Self Distortion for Clearer Self Reflection

Last night I took my contacts out for the first time in a very long time.  So with these -5.25 optical enhancements that I had slept in so many nights that protein had clandestinely built up to such a level that I was seeing the world as a colorless foggy haze.  Slipping the lenses off my eyeballs felt like pulling off a pair of work-boots off my feet after a long day of construction work; Dorothy opening the door into the land of Oz, slowly stepping out of Sepia-toned Kansas.   My nose so close to the mirror, that the expulsion of air from my occasional laughter fogged up the mirror.  Looking into my own pupils I went cross-eyed.  My left eye and right eye slowly flirting with one another, until each others gravity was too strong and the two crashed together and became one.  With tear-ducts on either side, each iris fit together as a Kaleidoscopic jig saw puzzle; interlaced fingers of lovers’ hands.  My now center pupil slightly shivering in size, despirately attempting to focus.  I was able to look left and right and see the reflected side of my eyeball without it looking back at me.  Concentrating  on this centered third eye I could see my entire portrait reflected on the surface of my pupils, as a stereoscopic photo overlapped, sitting within a never-ending tunnell.  I would occasionally pull my face back and in a blur of form I would appear with 3 eyes and 2 noses.  My 3 eyes appeared so out of focus that their bright blue hue bled beyond their own form as a Melange feind.  I had slipped into a near entheogenic state of color perception.  A film representation of this is in the works, and drawings will be shared of my attempt to represent this state of mind and form i discovered.

In vain I attempted to sleep.  These new ideas of how to draw what I had seen how to best represent my thoughts, like a wild fire burned the dry fields of my mind.  I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.  I sat up still blind as hell fumbled around to find my moleskine and turned my lamp on.  Sitting on my bed I knocked out the self portrait pictured below.  My own sketchbook was out of focus to my eye as it was drawn.  Somehow I was more clearly seeing despite all the fuzz and distortion.  What I thought provided clarity was itself a distortion, a way of seeing false to my natural biology.  The drawing below is one of my first actual drawings in a long time.  The face was my own, yet it was unfamiliar to me.  Things were distorted but I was able to draw with an unfiltered clarity.

Myself without contacts on my eye ballz

ABC II @ Best Buy and Self Portrait

Today Griff Beheler and I recited The Alphabet at a local Best Buy. Here is the video with musical enhancements by Griff.

I also did another self portrait last night. Still managing a partial decapitation but included more body this time.  My self’s (selves?) have been improving. I owe this mostly to getting a “proper” mirror which is large as hell and rests on the floor against the wall next to my bed.  I also have a better light source… before I was usually crammed up close to the bathroom mirror practically sweating from the heat of 5 bulbs lined at the top, little shadow. Now I use a single 1950’s lamp I bought a a yard  sale for 1 dollar u.s. cash money, nice shadows.

Ryan Broughman August 19 2009

Keep an “I” out on Hirst http://hirstdamien.blogspot.com he is publishing a new line of work entitled “BEAUTIFUL INSIDE MY URINARY BLADDER FOREVER” He made a statement here. Machine. “Ugly Outside Your Rectal Bowels Temporarily” or should i play with the opposite of bladder as in holding things rather than a similar bodily function?   “Ugly Outside Your Auditory Tongue Temporarily” I like that much better than my first attempt. But i used MY brain, bummer.  Art?

Another self p no video dis tieeeeme Best Buy photobooth action

 

I recorded the sound of me taking a picture of myself taking a bubble bath.

 

 

 

 

After a good hot bubble bath I did a little self portrait

I’ve been doing a lot of recording with all sorts of media.  One of my wilder things is a little mini tape recorder.  I plan to make a video of me navigating various parts playing specific points fast forwarding and rewinding to them in a planned out arrangement  using the counter as reference.  I’ve been obsessed with recording the “sounds of doing things.”  Last night I recorded the sound of “taking a picture of myself during a bubble bath.”  The above picture is the actual picture.  I am splashing the water and after an introduction of my intentions a camera click can be heard from my virgin mobile crack dealer phone.  Other sounds I’ve recorded are welding, skateboarding, all with proper introduction.  Usually i say something like this “this is the sound of ____.”

Also since I’m, yet again, exploiting the Best Buy Mac island I’ll upload a few photos I found in PhotoBooth.

 

 

Jailbait ?????

 

After a good hot bubble bath I did a little self portrait

I recorded the sound of me taking a picture of myself taking a bubble bath.

Jailbait or hotty????

ABC’s by Ryan B and a little self P step by step

The classic Sesame Street video of James Earl Jones has been a favorite of mine for some time now.  I’ve wanted to do a series based on the recital of the alphabet and this is my first in that series.  My next plans are to do “Heavy Metal” growls and screams of the alphabet using a public computer in Best Buy.  This was done entirely on an IMac at the Virginia Tech Armory’s Mezzanine.  Video was shot using the built in isight camera.  Video was edited with imovie.  Letters created using Adobe’s Illustrator and Photoshop. There is a Pulp Fiction easter egg of sorts and minimal play with typography.  More to come.

Also I did a self portrait using a pencil from a “Auburn Hills Golf Club”  a place that my roommate frequently golf’s.  I took a few pictures with my 50 dollar “crack dealer” prepaid Virgin Mobile phone from Wal-Mart.

Too be blinded is to really see

Discarded Pencil From Auburn Hills Golf Club

Mute and blinded, is to really see

Discarded Pencil From Auburn Hills Golf Club

DE LA BROUGHMAN

Caught mid self portrait

I’ve been caught in the middle of a lot of things by roommates of the past.  What happened this evening may be the most initially embarrassing and difficult to explain examples yet.

 

I snagged this rather large old mirror out of a storage unit in Christiansburg.  I painted the thang sum wild red mixture of my own and it’s been in the basement drying for over a month.  Today I was happy to lug its dry and heavy self upstairs and into the bathroom where I planned on  doing a self portrait of myself scrub a dub dubin’ in the tub.  Well about midway into the sketch my roommate and boss/employer comes home. I had an Isis vinyl spinning and the stereo thumpin’ so I didn’t hear him come in.  So here I am with my legs spread and feet dangling over top of the tub scribbling something fierce on my moleskin that is sitting below the tubline on my lower thigh.  So walking by the open doored bathroom my roommate sees this sprawled out naked little caveman looking at himself in the mirror.  ”BROUGHMAN!” is all I hear and with a splish and a splash I nearly turned the water brown.  Once I was able to contain my laughter I went back to business chuckling a bit throughout till giving up on the drawing.Afterwords I went outside, showed Daryl my sketch and then helped with the lawn to redeem myself.  

I’d rather have been caught in the middle of jerkin it than drawing myself nude.

Wanted to get my feet dangling but blew it up too much

All in all the story and the cell phone capture are better than the self portrait.  I initially wanted to capture my dangling legs , which would explain the pose; however, I blew things up too much.The cell phone picture was an attempt to recreate what my poor roommate walked in on.

 

DE LA BROUGHMAN

The Face of Leonardo

What a fascinating and recently published find of a man that “drew everything around him” but no self-portraits as with other artists… only one is popularly known and it is veiled in controversy.  Enjoy this TED talk by Siegfried Woldcheck who runs through all the drawings Leonardo has ever made to find the face of an icon.

I thought this would be a fine addition to our face steal assignment as we consider the importance of our self-portraits.

WDT

X cream Green

Eye yam Greens

I’ve been watching Paul Stamets lectures and talks for the past 3 or 4 hours now.  I took a art break initially setting out to represent the fruiting bodies of fungi or perhaps more interestingly mycelium; however, I went elsewhere with it and it became a more attentive study than a few of my last more stylized attempts.

WDT mentioned that I may be wondering into more caricature looking representations of myself.  I struck a bit of a different pose to keep things less familiar.  I don’t have a problem with venturing into more abstract or stylized representations of myself, just thought I’d keep myself on my toes.

Broughman

Snake I’s

 

 

My Eyes with Forked Tongues Lie

Started this with a black pen that ran out about the time I got the general idea of the composition down.  I dug around the house and was only able to find a blue, green, another dead black pen and a pencil.  For some reason no black pen in the house wanted to work (silence to the peanut gallery).  So I had to roll with it.  It’s something to come back to and I’m glad I got it on paper, I had been flirting with this idea all week.

My eyes, with forked tongues, whisper to my ears.

De La Broughman

Lost within myself

Today I found myself amongst some serious life changing issues between a good friend and his girl.  So while some serious decision making went down I locked myself in the bathroom and did some doodling to allow them some privacy.  Here is what I doodled.

I Is Looking At Me and You Be Lookins at Meezah

To the Fargodome

I don’t like piss in my cereal.Ryan De La Broughman

Who pissed in my Cheerios this morning.

I don’t like piss in my cereal.

Ryan De La Broughman revisited

So after blowing the fuck up at WDT and wondering if I had made an ass of myself or helped things out I made this little doodle (all the prom queen drama can be seen in the comments of the previous post).   So still fucking fuming about things and having the profound weight of wondering if I fucked up and was too snappy I drew this thing in the hot fucking humid NDSU dorm that smells like crusted workout clothes and mountain dew  A baseball game could be heard in the background and I am nervous about the next round at the dome.  Now I’m off to the Fargodome to coach.  Sorry if i got too shitty towards WDT

You Ours True Lee

DE LA FUCKING BROUGHMAN