Figure AND Ground
It's the latter I struggle with. I've resuscitated my old collaborative project 12 moments, although there's no new content yet, it seemed like a good thing to knock over while getting back into the old 'sequential art' mode. Having basically had an easy run of drawing individual pieces for a year. At the moment though I don't know whether the impression that I basically suck is reflective of growth in ability I have obtained or a sudden loss in confidence.
But right now I think you could throw the grand canyon into the chasm between where I think 'viable comic book artist' is and the other side of that chasm which is where I'm at.
Basically, I would say that I am pretty good for a kid in year 8 of highschool, drawing in ballpoint pen in a notebook. That's my standard.
But the thing is, I'm 29, and thus the path that makes most sense for me developmentally is to combine my development with my active publication. So hopefully my output reflects for those that think I'm pretty good right now, that I am in fact, still on the steep part of the learning curve.
And I am. And for me really the only viable option when doing 'deliberate practice' is to stylise away my actual technical limitations.
I think this is what agravated me about the VCA students' grad show, here you have people who have all these advantages over me - they are A) young, B) financially supported C) supervised and D) given time and space to practice. And most of them are choosing media, subject matter etc. that is highly conceptual and requires almost no technical ability/expertise whatsoever. And a lot of it I just don't understand, and I guess one can only conclude that I am not a fine artist. But I'm also inclined to conclude that the term 'fine arts' doesn't have any real currency anymore.
But yeah, had I done a design course at uni, specifically graphic design I would have picked up heaps of technical abilities I could now put to use. Or had I done architecture, I could have been on top of 1-point, 2-point and 3-point perspective drawing. Rendering and inking, or even if I got down regularly to life drawing... the thing is, I'd just be a different artist though, albeit a neater one.
I guess for me, I have more ideas, more inspiration than I have time and material to convert into end product. So it really doesn't matter to me that my figures will be leaps and bounds ahead of the backgrounds, but I just am sweating on my next major project because I just don't know what it is going to look like.
Part of that is for exciting reasons, I have a colourist who will contribute about as much to the look of this comic as I do through my linework, but part of it is because I haven't resolved in my mind what anything looks like beyond the characters. And there will be plenty of distortion when I transfer the image of characters from my minds eye to paper.
So I just don't know, but I'm not going to blow off 3 months to sit and do perspective drawing, and then try and reconcile it with the very 2d curvy linear figures I have come to draw and love.
Good is the enemy of done. I will just have to get it done. Then take a look at it.
But right now I think you could throw the grand canyon into the chasm between where I think 'viable comic book artist' is and the other side of that chasm which is where I'm at.
Basically, I would say that I am pretty good for a kid in year 8 of highschool, drawing in ballpoint pen in a notebook. That's my standard.
But the thing is, I'm 29, and thus the path that makes most sense for me developmentally is to combine my development with my active publication. So hopefully my output reflects for those that think I'm pretty good right now, that I am in fact, still on the steep part of the learning curve.
And I am. And for me really the only viable option when doing 'deliberate practice' is to stylise away my actual technical limitations.
I think this is what agravated me about the VCA students' grad show, here you have people who have all these advantages over me - they are A) young, B) financially supported C) supervised and D) given time and space to practice. And most of them are choosing media, subject matter etc. that is highly conceptual and requires almost no technical ability/expertise whatsoever. And a lot of it I just don't understand, and I guess one can only conclude that I am not a fine artist. But I'm also inclined to conclude that the term 'fine arts' doesn't have any real currency anymore.
But yeah, had I done a design course at uni, specifically graphic design I would have picked up heaps of technical abilities I could now put to use. Or had I done architecture, I could have been on top of 1-point, 2-point and 3-point perspective drawing. Rendering and inking, or even if I got down regularly to life drawing... the thing is, I'd just be a different artist though, albeit a neater one.
I guess for me, I have more ideas, more inspiration than I have time and material to convert into end product. So it really doesn't matter to me that my figures will be leaps and bounds ahead of the backgrounds, but I just am sweating on my next major project because I just don't know what it is going to look like.
Part of that is for exciting reasons, I have a colourist who will contribute about as much to the look of this comic as I do through my linework, but part of it is because I haven't resolved in my mind what anything looks like beyond the characters. And there will be plenty of distortion when I transfer the image of characters from my minds eye to paper.
So I just don't know, but I'm not going to blow off 3 months to sit and do perspective drawing, and then try and reconcile it with the very 2d curvy linear figures I have come to draw and love.
Good is the enemy of done. I will just have to get it done. Then take a look at it.
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