20 Paintings in 5 Days

With the last weeks of my school career closing in, and life throwing me some of the biggest speed bumps I'd even encountered, I decided it was time to buckle down and leave school with a bang. I knew it would be a long time until I have a space to devote solely to artwork again, and this might be the last time I see some of these friends. I might as well make the most of it while I have it, right?



I postponed my final critique. I rewrote my proposal for the semester, and I stocked up on caffeine. I knew I was in for a long few nights. The last meeting of class, while other students were stretching their final canvases and adding finishing touches to otherwise fabulous paintings, I was cutting down sheets of stonehenge paper. I was starting a new project, and it was one I would have mocked myself for 4 years earlier.

I had a nice, big stack of 25 pieces of paper, 7x11 inches. Some of them marked up, others completely blank. I gave myself 5 days to completely cover every piece of paper with a finished piece.

Like I said, I was in for a few very long nights, and some hard days in the studio, cranking out one unique piece after another. It was an exercise in scale, finish, and quantity that turned out to be a daunting task.

Midnight in Manhatten

On the last night of NYC, I wanted to go back to Time Square and draw, since I'd wasted a lot of the time I had there wandering and getting lost and just being way overwhelmed. My teacher was a tad bit peeved at me for that bi of a stunt( I hadn't told her I was going...whoops) and I had also spent that entire day wandering by myself as well, I decided it best to stay in and chill out. I found myself on top of a 14 story building in the middle of Manhattan, no more than 3 blocks from Time Square. As the night went on, I had fun watching people in all the open windows, and I noticed that each light that was on was someone that was awake, just like I was.

I pointed this out to the drunk girl shouting obscenities at pedestrians below. Her mind was blown, and she quickly sat down with me to enjoy the night quietly in a drunken, contemplative stupor. She saw a light turn on about 1am, and her mind was blown again.

These were all done with water soluble graphite, and micron pen.