The end of pretty: My own artistic style

"Cotton Candy". Watercolor. Original Art by Zander Esteban

A sense of me

I like making people laugh. It is one of things that - based on my observation - I do effortlessly. I like seeing people be happy and laugh at my jokes and at the things I do for fun. I particularly am fond of irony and sarcasm. One friend told me I was so good at doing it, that sometimes it confuses her if I am joking or I am being serious, which makes her uncomfortable sometimes (which I find funny; is that too much?). This is me in the real world, a hilarious and spontaneous guy. But, when it comes with art, I am different. I like to think that art is a vessel of things or emotions that you can't or don't usually show in real life. Being a firm believer - firm-ish - of the zodiac, I believe that as a Gemini, I will, and always be two-faced. I am not just the happy, spontaneous guy, there is another side of me that is dark, and mysterious. I take that and apply it to my art, but with my craft I don't hide the other side. I show both sides, creating a unique character. A character that is hilarious and dark, comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. That is my kind of art. In the words of Beyonce (non-verbatim): "I like to make something pretty, then mess it up. That's what makes it mine." That's what I like to do. Like my humor - the irony and sarcasm - I like making people a bit uncomfortable, in the sense that they feel confused as to what to think about my art. I would like to make them think, "It really is pretty, but also vile at the same time. I like it."

ART: Pigments that uncovers our HISTORY

Art has not just been a product of leisure, but also, it has paved the way for learning about different cultures, behavior, people, and certain eras of our world. Ever since the cavemen painted the walls of their cave with dirt and charcoal to depict their day to day life, artists from different parts of the world and walks of life have also used art as a tool voice out their feelings and to tell the world of what event was happening during that very instant. From the aristocracy of the kings and queens, the beauty of their gods and goddesses, to graphic depictions of death. Visual art has been a substitute to the words of Herodotus and other historians. Art allowed a more vivid depiction of life before, helping us - the people of present time - to dictate a future ahead of us. Art let us understood their way of living. With its many forms, such as visual arts, literary, and the performing arts, we were able to study the past in 360 degrees. Art was a supplementary tool for historians to decode the mysteries of the past. They used the different masterpieces the artists of the past left us. Only with art we were able to have a clearer understanding of the olden days.

The colors and pigments that the artists used may reveal to us the metamorphosis that our civilization has gone through. When cavemen first discovered fire by clashing two stones together and/or by using wood as a fuel for fire, the pieces of heated wood became their first tool. They created their very first medium - charcoal. They used black to smear the cave walls and draw their day to day life. These cave walls became the diaries of the cavemen, an account that verifies their existence. The ancient Egyptians - one of the first ever civilizations of the world - thrived beside the river Nile, where they cultivated many plants, such as papyrus - which later on became paper. The ancient Egyptians knew what art and beauty was. They created pyramids that were perfect and would endure hundreds of thousands of years. They painted their textiles with the paint that they harvested from the plants they cultivated beside the Nile. For them, painting was highly symbolic. They only used a palette that contains six colors, namely, red, green, yellow, blue, white, and black. The Greeks manufactured the lead white, which they used to paint the walls of their houses that face the heat of the sun. Vermillion was mined from Spain, and was used by the Romans to paint their statues. It also determined one's wealth, as it was once used by the wealthy people of Pompeii to paint their houses and its decors. Women of Rome used vermillion as pigment for their lips.

As time goes by, people would find more resources to create art with. They did not resort only to the plants but also, they found colors in the minerals of the earth. During the medieval times, red ochre, yellow ochre, umber, and lime white were essentials for your palette. In addition to the azurite, ultramarine was also an important part of creating medieval art. Egg tempera painting was also a fad during this era. After the dark ages, art underwent a rebirth. Egg was replaced by oil. Artists were able to paint artworks that are everlasting. The factor of permanence became important. They were able to use the actual medium as a time capsule, after finishing an oil painting, this meant that this artwork is already sent to the future. Every artwork sent a message and artists were particularly keen about the messages they wanted to send. Many artists painted portraits, both clothed and nude, to send out what might be a picture of how they look like, and their way of living. Many aristocrats commissioned a painting of themselves. Art was not just exclusive as they might have realized it's power. Art grants the power of immortality. Great artists such as Michelangelo and Da Vinci painted religious scenes, and scenes that were from religion.   The renaissance was the shining beacon of light that signified hope after the dark barbaric times. And the baroque was the penultimate evolution of this era. Baroque was extremely outrageous when it comes to details. Rich and opulent colors became more evident in the artists' painting.
The modern age of art welcomed ready-made paints that were products of chemical experimentation. They also started to manufacture watercolor cakes as watercolor painting became popular during these years, especially among the wealthy. Art started to become a leisure and less of an obligation to preserve culture and to document life literally. Concerning the artists' choice of palette, the modern age of art was the turning point from the Renaissance to the new palette of the modern art. The contemporary age's most important creation was the acrylic paints.

Here is a documentary by BBC called 'History of Art in Three Colors' they uncover history using art. And in this episode they use the pigment blue to map out history.

 

Reference: Pigments through the Ages

The Deafening Sound of Silence

Absolute Silence. Equals a world without us.

Imagine a world without sound. A day when you wake up to a world where nothing produces sound. Not where you are deaf, just that there's nothing there to hear.

Can you handle the deafening sound of silence?

Sound adds color to our lives. If there was no sound, then we would not probably appreciate most of the things. Life would be very bland and boring. Like toast with no butter. From music, to the voice of your loved ones (and those of the people you hate too, because why not?), to, say, the sound of the wind hitting the grass, making them rustle. Sound sorts of verifies the existence of these things. Things just doesn't seem to be real when there's no sound. And with that said, we could infer, that sound equals life.

But what about those that not produce sound, are they instantly dead? Is silence equivalent to death and/or lifelessness?

If you could say that something is silent, does that mean that you can hear silence?

Silence is just a term coined to the lack of vibrations that produces sound or there maybe vibrations but they are at low intensity, not enough to be audible. But that's just physical silence. Is it possible for us to live in a silent world? For me, it could never be possible, UNLESS we are all dead. Because if we are all dead, there would be no one to hear the silence. 

There is no such thing as pure silence, because humans have an amazing ability to talk to themselves. Our brain never rests in silence. During the day, when we are awoke, our brain tells us what to do. What foot should you step out of bed first. These things doesn't just happen. Our brain has a voice that tells us, and we hear it unconsciously. During the night, when we are asleep, our brain keeps on running too.

Living quietly make sense, if you're thinking about the 'living in the middle of nowhere' quietly. But living in a silent world or living silently does not really make any sense, because putting the words 'living' and 'silently' together in a phrase would create an oxymoron, except that it kind of doesn't really make any sense. We are never silent, because our brain works 24/7. The only moment that we can live silently, is if we are dead. But how can you live when you are dead?

But whatever lies beyond silence, would drive me insane. If there would just be no sound at all, like, not even silence, would kill me. Like a lucid dream, except it's more like a 'lucid death'. You are dead but you are still able to experience things. And you experience, let's just cal it, 'metaphysical silence.' That would probably drive me insane.

And that day, when you wake up to a world where nothing produces sound, where you are not deaf, just that there's nothing there to hear, would never happen.

Because you are dead.

A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

No matter how many words are out there. No matter how thick your dictionary is. Now matter what you say. Nothing will ever say as much than a photograph, or an image, a picture, a symbol.

Made popular by the band Bread's song, the idiom "A picture paints a thousand words" has only one meaning, a picture tells a thousand stories, and the reason why? Probably because a picture is open to more interpretation than words. Words are pretty direct, they mean what they mean (No means no for example -- remember this!) but when they form a thought or a sentence, that's just the time where it gets pretty interesting. BUT a picture, just a plain picture could be a symbol to one thing. That's why visual arts (paintings, drawings, illustration) is very interesting, because it allows us to gives us our own meaning to it. The artist may have another interpretation of it, and you/we as the public/part of the public may give another. Let us take Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci for an example.

MONA LISA. A simple caption would have sufficed.

For years and years, a painting of a woman for which they said to be named Lisa del Giocondo has been boggling the minds of artists all over the world. It has been and continues to be the greatest mystery of the art world. Who this woman is, why is she positioned like that, what is hiding behind her mysterious smile, and what is his part in da Vinci's life for her to be painted by him (Oh, and of course WHERE IS THIS WOMAN'S EYEBROWS?)

Different artists (and of course the public) have different interpretation of the said painting. Many have even said that Mona Lisa and da Vinci are basically one, even creating evidences of said theory. The smile, which seems to be innocent and inviting, has kept everybody thinking. There are a lot of theories surrounding this painting and the woman behind it. There is also a theory that she was an alien that came from Jupiter (that one I totally made up heehee)

Mona Lisa has been regarded as the  "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world." (accdg. my friend Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). This strongly supports the idiom "a picture paints a thousand words." Many people have made a lot of literary works, piece of art, that centers around their own interpretation of the painting of Ms. del Giocondo. 

Pandora's Mouth: The Power of Words

IGNORANCE isn't really BLISS

Remember that Greek story. When the first woman, Pandora, was handed a box (or a jar) and she wasn't allowed to open it, but she did not follow 'cause she think she bad, BUT SHE AIN'T. So she still opened that box and unleashed all the evils of the world. Thank you, Pandora. You just gave the world what it needed the mosit, sickness, debauchery, and just pure, cold, evilness.

WORDS, might be the reason of all the evils of the world.

So, what does this have to do with the power of words thing? Well, I was thinking of a good post because I really don't want to JUST make one. And I was thinking, what's a good representation for how opening your mouth and not thinking about what you're going to say? And then I remembered that Greek story.

I believe that words can be very powerful. Words can bring peace, or start a war. But what I came to realize is that, WORDS, might be the reason of all the evils of the world. Because sometimes some people just can't contain their opinion and just respect one's belief. People say a lot of offensive things without even knowing that it's offensive. And that's the saddest thing. People don't even think of what their going to say. People are basically clueless, like Pandora. They are not educated about things that they say.

With the use of those words, you are fueling something more harsh, something bigger, something that causes people to die.

I'm not gonna lie, I was one of those people before. I used to say words like, that word some call women that levels them to a dog. Or that one which -- weirdly, some just say it for no apparent reason -- was used to call people from Africa that were brought to the United States to be a white man's slave. But then I was educated about this (YOU SHOULD BE AS WELL) and now I whenever I see/hear people say those words, I cringe. Then I feel sorry for them because sometimes they just say it to seem "cool", or "hip" and all these things that they think they can achieve if they say these words. Little do they know that RACISM and SEXISM, exists, and STILL EXISTS because of these words. With the use of those words, you are fueling something more harsh, something bigger, something that causes people to die.

There is only one obvious reason for this to happen. IGNORANCE. If people would only think about what they're going to say, and people would value other people's belief, then we might finally find peace in this world. Because if Pandora only listened, gave things a thought, and applied, then the evils of the world might not have existed, or exists. Some people might say "Oh it's just words, it doesn't really matter" but I tell you it's not. If we use words that are offensive, then are just opening more doors for more evil. These things that we can't see, they are the ones who leave a deeper cut.

You are Pandora. You have destroyed the world. But remember that there's still one thing that is left to fix what you have done.

What is that thing you ask?

Hope.

and of course stop saying these words. Use 'yo head! Think before you speak.