Sometimes I forget that I love drawing. Sometimes I forget that I want to paint. There are even times that I huff and puff about having to design an image with an awesome, inspiring subject. And yet, even with all this terrible-two-year-old attitude, I still stand with my nose in the air, proclaiming that I'm an artist and that I want to work at it full time the rest of my life.
So why all the temper tantrums, grumbling, complaining, and avoiding of work?
Well, I've noticed that if you study something on your own time long enough two things can, and most likely will, happen;
1.) You will get in the mindset that you know what you're doing so you just need to get the job done. In essence, you stop asking *questions. Which makes you miserable, even if you don't notice it at first.
2.) You will keep a curious mind, an explorer's mind, and experiment continually, making educated guesses, relearning the wheel and realizing that there's always something you saw wrong, something you didn't completely see, something you miss interpreted, or something you didn't notice at all. Here you keep asking *questions.
More often than not we end up jumping between the two, becoming stagnant when we don't stay curious, and then eventually turning things around because we realize the loathing we've built up for something that is a part of us, that we used to love. Maybe at times there are good excuses as to why we just "push through" a project rather than open our minds up to the opportunities to ask questions, grow, and learn. All excuses are, however, like what my husband says, "excuses are like butts; everybody has one and they all stink." Some excuses seem very legitimate, and we can always tell how right or terrible our excuses are by how often we give them, and by how important they are in comparison to our goal, project, and future. This is one of the reasons why curiosity and questioning is so important. When we get to the excuses and loathing stage it's like there's a tall stone wall there, difficult to climb and on the other side of the wall is our work. Problem is that it takes so long to get through the scrapes of complaint, the pull-ups of frustration, and the hand cramps of detest that by the time we've made it to the work aspect night has come on and we create a half passable piece of junk in the gloom that leaves us feeling unsatisfied and our understanding of our talents diminished. At times I feel like days pass when I'm in this mindset because instead of even climbing the wall I'm stuck trying to break it down by smashing my head against it again and again.
There is, remarkably, an easier way to go about this whole thing though!
Let curiosity lead you a little, observe your wall, question it's purpose, ignore the idea of climbing it - and head bashing it - and instead enjoy learning about it. You might just find that there are doors, keys, sometimes a friendly guide or two, that can help you traverse the wall and start work on the other side with plenty of light to spare. Suddenly, questions have led you to avoiding what could have been a painful, annoying, and more often than not, pointless ordeal.
Questions move us forward, and not just the questions, but following through with actions. Why is it that some people lean towards certain design elements, color themes connect with emotions, or specific paintings touch people in such a way that they are willing to spend fortunes on them, or the artist devotes all of their time, soul, and energy to a singular style of work? Sometimes the questions that lead to amazing images are very simple, like how does a medieval traveler dress, or what is a realistic shape for a spacecraft so it will actually "fly" through the cosmos? What are marriage customs across the world, and what is happening with the bones and muscles of a human body when they contort in mid air after tripping?
Other questions can control the entire way you make art; Where do I stand as a person in this life? What emotions do I want to send from myself, to image, and to the thousands, or millions, of people that might see it? How do I see color? Do other people see color and values the same way I do?
There are an endless amount of questions, some with solid answers, and others with no answer, and some with multiple or vague answers. It is, after all, an art all it's own; the art of questions.
Going back to what I mentioned before, about studying something on your own time; I have found that even through every class, every school, every article, every opinion, demo, speech, discussion, tutorial, report, and film, nothing compares to what you learn while studying something on your own time because you want to learn about it. For example, I have sat down and watched videos of other painters and read their blog posts, and I have had great epiphanies about how to go about my art. Those tend to jump up hot and vibrant in my mind, like the explosion of molten lava from a volcano. But as time goes on, if I don't sit down and experiment on that epiphany there's a good chance that it will cool over time and slip back down into the deep realm of forgotten knowledge. However, if I take that epiphany, thought, or idea, and sit down, do the research, play with the new materials and mediums, experiment with the value concepts or color combinations, then that molten hot bit of knowledge is discovered, polished, and found to be a gemstone, something that can be, when properly cut and polished even more, worth so much more than just the epiphany it had been. The time we put into something can help make it's true worth come out, whether for good or bad. The only way to know if it is worthwhile or not is to put the time into it.
This is where the process comes in. Just like the stone wall can be a painful process to get through/over, the process of preparing our art, from concept to finished piece, can suck us of all energy, patience, and joy if we go about it without that touch of curiosity. At each step, from initial thought process, through rough thumbnails, to studying histories, stories, elements that might be vital to the image, value schemes, color schemes, maybe other artists to try an understand options and ideas that are similar or have been done well, to photo reference, costuming, lighting setups, finding a way to collect the right models, and then doing more detailed thumbnails from the gathered information, can be a beast to deal with. Let's now add to all of it the experimenting in photoshop if you do, piecing together photo references to have a better image to work from, and then prepping your surface or equipment properly, transferring any images to your work surface, and then slowly starting the process of actually making the art piece.
Yes, it really can be a beast! Lucky for us, we have curiosity and questions to guide us through! Each of these bits of the process are there to HELP not HINDER, so that by the time we get to the actual piece of work most of the hard parts are finished, we can see how our image will turn out to a degree simply by exploring it at it's most basic steps. Like strolling around the base of the wall with interest, finding a key, the door, helpers along the way, and putting forth the energy of the mind, we've simplified and taken control of the situation, asking the right questions where needed and being excited by each little discovery.
Some of my favorite parts of the process are thumbnail sketches, studying, and the photo shoot for reference - which shooting your own photos is waaaaay more fun than looking for similar ideas in stock photos online for hours. Plus it's a legitimate reason to stockpile costuming and write it all off in your taxes.
*To the left are the thumbnail sketches I began with, and they eventually evolved into what is on the right, which gave me direction on what photo reference I needed and ideas on color schemes.
Studying has to be one of my favorite things to do ever. I like to study just about everything, understand it all, and with art that opens so many ways as to how I can use that knowledge. For a specific image I love studying similar illustrations, maybe some golden age illustrators, master painters, or even more modern day artists. Usually this studying is done in regards to their image design, or perhaps their values or colors that are similar to how I want my own image to feel. At the moment I'm trying to slip out of what college roommates and I call the "rainbow vomit" phase of painting. For some it's the right place to be, but for me it screams "I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO WORK WITH COLOR SO I PUT THEM ALL IN AS VIVID AS I CAN!". So studying other color palettes goes a long way to bettering my skills. Plus it's like master studies but all over my own drawing. In this I get to be curious about how other illustrators might paint my images, or better yet, I get to ask the question, "what if I can paint at that skill level?". This allows me to push myself with curiosity giving me energy and focus. It pushes away my doubts by just trying what the question hints at.
Photo reference shoots can be some of the most fun out of the whole process of creating a piece of art. Yes, it can be awkward, you have to work with another person or people, and set up can take time, but I have laughed soooooo much during this part of the process. My models have a great time, I get a ton of new images, some that might be useful for later as well, and more often than not I'm able to make great friendships, or contacts, start, or become stronger, through those photo shoots. On top of all that my curiosity tends to take over; I'm able to see new ways of interpreting my concept, some poses might actually work better than what I had originally thought, and my understanding of how the human body moves is deepened, which is important to my style of work. You can't completely control every aspect of how a photo shoot goes or how a person moves and expresses themselves, so you have to become flexible, allowing the questions to come forward.
YOU CAN DO IT!
I GIVE YOU PERMISSION!
BE CURIOUS!
ASK QUESTIONS!
It's time to mention those two groups I pointed out before, the one that asks questions and the one that doesn't; they are a cycle, but one of them is a trap and the other gives freedom and progression in your craft. You need to recognize when you've put yourself in the trap. The cool thing is that the key to your release is recognition and the courage to let go of your pride, open the door, and walk out to an ever changing world with endless questions and answers.
In the curiosity and willingness to learn is the happiness and excitement to your craft. You don't have to wait until the finished piece, you can have joy in the process now.
*Book suggestion; How To Get Ideas by Jack Foster
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