Soyez Artistique

The Changed Face of Illustration

2009-11-07T15:45:00.001-06:00

Yesterday our Professor took my class to my University's Graphic Arts Collection and we looked through piles of illustrations dating between the 30s and 50s. I'll admit that my classmates and I were perhaps a little to concerned with the out-dated culture (we were cracking up over every cheesy caption and blatantly racist notion that reared up--and there were plenty) but putting that aside it was still a pretty remarkable experience. As Doug (the professor) pointed out, the illustrators of that period had to do a lot of problem-solving in order to create the works that we saw. They were pretty much working in a relatively young and unappreciated form, that had to be produced under a wealth of limitations and restrictions.

Many were forced to work in limited color palettes while all had to view space in ways that "fine" artists did not. Their images were required to draw a reader to a story, but not stand in for it. They could not just create "art for art's sake" or produce images that were in anyway vague. The images served a purpose and that was to support the text, not dominate it. Art was suddenly married to and secondary to the text when before text and image had existed as separate entities.

It's amazing what the illustrators produced under these conditions. Incredibly beautiful works of art, that yes--made me want to read the stories just to find out their contexts--but alas I did not have the time. Luckily enough they are still stand alone pieces, and it's really easy to get lost staring at them.

Although, I don't have a copy of any of the pictures I saw firsthand yesterday, I did stumble upon Today's Inspiration, a blog that features illustrations from the 40's and 50's. It exposes a wider range of artists than I witnessed yesterday, although nothing beats seeing art firsthand.

What I want to take away from these images, however, is not just how beautiful they were or how much the artists had to overcome to produce them, but rather the changing face of illustration in the few decades that have come since. Once illustration could only be distributed through a "primitive" print system consisting of limited colors and limited space. It was viewed by a comparatively small and presumably literate audience who could afford those publications. Most people saw those works in context, and often illustrators' names were prominently featured next to their works. Now illustrations are reproduced on and often exclusively distributed through the web. People find them out of context more often than not or in context but in languages in which they may not be literate. Many times there is no artist attribution. The creators have limitless space, limitless color, and almost limitless ways to produce their illustrations.

I can't help but wonder what these changes ultimately mean to me as an artist. Have things become easier or harder because of new distribution and production methods? Is what is being produced and shown today as good as what audiences were seeing sixty years ago? How does one determine this? I guess my biggest question is in seeking out methodologies by which to approach and/or judge my work, where do I turn: to today, yesterday, or an as-of-yet undefined combination of the two?

"Exploding in Vinyl": Studying a Work of Niklas Lundberg

2009-11-05T23:29:00.001-06:00

I came across the work of Niklaus Lundberg several months ago--presumably back when I was reading Computer Arts with a religious regularity, though I can't be completely sure. Either way, his work stands out to me and it's certainly inspirational in its own way.

This image is perhaps my favorite of the works I've seen thus far. I find that it's often hard to put into words why a piece of art works--and in fact I have been doing a lot of interesting reading on the subject. But my goal with this--and similar entries to come--is to begin to understand and communicate the strengths and weaknesses of a piece, that way I am better able to assess these ideas in my own work. If I've learned one thing from writing, it's always to surround yourself with the masters. You may not be one, but if you study them with open and curious eyes, it's easier to become one.

So, Niklas Lundberg--I'm not sure how many people would consider him a master. Truth be told he is a young illustrator/designer, and what he has now is probably nowhere near what he will create with more years under his belt. But this doesn't stop this piece "Exploding in Vinyl" from standing out.

What I love most about this piece are the many textures that grace it. From the ridges of the fragmented vinyl, to the tiny warped lights that touch here and there. Though the image makes direct reference to music through the fragmented pieces of records, it doesn't immediately call to mind music, but light and space. Perhaps it is the washed out yellow that bleeds from behind the fragmenting figure and disintegrating pieces of vinyl, reading almost like a sun floating in space. Or maybe it is the blackness that surrounds it, seeming like a black hole that has begun to swallow the nearby celestial bodies. Either way, it seems to reference astrology without directly calling it out.

The little touches of saturated color that define the records' labels draw the eye, reading like pleasant surprises among the sea of blackness. It is certainly a good idea on Lundberg's part to add them, else the fragments would get lost, reading less as hundreds--perhaps millions of little pieces, and more as a slightly disjointed mass. It calls attention to the fact that there are many records here, some more or less fragmented than others.

What is interesting is that the figure that is exploding in vinyl, as the title suggests, reads as merely as black and white, although a closer look reveals a tinge of purple on the sleeve. It is rather static compared to the rest of the piece, and in fact the body's forward lean reads as a little foreign compared to the rest of the image. It stands out--though not necessarily in a good way. More in the sense that it is disjointed, and not necessarily a part of the rest of the piece. It seems surrounded by a line that creates a division rather than an integration. But perhaps this is what Lundberg wanted, a body that doesn't belong, morphing into something that does.

The image tells the story of a young man who has surrounded himself by music and has allowed it to consume him. He is a serious music connoisseur--one who doesn't care about catchy hooks and pop melodies, but rather the taste and feel of noise. He obsesses over the quality and faithfulness of the sound, ventures into the world of obscure artists, geniuses, and revolutionaries and surrounds himself with multiple formats of the same song and/or album--but vinyl is his favorite.

This image doesn't read as something literal. The music lover doesn't suddenly explode with albums, overcome by its shear power. Instead this is his world, a metaphor for the way he has been consumed by sound. Music reads like fragments in his head, pieces of noise constantly surrounding him. He is unconcerned by anything else in life but the sound. Perhaps this is why it is so easy to liken the scene to a black hole. The vinyl is his black hole, sucking him in so that this is the only thing that exists.

"Exploding in Vinyl" is a beautiful work, that displays the possible talent to come from Niklas Lundberg. He is a young artist yet, and I am certainly eager to see what is to come. For more of his work, take a look at his online portfolio, diftype.com.

Starting at the Bottom

2009-11-04T23:13:00.001-06:00

I'm still trying to figure out if I'm successfully making my way through art school, or if I'm just disillusioning myself into believing that I've made any progress. The professors have established a coded way of delivering information to us. We don't know our grades, we don't know if we're getting any better at we're doing,--hell--we don't even know if they take the slightest pleasure in what we do. They hand out the assignments, give us advice as we move along, and, when the day to turn in our work rolls around, they deliver generalized commentary and then tuck our work away to be discussed at a later date. How overwhelming that will be, when they pull our stuff from their hidden chests, hang it up upon the walls and ask us how we think we did all semester.

Six professors in one room, ready to let loose after an entire semester of holding back. One shudders to think.

I'm pretty sure I'm at the bottom of the curve, and it's really hard not letting that get to me as I try to move forward with my other projects. That's the thing that we all have to learn to do--move on. I'm okay with the fact that I'm not the best, and even that a lot of my stuff is pretty crappy--it's just the part about being surrounded by amazing artists and designers that gets to me.

Fortunately I stumbled across the article "I'm the Worst Designer" a month or two back, and it has been extremely encouraging. The video to which he links is a particularly important part of the read--so I don't recommend skipping out on it. It touches at many of the things that I and, I am sure, many of you have been feeling as we try to make our way through this highly competitive and very large world. I highly recommend that you read it, even if your focus isn't design or even art. This applies to a lot of professions where one is responsible for creating--whether it be writing, filmmaking, or even engineering. We must always remember, that every great artist had to start out somewhere, and that somewhere was never on top.

Taking Control of Time

2009-11-02T19:26:00.001-06:00

One thing I've learned as I get further into the year is that time management is the key to survival in this major. Truth is, even if you spend every waking hour working on your project you will find that you've run out of time before you've gotten midway through. And you can complain about how slow you are, or how there's not enough time in the day, or that the professors have unrealistic demands on you, but truth be told that's not going to get you anywhere.

Unfortunately, time management is a surprisingly elusive thing to many artists--well people in general. Part of the problem is we have no sense of time. Many times we're so caught up in the pleasure of perfecting this piece, or adjusting that line to just right, that we forget that the seconds and minutes pass much quicker than we realize. You work a tiny tweak, look up, and see the clock's moved ahead a full hour. Often in my case I'll start working on something at 5:00 pm and realize that it's 3:00 am when I thought only thirty minutes passed. *sigh*

I've started trying something that has been fairly successful for me in the past few weeks. I look at the clock and tell myself, okay, this needs to be done by such and such time--usually a space of fifteen minutes to an hour. Now, that of course doesn't refer to an entire project, but whatever moving parts I need to make in order to add up to a whole. This means, if I'm making a large-scale poster I will tell myself, "Okay for the next fifteen minutes you will work on the typography, and after that you will work on cleaning up these images for an hour," etc., etc. This acknowledgment of time has me looking at the clock regularly, making sure that tomorrow doesn't creep up on me. It's also making me realize how much time it takes me to work through certain tasks--which in the long run is helpful considering I know which quick and simple details can be saved for last and which "simple" details should actually be done sooner and with more consideration.

The downside is, of course, that I often feel like I could do so much more to a project if I just gave myself a little more time, and it's certainly and effort for me to tell myself, "Okay, times up. That's all you're allowed to do." But in the grand scheme of things, it's better to have a cohesive work with several well-worked out details than a chaotic, last-minute pile of crap that has only one elegant element. Plus, if I finish early I can always go back and try to perfect the work as a whole.

Ultimately, I must remind myself that these projects are only school fair. Yes, some of them may end up in my portfolio one day, but that is my decision and not my professors. My professors don't expect these to be an accurate representation of what I am capable of, but rather a way for me to learn so that I may improve as a designer and/or illustrator (my path is currently up in the air).

Learning to Draw Better

2009-10-30T17:23:00.003-05:00

Today I asked a friend, "What is the best way to get better at drawing?" This has been a concern of mine for quite some time. Now I no longer take drawing classes, and in fact though my major (Communication Design) supposedly requires no drawing skill at all, I often feel at a loss because I do not have the basic skills. I can draw moderately close to accurate, and quite well if given the right amount of time--the right amount of time being a couple of hours if not days (which it seems to be of late). This is completely useless when your professors want several neat, readable thumbnails in less than two days. I've learned long ago that I am the only one who understands my thumbnails, so I've been working at making them neater and more composed. Unfortunately, this is tedious (near impossible) when I have to erase every line I've made every minute or so.

And now my professors have told me that though I intend to go into the design track of my major I seem to be leaning more toward illustration. It seems that I treat text and composition the way an image-maker would and am completely clueless about the design aspects. It's ironic, considering I am incapable of creating images, yet I do find myself spending a large amount of time considering and making them.

So, I asked my friend the best way to become better at drawing. Understand this question was aware of the obvious answer--practice--and was aiming more toward how does one practice. Her answer is so simple and obvious (in fact I even came to the same conclusion last night) that I'm a little angry at myself that I never actually tried it. Simply put: look at the images that you like, and do your best to recreate them.

This is after all the way that we learn. Even the most basic functions are acquired through emulating the world around you. Walking, talking, writing--even reading--all come from several sessions of watching/hearing someone else and making yourself do the same to the best of your ability.

This of course will take some time and I will have to be patient with myself, but I think the effort will be worth it in the long run. I recall the year I struggled through Drawing 1 and 2 and it's amazing how much I grew from one end of the year to the other. It may be slow and subtle at first but it will happen.

The Benefits of Failure

2009-09-06T12:55:00.000-05:00

For the past week and a half I have been settling into my classes, and in the process discovering something new about myself. I've always thought that I was at a huge disadvantage to my classmates, having spent exactly one year actively pursuing art to their many. And though it's true I am not on the same level as they are, I have found that I have a certain very valuable advantage over them: I do not mind failure.

I spent so much time in the past fretting over my work, trying to make everything as perfect as possible and afraid to show people anything until I thought it was close enough to perfect--which it never was. My process was slow and deliberate, making production limited and I was always devastated when I discovered that my final product wasn't graded consistent with my level of attention.

I'm not sure how it happened, but over time I finally overcame it. I am able to say to myself, I am not perfect, my work is not perfect, and all I can do is learn from my mistakes. So when I fail, I don't take it personally. I look it over, see what was the problem and avoid making that mistake again.

There is a reason why almost every art professor starts off the semester telling you to "become comfortable with failure." It has nothing to do with intimidation tactics, but rather, it is the best advice they could ever give you. The professor is essentially freeing you to take risks, so that you can explore yourself as an artist. If you consistently fear failure, and only do things you know are tried and true, you will never stand out on a nationally or internationally competitive market. What's worse, if you allow fear to dominate you, it will be nearly impossible to make it through art school. Not because you have shoddy grades--they may in fact be decent--but because you've burnt out from stressing over those decent grades instead improving your work.

The other night, I sat in a classroom, charged with producing 50 compositions, and aware that this was not a final project, but the workings toward one. And as the hours weaned on, I had fun experimenting with each and every comp--not bringing them to perfection but exploring their possibilities, even when those possibilities seemed like erroneous pursuits. At the same time, in the background my peers began to complain, freaking out, saying, "I don't know what [the professors] want from us. They don't explain things and then tell us we did bad." It went on like this for several minutes as they vented their frustrations, getting nowhere in their work as they tried to perfect each and every comp.

The thing was, it wasn't that big of a deal. We were not being graded on all 50, or even on a single one. We were putting them up to be looked at, analyzed and discussed so that we could understand what direction to go in for the final project. But my peers, frightened by negative criticism and afraid do poorly on a single one of their squares, pushed themselves under remarkably high levels of stress even though we weren't even two full weeks into the semester. This is not the way to work or to succeed. This is the way to run yourself ragged and burnout before you have even started the job. This is the way to start hating what you do.

Bamboo Fun!

2009-08-10T15:33:00.003-05:00

There are many tablets out on the market today, but Wacom is undoubtedly a leader in their production and sale. I remember mentally drooling when my sister first told me of the Wacom Cintiq—a tablet that can quite literally replace your computer screen. It acts similar to a touch screen, displaying the screen on the tablet which allows for direct input. This is definitely a revolution in the graphic arts process, one that I would love to participate in if the opportunity arose. But alas, the smallest model runs about $1000, and I am a broke college student.

Fortunately, one does not have sell organs on the black market in order to utilize the amazing capabilities of Wacom. The Bamboo Fun runs between $100 and $200 depending on the size, and is great at assisting with basic graphic design needs. For me, it’s an excellent replacement for my laptop touchpad and prevents me from having to use a mouse—the scorn of my existence. Okay, perhaps an exaggeration, but over the past few years I have begun to wean myself off the mouse, opting to learn every shortcut key I can—even its function requires more complicated action than actually pointing and clicking. But I can’t stand the way the wires tangle, the balls get stuck and dirty, the way a mouse can suddenly start doing its own thing and make its way halfway across the page before you can do anything about it. Even the wireless ones give me no end of trouble. The Bamboo Fun is a definite cure for this. It comes with both a pen and a mouse (which I would not recommend using for reasons beyond my mouse phobia), but you truly only need the pen to get around.

The tablet is set to be directly proportional to your computer screen. Unfortunately this isn’t entirely accurate, since screens come in different shapes and sizes while the tablet is sold as a one size fits all. In terms of proportion, my screen is slightly taller than the tablet space. Luckily this setback is both minor and temporary. At first it’s a little difficult adjusting for the difference, but it took me only a few hours to master it. I often forget there’s even a discrepancy. Problems only arise when you’re trying to draw angles—I’m going to have to practice that.

When I first received my tablet, I thought it would only be useful in programs such as Photoshop, Jasc, or Coral—a problem considering I would primarily be working with Graphics programs such as Illustrator. The good news is it’s helpful in almost anything you use. I say “almost” simply because I haven’t tried every program available and definitely never will. Thus far I’ve found it useful for everything.

I had used it solely in Photoshop at first, but after discovering that I was addicted to my tablet—yes addicted—I try it elsewhere. Using the tablet in combination with shortcut keys makes Illustrator even more fun to mess around in.

Despite its ease of use, the tablet does have its flaws. First, I found that after the first few days it had already begun to show the marks of use. I know I’m heavy handed—something I’ve been trying to overcome for years but just can’t seem to beat—but it seems just a little too easy to mar the surface. Cleaning it doesn’t really do the trick, but at least the scratching does not affect the way that the tablet works.

The tablet also comes with a couple of buttons at the top, meant to integrate seamlessly with your desktop and make navigation that much easier. The buttons come with preset functions such as zoom in and scroll, but the great thing is it is possible to alter their function. You can reset buttons so that they control your browser, instantly bring up your desktop, act as a commonly used key (i.e. ctrl), or open a specific program. Well, not quite that last one. I’m not sure if it’s a flaw with my particular tablet—I’m really too lazy to check (plus everything else works)—but it seems that it cannot open the programs, reading them as a function of the tablet and not as a program to run. A shame considering I would have made wonderful use out of that function. This was also the biggest disappointment for me.

A third flaw lies in the mouse that I mentioned earlier. For those who still like to use their mice, I’m sure it’s a welcome addition, but I find it to be more trouble than it’s worth. It acts just like a regular mouse, meaning all that stuff about the tablet space being proportional to your screen is instantly thrown out. That’s right, a lot of lifting, moving back and forward just to get to the top of your screen. Which is why it’s definitely easier and better to stick with the pen if you can.

All in all it is a fantastic tool for beginning graphic artists, though I’m sure it wouldn’t hold up to the more heavy duty use it would sustain in the hands of professionals. Both its small size and scratchable surface make it a featherweight. But the size isn’t all bad—it makes it easily portable.

Bamboo Fun comes in either small ($99) or medium ($199) and four different colors: blue, black, white, and silver. In addition to the tablet, pen, and mouse, you will receive Adobe® Photoshop® Elements, Corel® Painter™ Essentials 4.0, and Nik® Color Efex™ Pro 3.0 WE3. I haven't personally cracked into that software so I'm not sure how well it works, but it's certainly a tantalizing offer.

For more information visit Wacom.

Silencing Brain Chatter

2009-06-27T18:13:00.000-05:00

Drawing is therapeutic to me. I had the most fun in my drawing class, when I was allowed to shut everything off and just see and recreate what was being seen. My professor often complimented me on how well I could see abstractly. This ability helped me to advance so much further in art than I thought I possibly could. With my eyes I was flattening images, reading color based on hue and value. It was good shutting everything off, the promise of which is probably the only reason I was able to roll out of bed in the mornings and actually bother to try. At the time I was depressed and unsure of how to seek help. It didn't help that I was a baby in the world of art, taking my first steps on shaky legs. I was full of self-doubt, constantly comparing the mediocre works I laboriously, obsessively crafted whilst my classmates seemed to effortlessly churn out masterpieces and then bemoan how bad they were.

But when I was behind the easel--that didn't matter. I could shut everything off. I would only focus on the model that sat still and quiet in the center of our classroom, picking him or her apart piece by piece and trying to coax those pieces onto my page. I didn't need the help of my music to enter into my own mental space, often during second semester I completely forget to even bother to put my headphones in. I would just get to the task, forgetting all sense of time, any hunger in my belly, even how tired I felt after seven straight days on only two hours of sleep a night. It was the first time in my life that I had experienced a quiet mind. Yes, there were certainly countless minutes--even hours--that I would stand paralyzed in front of my easel, not sure what I should do next, afraid that anything else would further mar the already imperfect image I had worked so hard on for the past few days. The self-doubt would settle over me like a heavy shroud. You're no good. Why'd you even do this? This is crazy, you're an idiot, you'll never be an artist. I was so uncomfortable in my own skin, felt like an impostor wondering how my academic adviser had let me so easily slip into this foreign landscape.

But it was so good in those moments when it didn't happen, when all I did was pick my subject apart, analyzing with my hands and eyes and not my words.

It saddens me that I was never able to experience these moments outside of the classroom, without my professor stoking my ego and reassuring me that I was growing and that I had potential, that I just needed time. Outside of that space, I had to often hide what I was doing, unwilling to have my roommates watch over my shoulder intrigued by my inability to work with my hands. There were so many times I felt like practicing but suppressed it, realizing that there was no way to hide my efforts from the judgmental eyes of other people. I was frightened that one day someone would spot me, doodling in my sketchbook in the library or outside sitting at one of the benches. I was afraid they would suddenly stop and ask to see my work the way they often did with my sister--the true artist in the family. I was afraid that they would insist, catch a sight of my work and sneer at it on the inside, discovering how I was an impostor parading around as an art student. I was afraid that they would be kind enough to hide their disgust, say something disarming but untruthful like, "How nice," or just completely change the subject.

It had happened once before, towards the end of the year as I sat out in my university's quadrangle, doing a quick pastel work of one of the buildings. A woman who passed became curious, came close, and asked if she could see. I flashed it, my shoulders absent of confidence, my movement half-hearted. And she said, "Oh. It's a beautiful day to draw outside, isn't it?" And left. It hurt--especially since I wasn't mentally prepared for the rejection let alone the reveal.

Oddly enough, I got over it within minutes. Or perhaps not oddly, because I was drawing, I was in quiet and solitude for the most part. Once she was gone I could return my attention to my building, to the absence of words and the presence of images.

This is a therapy I enjoy all too little. I still allow myself to be paralized by the thought of another stranger, at the thought of being judged and exposed as an impostor. It has always been a fear to my secretive, private mind. Even when writing was my only aspiration, I was frightened of the public. I had a notebook that I would drag with me everywhere and scribble in whenever the urge struck me. But I had taught myself to write teeny-tiny so that roving eyes couldn't make out a single letter. I even took to writing in odd directions. I remember a page of which I'm still particularly proud. I wrote in a giant rectangle around the page, working my way from outside to inside so that it turned into a collection of ants spiralling to the center of the page. I guess even then I was intrigued by the visual aspects of it all, gazing lovingly at the way I had managed to reveal my obsessiveness through not only my words but the way in which they were arranged.

As I continue to delve deeper into my life as an "artist," I need to remember, this is not just a foolish attempt to make it at something I will never be good at, this is an important part of my sanity. Thus far in my life, art is the only way in which I have effectively been able to escape from me--from the self-doubt, anger, and constant chatter of my brain. The only thing holding me back is my inability to understand this. Art is not the source of those moments of paralysis, it is the antidote.

From Motivation to Action: What Stops Us from Moving Forward?

2009-06-25T21:08:00.000-05:00

Motivation, that elusive, ephemeral state of being. One often wonders how to attain it, how to become all of a sudden "motivated." According to Merriam Webster, motive is "something (as a need or desire) that causes a person to act." To many creatives, there is something inaccurate and untruthful about this assessment. I know from personal experience that need and desire are often there, and that they are often overwhelming and all that one can think about, but for some reason the ability to act is still absent. In my personal vocabulary, I have always identified motivation as need and/or desire, but never as the catalyst for action. Somehow this falls short too.

Perhaps then, there is an additional step that comes between motivation and action, a certain state of being or mindset that allows the creative to progress from one to the other. Or is it something else? Maybe motivation is the call to action, yet the creative encounters a slight, undetectable hiccup that intercepts motivation just before it reaches action, leaving only the residue of that need/desire.

As I think about it, I am more of a mind to believe it is a combination of the two. The creative enters a state of motivation, and is in all appearances ready to act, yet first he/she must make it through the hiccup. This hiccup being something that we have all experienced and to which we have often succumbed: laziness, doubt, timing, feeling overwhelmed. It is hard to pick up that pencil and write when your mind repeats to you over and over again that your words are not worth it or that people will laugh. Hard to draw when you have no time because you have to pick up the kids or finish that final paper. And then there's the mere thought of it, this project that will take more than a few seconds or minutes, the one that requires strength you're not even sure you possess.

So how does one overcome this hiccup? Though I haven't consciously paid much attention to it until recently, this is something that I have been trying to answer for a long time. However, there is no magic solution, no secret tip handed down from generation to generation of creatives. We all must work through it on our own.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about it, is the way in which the hiccup changes, becoming wise to our solutions and finding ways around them. But this is how life works. Serious exercisers know that they cannot stick to the same routine day in and day out and get the same results. Every few weeks they alter workouts, making their way around the muscle's ability to become habituated. Hair specialists inform their clients that they must rotate their shampoos and conditioners or else face either build up or hair that no longer responds to what had once been a miracle product. The list goes on and on.

We can't always overcome this hiccup in the same way. What works today may not work tomorrow. My current method is a list. I must write a list of goals the day before. I take a strange pleasure in crossing my completed goals out, so much so that the fear of future guilt at not getting them done pushes me forward, even when I have no immediate and clear motivation. Before this, it was planning plain and simple. I had to spend hours working everything out piece by piece, imagining and reimagining so that I was comfortable and sure that I at least had some vague idea of where I was going--vague because even with all the plans I never followed them closely. But it got me working, so it never felt like a waste of time.

There were tons of methods before that. From working only in quiet to working in noise, from focusing on the small details only to viewing the whole picture and adding detail later. It is my goal--perhaps more of a hope or dream--to make these methods more standard, so that I can rotate maybe three or four of them, much the same way bodybuilders rotate exercises. I will try to log it here, so that in the future we can know if this truly attainable or just another dream.

What do you do to overcome the hiccup? Or do you believe the problem runs much deeper?

Blog Statement

2009-06-24T21:10:00.000-05:00

This is not a personal blog. But this is a blog that was made for personal reasons. Because the creative world is one that I always felt myself hanging on the outskirts of, looking in and always wanting to become a part of. But even the slightest incentive, the moments when I began to try and explore on my own turned into endeavors of self-deprecation. Each pencil mark was quickly erased, scratched out, abandoned for fear that the next addition would become horrendous and laughable. I was afraid to practice, to fail before I succeeded.

Rather than admitting my self-defeat, I thrust myself forcibly into the artistic world, leaving no option to move beyond it for the next two years. Here I am, in art school, after spending the first eighteen years of my life treating it as something that those other kids did, that thing that I could dream of but would never attain. Yes, here I am, realizing that I have backed myself into a corner, and like almost anyone else in a corner I've either got to fight my way out or give up. Giving up is not in my nature, but neither is fighting. I usually live in a state of limbo, waiting to see what everything around me does before making a cautious step out and discovering that my waiting paid off and I can breathe a sigh of relief. This is no longer an option--not because it doesn't exist, but because I refuse to let it be an option anymore.

The blogging has come in fits of strong starts and unannounced hiatuses because of all my waiting. I was waiting to suddenly blossom into that artist that I've always wanted to be. I was waiting for someone else to validate me and let me know that my thoughts and ideas are worthwhile. In essence, I was waiting for someone else to tell me that I matter.

This is not why anyone reads a blog. In fact this is a clear reason to stay away from a blog, to hide from the clingy and needy. You come to a blog for information, advice, conversation, a number of things. But not to validate someone else who has clear confidence issues. Or someone who gives you all of the advice and more but gives no indication of their merits to be telling you this.

This is the second reason I have not been writing of late. Because I have felt guilty, because I have no merits. Because I pull out a lot of suggestions that I believe are fantastic but I have never bothered to try out on my own. To write them down here is basically a lie to me. Even if it may help someone, it is completely useless to me because it is completely untried on my end of the world.

I plan on changing this. I will no longer wait, I will no longer lie. This will no longer be dead space, acting as my failed attempts at therapy. I will do everything in my power to make this a legitimate forum, focused on fully exploring and becoming comfortable with your creativity without all the pretensions and snootiness.

I hope that you find it useful.

Building Artistic Confidence

2009-06-01T11:51:00.001-05:00

For those who might have missed it, this is a continuation of yesterday's post, "The Definition of Art" in which we have decided (for now) to define art as an object that you, the artist/creator, are confident in as having artistic merit. This seems simple enough--art is what you believe it to be--but its simplicity is challenged time and time again by our actions. As many aspiring and perhaps a few professional artists know, there is often a period in time where the artist second-guesses him/herself.

In art school, I have witnessed my classmates--people who have both more experience and more confidence than myself--toss out beautiful works because they don't believe them good enough, break down into tears because they don't believe themselves good enough, or produce works that they immediately deem ugly and worthless. It's true in art school the existence of limited time and deadlines prevent works from reaching their full potential and in fact it is difficult to become invested in works that are assigned rather than self-generated, but this does not fully explain this phenomena for what it is: a lack of artistic confidence.

Being an artist is not about being perfect every time, it's not about creating masterpieces that will earn you acclaim in every artistic circle and exhibitions in museums, or--in the case of commercial artists--a large and powerful clientele. If this is the only reason you have decided to become an artist, then you may find yourself sorely disappointed. Art, like any other profession, is a labor of love. It requires commitment like any other form of love, the willingness to fail in the pursuit of success, and the need to constantly learn and improve.

So how does one go about building artistic confidence? This question is not merely a segway to the next section of this post, this is something that I am actively asking you the reader, even as I present my own solutions.

1) Have a Space to Make Mistakes
First and perhaps most obvious, you must consistently pursue your art: practice! Whether you draw, paint, design vector works, sculpt, etc, it is important to have a space that is free of your "serious" work. This is something that I hear about time and time again with professional artists. They often say, "Let loose, experiment, draw like crap, it's okay!" This means, have a sketchbook consistently handy and do whatever you feel like in it. Sketch, doodle, do everything loose. Most importantly if there is something you don't like, DON'T ERASE OR SCRATCH IT OUT. Leave it there as a testament--who knows it may inspire you in the future.

Last fall I attended a lecture by the wonderful Yuko Shimizu. Though I didn't take everything to heart at the time, I find a lot of what she said and showed us coming back to me time and time again as I pursue my "inner artist." Perhaps one of the most impressive things she did for us was to willingly share pages of her sketchbook in her lecture. She even offered to let those who were interested take a look at the actual book afterwards (too bad I didn't take her up on her offer). In that book not everything was perfect and not everything was clear. She put everything in loose and quick, allowing her mind to wander and pursue whatever it wanted to with impugnity. She is an absolutely incredible artist as the below picture illustrates. But she didn't always start there. There was a time when she was in the same boat as ourselves, seeking out a way to become not only better but more confident. Though I don't have copies of what her art was like when she first started out (she kindly showed us those as well), I hope it suffices to say that she has since come into her own in a major way.

2) Compliment Yourself
That's right. Take the plunge into egotism. An exaggeration of course, but I know that I often feel awkward when I openly acknowledge my accomplishments. But this is not the time to be modest. If you can't sell yourself to yourself--good luck doing it with anybody else.

It is important to pick out the good aspects of all works, and not just the ones of which you're proud. That means, even those hated sketches have to have something good about them--they must have at least five things. That's right. Five. It could be something as simple as the elegance of a line or the way the figure slumps so loosely (even if it's not technically anatomically correct). I'd even open these compliments to the process as well as the product. That means you can enjoy the way you flicked your wrist to create that line, or the method by which you blended those colors. Art is fully experiential--something we often forget. When we make it, we don't immediately throw out the final product, but create it over time. So yes, go ahead and enjoy the creation.

3) Don't Throw it Out
Yes, I know this has been mentioned once before, but it is very important to reiterate. Even the most hideous, embarassing works should be documented somehow. This means either keep the original or photograph/scan it. This is important as a document of your progress, and if you've never done this before then I must tell you it is a quite liberating experience to look back over your work and see how you've grown.

The first day of my first ever drawing course, we were asked to draw to the best of our ability a model that had come in. It was so embarassing for me, especially since I was sitting next to perhaps the best artist in the class, and I immediately wanted to toss out my crude work. But my professor collected and kept it. At the end of the semester we put our best works side by side with our first-day drawing to see how much we'd progressed. That entire semester I had been stuck comparing myself to my classmates--feeling ashamed at how elementary I was in comparison. I was so preoccupied by this that I hadn't realized how much I had grown. A lot. I went from flat line drawings that looked nothing like a human being, to works full of value and atmospheric perspective, and though the pictures weren't entirely accurate they were much more realistic. Now, I make a serious effort to collect the works that I've made so that I may be able to monitor my progress.

I would suggest reviewing old works at least every 5-6 months.

4) Don't Be Afraid to Share Your Work with Others

This is the ultimate goal of artistic confidence, to be able to share works without fear of being hurt. But, oddly enough, it's almost impossible to reach this goal without first practicing it. You are not fully confident until the day you are not only eager to show your works to others, but also come out unscathed by any critiques that they may send your way. But it takes practice and a lot of self-talk to reach this point. For some it is hard to hear critiques and not feel personally affronted--after all your art is something personal.

For the super shy and timid, it might help to show works to someone you trust and are close to, someone you can tell, "Right now I don't want to hear anything negative, I just want to show you what I've been working on." Parents aren't good for this--not to say that they will rip your work to shreds. Instead they may go gaga, and nearly kill you with how magnificent you are. You do not need this kind of ego stroking--this is the worst kind. It is biased and perhaps a tad insincere. Instead seek out a friend or a close sibling (the kind that didn't beat you up as a child). Only use your parents if you are feeling so bad that you might even be depressed.

Hopefully these are all useful ways to build your artistic confidence, all ideas that I intend to pursue to the fullest. If you have additional suggestions or questions, feel free to leave a comment.

The Definition of Art

2009-05-31T22:25:00.000-05:00

What is art? This is a question that comes up again and again amongst artists and their audiences. It is interesting for the pure exclusivity of this question. Few ever wonder "What is science?" or "What is history?" We just inherently know. But art has consistently been questioned throughout the centuries, always shifting definitions from movement to movement and artist to artist.

In more recent times (by recent I mean the late 1800s) western art has begun more and more to be defined as a form of self-expression. Before it was a way to reproduce history and religion, an intellectual field meant to serve the people rather than the individual artist himself (there weren't very many female artists, hence the "him"). All of a sudden the artist could determine whether he or she wanted to share something beautiful or political or completely random with the audience. It didn't matter whether the museums or the critics or even the audience appreciated what they had created, as long as the artist felt accomplished in producing something, as long as he or she truly believed what they made was "art."

Whenever I think of this, my mind immediately comes to the readymades of Marcel Duchamp. I've always felt a quiet rage whenever the topic comes up. This man simply bought objects and then turned them in ways that were contrary to their function. For instance, "Fountain" of 1917, one of Duchamp's first readymades was a urinal that he bought and submitted to an art show put on by the Society of Independent Artists. Supposedly the show would accept any work submitted to it, but despite Duchamp's membership on the board (he did submit the work under a different name) the piece was ultimately rejected for being too vulgar and not a work of art.

Though the work was originally rejected, it has gone on to be an integral part of modern art studies and replications of it are on display in several museums (the original was apparently lost). Duchamp dared to question what makes an object a work of art, and for that his name and works live on.

How does this help us as we seek to define art?

It doesn't really. Rather it points out the ever-changing world that surrounds this odd practice. Something goes from being vulgar to a cherished and sought after work despite being the same thing at both points in time. But one thing remains clear--if Duchamp did not present it as art, fight for it as art, and believe that this was truly art, there would have been no arguments to its validity--that is to say it would not be in the history books and everywhere on the internet.

It is this mentality that we must seek out as aspiring artists. Our works are nothing unless we believe that they are. You can certainly depend on the opinions of others to tell you whether they enjoy it or not, but recall that it is not they that created the work, but rather yourself. Constantly seeking out validation will put you in the same state that I am trying blindly to fight my way out of. One that has you constantly doubting yourself, looking at the works of others and finding them not only superior but damning to your own. And this makes your work worthless.

So what is art, you ask? This is a question that I'm seeking to answer with this blog as I endeavor to guide my readers and myself on the path to becoming better artists not only with your hands/computers/whatever-you-use but also mentally and emotionally. Today we will define it as confidence, the ability to believe that what you have produced has artistic value--even if its not perfect or beautiful. My problem as an artist is not that I am not, but that I don't yet believe. It is not as simple as saying "Well now I believe," but this knowledge is certainly a place to begin.

So dear reader, I ask. What do you do to build artistic confidence?

Artistic Derivatives

2009-05-19T21:54:00.000-05:00

Fall 2008.

We sat in my creative non-fiction class, workshopping the pieces of my fellow classmates. As the workshop was set up, we would start with positive comments, going around the table so that everyone would get an equal chance to stroke the author's ego, and then a second round of "constructive criticism." During the "positives" a student made a comment along the lines of "I was so impressed by [name]'s writing that I felt like completely giving up on my own." I was a little horrified to hear my professor say that the only way to overcome such feelings of inadequacy is to completely stop reading, to which my classmates submitted the names of famous authors who have supposedly stopped reading books all together.

Why horror? Because I can't see someone else's strength being a good enough reason to give up writing nor do I find giving up reading to be a good solution. Each time I immerse myself in a book by an author who completely buries me in their utter amazingness, rather than throwing the book down and crying about how much I stink and how I'll never be good enough, I pick up a pen-pencil-whatever's available to mark with and highlight everything I can find that makes the writing so successful to me. When I first began Uzodinma Iweala's ridiculously gorgeous Beasts of No Nation, I had to stop after the first paragraph to run for my pen. It took me about three hours to get through chapter one which--if I remember right--was around seven pages long, and seven small pages at that. But after that, I felt fully acquainted with what made the work so beautiful to me, and found myself keeping those elements in mind as I worked on my own writing. I allowed the works of someone better than me to inspire rather than terrify, and for that I am grateful--I am a better writer because of it.

In the visual art world, this sort of reaction to beautful works is quite common (minus the crazy marks over the image--that would be bad). Art historians say that one of the reasons that Picasso was such an amazing artist was not because he was creative and original, but because he was great at stealing and improving the ideas of others. And while I'm not 100% sure that I find Picasso as utterly amazing as the historians seem to think he is, I agree that alot of his derivatives do outshine their predecessors.

Knowing what I know from my experience with writing, and knowing from what I've seen in the art world, it's about time I apply it to my own art. I've begun the mission of finding artists that I could absolutely worship, who I would want to be if I could be them. Oddly enough, despite the wealth of amazing works out there, and despite the multiple artgasms I've had in my search, I have yet to find a single artist who I would want to be.

Here I will begin a weekly series that further forces me to delve even deeper and work even harder to find the works that dive into my bones. Though past experience proves that not everything will be the sort of works that inspire me and that I can take to heart, this will be a good place to focus and learn why I find certain works good and how I can apply this "good" to my own and make them better. Starting tomorrow, I will post selected works of artists I have begun to watch, along with my personal analysis--mostly on the visual level though there will be occasional thoughts on conceptualization.

For all those who venture to these pages, and read these posts--I would highly encourage you to feel free to respond with your own thoughts--whether you find the works as aesthetically pleasing as I do or not.

'Til next post

Peace!