. I mean, not Rembrandt or anything. But progress.