Muto's Nice New Year

I wanted to make some really nice Christmas thank-you cards this year. I spent a long time carving this stencil with a dull x-acto knife, only for my plan to fall through for other reasons. Designing the font was quite fun, even though I forgot about the centers of the "a" and "o" falling out.

Thank you for reading. WAY more art to come.

Muto's Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a great holiday. Here are some of my favorite pieces I did in high school:

The first piece is done on scratch board. It is titled "Scribble On My Face" after a Franz Ferdinand lyric. High contrast design is one of my favorite types of art.

The second piece is a monster that evolved from a simple sketch project. A random doodle developed into a complex design which was very fun to paint. It is called "Niminy-piminy."

The third piece is based on a computer generated permutation of different self portraits. I decided to see if I could mimic computer-generated effects with acrylic paint. The process was annoying, but I am pleased with the results.

Which one is your favorite?

Muto's Minis #6

I did this painting immediately after the previous mountain scene. I wanted to play with the concept in a less serious and more abstract way. I added lots of texture to the mountains and turned the clouds into more of a galactic dust. I was very pleased with the result and hope to do more experimentation with the techniques.

Muto's Minis #5

After I finished studying for a test on Sunday night, I still didn't feel like going to sleep, even though it was 3:00 in the morning. I opened my sketchbook to look for inspiration, but instead of an old sketch, I found some prose that I wrote off the top of my head earlier this year. The words conjured up the scene of an empty desert and a sky filled with stars, with mountains off in the distance separating myself for the rest of the world. I quickly got to work creating a dark, evening scene. In minutes I had the sky and mountains completed. Then I decided to add clouds. I have been needing to practice clouds and this is among my first attempts. I really like the versatility of orange and blue. I used some purple on the mountains, but it doesn't show up here.


If you like this painting, I will want your opinion comparing it to the one I will post on Tuesday! I can post the words that inspired the painting. If anyone is interested, just leave a comment.

Muto's Minis #4

This mini was inspired by my bathroom window. Any cogs turning? "She came in through the bathroom window..." I hope this painting is easier to understand than that song.

Several times I have tried to capture on film a fantastic moment that occurs in the bathroom of my dorm most nights at sunset. The sun cannot be seen from the window, so I am not sure how all the colors get there, but here is my guess. The sky turns a dark blue as the sun is setting and there may be a bit of pink at the bottom of the sky. The amazing part is that this pink is made bolder by the red of the tail lights of cars in the parking lot. The blue and pink mix to form a spectacular, easy-transitioning color switch. It is something very hard to achieve with a brush that can easily be imitated with a gradient tool in a photo editing program like gimp. Finally, the overhead lights in the parking lot give off a yellow-orange glow which is diffused through the textured glass of the window, creating little golden specks all over the brilliant colors of the sunset.

I tried to imitate the effect in slightly abstract way in this painting.

Muto's Minis #3

This is one of my oddest experiences so far in the minis process. I started out a bit overzealous with a pencil-drawn, outline sketch which I was planning to easily transform into painted shapes. The lines were designed to represent my frustrated state. I felt trapped in a pit I had covered and camouflaged with my own ignorance and false hopes. I wanted the artwork to look like a bloody, frenzied hand had scratched on the fabric of sanity and the skin of existence until it was too tired to leave any more of its signature of despair.

I didn't quite get that image. Becoming frustrated with displaying my own frustration, I went towards expressing my emotions through disturbing texture and offsetting chaos. This was another experiment with the orange and blue colors I have been playing with recenty. This time I chose bloody reds, fiery oranges, and sickening off-yellows on top of a dark and gloomy blue void. I felt empty and filled with commotion at the same time. The piece ended up lacking a subject, and it looked very confusing. I decided to add an obvious 3D texture popping off the page to give the work a theme. After a short brainstorm, I decided to use a plain, texture medium to write the Chinese character for hate. It didn't fit with the original inspirational emotions, but I thought it would be funny because I hated the piece at the moment. After it sat out of sight for a few days, I liked it when I saw it again.



What do you think?

Do you have any similar stories of an idea evolving completely out of control?

~Muto

Muto's Baby Bunnies

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Now, back to art!

One of the first things I made when I got to college was a set of clay bunnies. One represents me and one represents my girlfriend. I used some old, leftover modeling clay for kids, so the bunnies ears and heads broke off after one week. I still haven't found a way to fix them. I hope to make some more out of real clay soon.



I focused more on the cuteness of the idea of a bunny than actually recreating the animal. The figures I created remind me of Pokemon, but in a good way. There is nothing wrong with kawaii.