Stuck in a Rut - What I've Learned From Frustration

You live in a bubble.

You grow up and learn how to do things.  Expectations and experiences mold you.  The same thoughts travel the same paths in your brain, carving deep ruts they can't easily escape.

Artistically, you live in a bubble.

You solve problems in the same way.  You approach your projects with the system you've designed...a system that is proven to work for you.

The funny thing is, other people may have worked out better solutions to your problems.

I was thinking about this today as I was scratching out a drawing on a piece of paper.  I wasn't pleased with the results, and I didn't know what to do to get the results I wanted.  In a tiny fit of frustration, I found some artwork that is similar to what I had in mind, then imitated the pen strokes.  It helped a lot.

I doubt I would ever have thought to solve my artistic problems in the same way that artist did.

Now I know that I can look for solutions to my artistic problems outside of myself.

This is the definition of "influences."  Who did you look to when you were trying to solve that artistic problem and didn't know how?  Who showed you a different way of doing things?

The beautiful thing is that I'm not teaching you to rip off another artist.  I'm teaching you to expose yourself to new artistic solutions.  Expose yourself to techniques and ways of seeing the world you would never try on your own.  Expose yourself to lots of things, and, equally important, try those things out for yourself.

You can read all you want.  You can look at stuff all you want, but you don't really learn unless you try things out for yourself.

Copy techniques and compositions.  Throw different perspectives into your pot and see what kind of artistic gumbo you come up with. 

To become the best artist possible, you have to get outside yourself.

None of us succeed in a vaccuum, which is a hard to for someone like me to accept.

Animation Test

I'm working on a short animated piece right now.  I thought you might be interested in seeing an animation test.  You have to click on the image to see the animation.

There is a lot of work that goes into animation.  I have to figure out the art style, character designs, and sets.  The style of animation has to be determined.  Music, vocal recordings, etc., etc.

I introduced a glitch into the animation above because we're going for a crude aesthetic.  I think it works.  I may change my mind tomorrow.  Who knows?

More updates to follow.

1 Ridiculously Easy Photoshop Trick

Here is a handy little trick that can breath new life into your digital work.

I drew some zombies, inked over them, and scanned them into the computer:

Next, I applied a little color.  I used a basic, round brush set to "0" hardness and ~15% flow.  I went with a blue theme.

Next, I snooped around online and found a blood spatter texture.  FYI, if you decide to use photographs and textures in your work, be sure you have permission.  That means either you need to take the photo yourself, or you need to find a photo that is licensed for others' use.  Remember, also, that some photos and textures are licensed for personal use, but not commercial.  If you're going to sell your work, be sure you have permission to use the photo for commercial images.

I found a good blood spatter.

This is the same blood spatter applied 2 times.  Put these spatters in a layer above the colors, but below the line art.  I also used the Magic Wand to select all the white and delete it from the blood spatter image.  If you de-select the "contiguous" option at the top after you choose the Magic Wand, you won't have to click on every little white area.  One click in any white area will select every white area on the layer.  You're now going to change the blending mode to "Overlay."  You can find the blending mode option here:

I made the color layers invisible in that image above so you can more easily see what is being done.  Once you complete all the above steps, you'll end up with something like this:

As you can see, adding blood spatter with the overlay mode makes a huge difference.  Feel free to add textures of any kind to your digital artwork for some great effects.  For example, an image of textured paper can be lain on top of your digital painting.  Or an image of paint strokes.  Experiment with different textures and blending modes.  Have fun!

The Great Aggravation, or, Why Life Isn't Fair

Maybe now isn't the best time to write.  I'm seriously aggravated.

And, I'm listening to music.  Rap, even.  Is it wise to listen to heavily lyrical music while writing?  No.

Do you ever spend a lot of time on a project, you like the results, then you hate the same image 2 hours later?

That just happened to me.

The annoying thing is that simplicity and complexity have nothing to do with the attractiveness of art.   Art is compelling or not regardless of its sophistication.  There is often no discernible difference in artistic quality between good looking art and mediocre art.  It's just that one person's collection of lines is more fun to look at than another's.

So, the only way to make compelling art is to keep drawing bad images over and over and over and over...  The worst kind of trial-and-error.

And some kid comes along who makes all the right kinds of lines.  Not because he's practiced more than you, but because he has a particular way of thinking, moving his hand, and thinking about things that cause him to lay down attractive lines.  He's lucky.

End of rant.

Guess some of us have to learn the hard way.

We Hate Art - We Love Art

Artists are creators.

We make things.  We take pride in our ability to have an idea, and bring that idea into existence in the form of a painting, drawing, website, article, or whatever.  Theoretically, creation and creativity are fun and exciting.  Realistically, creation is frustrating; at least, it is for someone like me.

Maybe you're like me.

Idea generation is a skill.  I'm improving, but, for a long time, I haven't been the sort of fellow that comes up with ideas while I'm living.  So, when I need to generate ideas, for a commissioned work or a personal project, I sometimes have a very difficult time deciding what to do.  I second guess myself.  When I decide on an idea and bring it into the world, I'll get frustrated with my execution.  I often miss fundamental errors until I'm finished with the work.  Does this sound familiar to anyone?

For me, then, the entire process is fraught with frustration and failure.

I've discovered that the reason for my frustration is that I have a 2-bit approach to my work.  I either like it, or I hate it.  Success or failure.  Good or bad.

Instead, we can develop, as I've mentioned before, a healthier attitude of curiosity towards our work.  We learn from both success and failure, and always enjoy the process.  It's a process that's focused on discovery.

Why do we love Art?


Because we have the opportunity to contribute.  It feels good to bring beauty into the world; to spread ideas; to be appreciated and respected.

Why do we hate Art?


Because to create is to be criticized, misunderstood, or ignored.  To make art sometimes means to try your best, and to find out that your best isn't good enough.  It may be someday, but not today.

Hugh Macleod has the best advice about making art:  Ignore Everybody.  Do your own thing in your own way.  He draws cartoons on the back of business cards.  He did that for 10 years, just for fun.  Now, he's selling prints and spreading ideas.  Did he ever think that drawing on business cards would become such an important part of his life?  I doubt it.

We can choose to love art instead of hating the process.  We can learn to contribute to the world in our own ways, without listening to the legions of people who don't really know what they're talking about.

We can enjoy the process.  This is your life.  You might as well like it.

New Stuff From the Store

I thought you might enjoy a couple of posters I recently designed.  I dropped them into my Zazzle store.

Celebrate your inner nerd.  Maybe your outer nerd, too.
Good times.

From the Drawing Board

Here's a graphic I made for a billboard recently.

Lessons From the Pen - Interpretation

Drawing in black and white is a special kind of art.

Without all the wonderful grays you can produce with a pencil, making a drawing with 1 color is hard.  At least, it's hard for me.  Maybe it's not for you.

But you can learn some great stuff by working in ink.

One particular lesson I've been learning is that you don't copy an image in ink the same way you do with a pencil.

I was recently asked to draw a portrait of 2 kids.  I decided to work in ink instead of pencil, because I wanted to improve my black and white composition skills.  After a few tries at drawing the kids, I realized something that was tripping me up.  I was trying to copy all of the shading in the photograph with my pen.  That's no problem with a pencil, because you can produce any shade of gray.  But, when you're limited to one color, you have to think of ways to mimic textures and shading without hatching everything.  In other words, to make art with black requires a different interpretation of your subject.  An interpretation that takes advantage of what the pen offers.

Here is what I came up with after several failed tries.  I had previously tried to draw too much - to copy every detail in the image.  By the time I reached this point, I realized that I needed to focus on good looking lines, rather than trying to copy everything.  I was more selective in my interpretation.

If you decide to draw with ink, remember that you can't reproduce everything in nature with one color.  You will achieve better results if you focus on textures and lines that look good in ink.  It's all about interpretation.

With the pen,  make odd shapes.  Use double lines.  Have as much variety of line as possible.

Don't be a slave to your photos.

3 Thoughts on Improvement

You know...getting really good at something takes a long time.

I'm not talking about a few months, or a year, or three years.

I've heard about Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, which apparently claims that success in a field takes around 10,000 hours of practice, or, on average, 10 years.

I don't know about 10,000 hours or 10 years, but I agree that success often takes a long time to achieve.  Getting really good at something takes a long time and a lot of practice.

But that's okay.  How insulting would it be to those people in their various fields if anyone could learn anything in a short period of time?  Besides, the long learning curve of a craft makes it more valuable, both financially and personally.  We despise what comes easily.

Working on my caricature book project has been a love affair with improvement.  I've been improving myself while trying to teach other people how to improve more qiuckly.  So, I have some thoughts on the subject:

Get a Teacher (At Least, Read Some Books)
I'll admit that I romanticize independent learning.  The path of the lonely genius.  That sounds good to me.  The problem is that learning things on your own takes too long.  You'll miss out on better solutions to problems.  You'll get stuck on things that a teacher could immediately point out.  You'll possibly develop bad habits.  Basically, you're just going to cost yourself a lot of time, and who wants to waste that?

Quit being so independent and stubborn.  Learn from other people.  No one succeeds alone.  You might as well embrace that now and save yourself a lot of grief.

Don't Practice on Autopilot
This is a big one for me.  I live on autopilot.  Think while you practice.  Analyze.  Experiment.  Write things down.  Figure out what works and what doesn't.  Root out the bad habits.  Practice deliberately, and you will learn much more.  Learning doesn't have to be an accident.

Cultivate a Curious Mind
This is another big problem for me.  I think in terms of success and failure.  If I succeed I am happy (maybe), and I'm angry if I fail.  A much better way, which I've learned from my friends, is to cultivate an attitude of curiosity.  A person who is curious doesn't get angry if something "fails."  They make a mental note and continue being curious and having fun.  There is no bigger impediment to learning than anger.  Anger causes you to lose lessons.  It causes you to stop working, because your emotions build up like a dam.  Be curious, not angry.

I've learned that, most of all, we need to chill out and enjoy the process.

Man, that's tough.

Pencils - A Primer

Have you ever wondered what differentiates pencils?  I was curious, so I did a little research.

Artist pencils come in varying levels of hardness, which are identified on the sides by a number-letter combination.  When pencils are made, graphite is mixed with clay so that the graphite becomes harder.  The number-letter combination on pencils indicate how much clay has been mixed with the graphite.  Pure graphite is very soft and leaves a black mark.  A pencil will retain a point longer, but leave lighter marks, as more clay is added to the graphite.

Pencils are marked with the letters “H,” “B,” and “F.”  “H” represents hardness; “B” represents blackness; and “F” represents fineness.  The number next to the letter indicates the level of Hardness or Blackness.  “F” indicates that the pencil can retain a sharp point well.  Although there isn’t an industry-wide standard, the #2 pencils that you used in school are typically equal to an HB pencil.

Pencil grades form a continuum that looks like this:

9H  8H  7H  6H  5H  4H  3H  2H  H  F  HB  B  2B  3B  4B  5B  6B  7B  8B  9B

9H is very hard and leaves a light mark on paper.  9B is very soft and leaves a black mark on paper.

Use a B pencil for thicker lines and a HB or H pencil for thinner lines.  I usually sketch with a 4H, 2H, or F.  I have found that an F pencil creates the smoothest shading without picking up a lot of paper texture.  Any pencil above 6B becomes a pain to use because the graphite is too soft and will constantly be worn down or broken.

Loosening Up - A Cautionary Tale of 2 Drawings

I've been working on a book for a while now.

In the book I teach beginners and novices how to draw caricatures better.  I teach drawing techniques and tricks, but, more importantly, I teach people how to think about the process of caricature.

One of my biggest stumbling blocks as a caricaturist is getting loose.

My caricatures can change from lame to great in the span of about 1 second.  It has to do with how free, spontaneous, and loose I am in my approach.  If I'm not in the right mindset, I draw too slowly.  My figures become stiff.  The lines become uninspired.  Why?  Because I'm being too careful.  Because I'm being too slow.

I decided to write about this topic because of an incident yesterday.

I was attempting to draw this guy:

Doesn't he look happy?

My first attempt at a caricature started out like this:

Ugh...barf.  Too similar to the picture.  Too uninspired.  Too boring.  When I'm not in the right mindset I become a slave to the photograph, which is a big no-no.  I quickly got angry, remembered why my drawing turned out the way it did, and started over.

Wonderful!  This drawing is much better.  The lines look better.  The image is funny.  And it has some character.

I drew these 2 caricatures back-to-back.  The only difference was mental state.  It's amazing what a simple shift in your mood can do for your art.

There is nothing wrong with being careful.  There is nothing wrong with taking your time.  The problem occurs when you don't feel free to interpret...when you lose that feeling of whimsy.  Set your drawing hand free, and let it move however it wants.

A New Year

Welcome to my blog.

2010 was a good year.  As usual, I didn't accomplish as much as I'd hoped (who does?), but I'm excited about 2011.  Here's to our continued success.

For my first post, I thought I would share my last commissioned portrait with you.

This drawing is 8x10 on bristol board.  I wanted to make something with a bit of an artistic aesthetic, so I left a lot of pencil texture and white space.  I think it turned out quite well.