HIVEMIND

Finally! A new painting! Two in fact! They are available in my shop.

Sometimes there is the feeling of bees buzzing around in my head, so much commotion and noise of thoughts and ideas and fears and worries. All of these bees make so much honey that all the gears in my brain get slower and slower until I break. You have to let the bees fly and the honey fall.

Hivemind Progression

Hivemind, Mixed media on panel, 2012

Companion Piece, Mixed media on paper, 2012

This one has made me think a bit about my tendencies to draw people with no eyes, as well as other things...like why have I always had nightmares about bees crawling into my ears?... But back to eyes! I feel that even though the eyes can show a great amount of emotion, they aren't necessary to do so. A twist of the mouth, the position of hands, the angle of the head and motion of hair all can tell so much about the subject. However, I'm also very aware that I am an extremely shy person. It has taken me years to be able to look someone in the eyes while talking with them, and yet I still awkwardly look around, glancing from their face to the window behind them, down to my hands, back to their face, etc etc. I treat eyes like the sun, take a glance, get the general idea and then quickly look away as if I were to go blind. 

So, I'm taking advantage of my discomfort with eyes to strengthen my use of other facial features and position to get the emotion across. In fact, it could be that very discomfort that is the reason I tend to not draw eyes; I am uncomfortable looking into someone's eyes, and to draw them you really have to look at them a lot. I could even go so far as to say that, in the case of self-portraits, I don't want others looking at me looking back at them.

Although, this painting is a severe example of having no eyes, I already know that the next set I'm working on will be more subtle. Instead of no eyes at all, the figures are more statue-like. These pieces need the extra emotion given by the eyes, but not the direction and complexity of pupils and irises. It'll make more use of the eyelids than the actual eyes behind them.