robin willis

I love illustrators. They draw to live not live to draw or some other nonsense put forth by  critics, observers and self deluded “fine artists.”

Art is universal. Art is as natural as breathing. It is not rarefied. It is a primitive behavior like laughing or sex.

Look its in my best interest for the stuff I make to become valuable. If it doesn’t sell I will eventually stop. But folks anybody else can do “art. ” I have  just decided to work at it seriously and then market the shit out of it in modern and sophisticated ways. I want this to succeed. I want to do this for a long time and I don’t want stuff piling up in the back room. I like what I’m doing and it’s incredibly personal work but if doesn’t move at a level that allows me to continue on with the process I’ll be doing something else.

Posted from http://lightbox.com

OK… Artists are obsessed with a number of things. Sex, light, how to smoke a cigarette and of course death.

I too am concerned with my own mortality. And God in his infinite wisdom has given me something to worry about. I inherited many things from my grandfather. Curiosity, a goofy sense of humor, obsessions regarding hifi systems and hobbyist electronics as well as rheumatoid arthritis, extremely high blood pressure and astromical cholesterol.

Right now as I type a blood pressure tester cuff is automatically inflating around my left upper arm. I am wearing a portable blood pressure tester. It is designed to record my blood pressure every 20 minutes for 24 hours.

I feel like one of those folks with an oxygen bottle trying behave naturally with hose up there nose.

All this of course makes me want enshrined this event in images. How about a series nude self portraits with my pump slung provacatively in front my nasty bits. I’ll post some studies.

Ok… Cards on the table. Cartas en la mesa. I have lived in Spain mumble mumble years. My Spanish is passably sucky. I can order what I need from the old ladies at the mercado, ok they love me and give me a break… And occasionally peaches that would make a fine baseball substitute… Not too often… But sometimes.

I have to speak Spanish better… mejor… With this idea in mind I am reading a book by this young guy. Benny the irish polyglot. He has apparently learned 147 idiomas in the time it has take me to successfully order a beer. In the first chapter he says to start a blog to document, confirm and celebrate your progress. Benny, if this doesn’t work I will be using this bully pulpit to point out yet another internet snake oil salesman preying on poor old monoglots like moi. Anyway so far it all makes sense… But I’m waiting to read the part about how making the beast with two backs with a native speaker can increase your comprehension by 200%. Benny, dude… If ain’t in there then, number 1… you are not working hard enough and 2… we got nothing to talk about… Because brother more or less this is why people learn other languages. Nookie. Polvo. Le petit mort. It’s not about getting a job at the main Correos in Burgos… It’s about sex. Hopefully this part will be in the next chapter. Personally I would have addressed this in the introduction as well as directly on the cover.

Oh yeah… And I will he writing about my amazing and on going conversion to a incredibly successful artist too. Read on McDuff, read on.

NYT story.

OK… we wanna scan the subjects in 3d as well as in 2d… Sounds good, I had an idea of doing 3d snap shots like 10 years ago… never got around to it. Now there are gadgets that can make this happen (see my earlier post). I tried David Scan because it was 1. more or less free to to try and 2. seemed to represent the “street” vibe we have going on with this project.

So as described I borrow a 8 lb. pc laptop from my buddy Mick, buy a cheap lazer level thang at the hardware store. Like a good boy I read through the manual 3 times and set up a funky little experiment. Web cam check… reference charts check… and laser… nope… on attempting a scan I kept getting this message that said no laser detected. So following my new technology policy… “if I follow what they say to do to the letter and it no worky… 3 times… off it goes. OK it’s not just a Windows thing, I did the same thing with an Apple AirPort Express. 3 times… you’re out of here and back to the store baby.

Maybe it was the size of the lazer or something. Oh well… I guess it’s time to try the Xbox Kinect.

See… I am a unbiased curmudgeon. And yes I have done the linux dance more than once.

Holograms Moving From Science Fiction to Reality – NYTimes.com.

Mark Peters who has the title of Señor Foto on this project just sent me this article on holograms. Holograms are so cool but for me for what ever reason they have this slightly Shirley McClain channeling vibe. But a hologram of a ham sandwich… now that might be interesting.

Nate Lawrence our new friend from Photosynth has dropped a bomb of data on me. Basically I now have all the world’s knowledge about this amazing and I guess more or less overlooked technology. Now you can be an expert too.

http://docs.com/XFO

It’s these odd little incidents that makes these projects worth doing. It’s like starting out to have picnic but making an artificial heart or a rocket ship instead. The duchy of “Happenstance” is my favorite country in the whole world.

We shoot today. Here.

Schedule:

9 am. Figure out what the heck we are doing. 

10am. Light. 

11 am. Kids arrive. 

11:15 am. Shoot. 

1:30 pm. Eat Pizza. 

3:00 pm Maybe shoot some more. 

Drink beer… w/o children. 

Tips from Wes. Thanks Wes. That emotional stuff is so dang messy. 

The capturing of the 2d motion and still components is pretty easy. It’s the 3d thing that is not exactly bolted down. Here’s what we want to do: To capture a 3d scan of a head and face with the same kind of immediacy as grabbing a still with an SLR. Now if we could do some motion as well then all the better. There are a number of devices that can do this:

http://www.artec3d.com/

http://www.noomeo.eu/

are seemingly pretty much the same device.

There is also:

http://www.david-laserscanner.com/

It seems pretty simple. Take a web cam and a lazer pointer and swat it around what you want to shoot. It’s certainly not real time but it might work as a first go. And the price is right… it’s more or less free. We’ll see.