My Creative Journey 24 + Watch me Draw! Ep. 04

Every journey begins with a step...and continues with countless more. There is no end to the creative path. Only progress. To get better you have to do. Your skills, your mind, your art will not get better unless you try. And trying means you will fail a lot. But, if you keep at it, eventually you will triumph, break through, and be where you want to be. Here is another step on my journey.

Last night was pretty cool, hehe. I decided to go back to ink for a minute since I plan to do a bunch of postcards this weekend. I've been doing a lot of live broadcasting of my painting lately so the number of people engaging with me about my work has increased, and I want to keep on that and build it bigger. One way I thought would be cool is to send out postcards with an original piece to anyone who wanted one. It's a win-win-win. I get to practice what I love to do, my work gets to find a home, and hopefully people will begin to talk about me more. All it takes is a good amount of time and a little money. Going all grass-roots here baby! Well, almost. This weekend I'm going to have to get started on my actual online marketing strategies to build up the number of viewers/followers, though my main focus will be on person-to-person.

If you want a postcard, send me a message with your name and address and I'll hopefully get one out to you this weekend. This first round will be 15 people, so, don't wait too long. I already have 3 people signed up :)

So, to the art from last night...

There honestly weren't too many lessons. Most of what happened last night was just application. That was probably because I had such limited time. After getting home, chilling with my buddy for a minute watching a video on how to draw (cracked me up, but gave me a couple insights), and getting the prep work done for my retouching I was tired and really ready to get to work creating. As tense and stressful as putting brush to paper is, it's also very relaxing.

Strange, right?

That blank piece of paper is scary, and there's constantly that fear of screwing a drawing up, yet, once you step over that initial barrier, it all get's easier. And, the more you step over that initial barrier, the easier it gets. At least that's what I hope. I'm sure there are good days and bad.

So, skulls, again. Why skulls? Am I trying to attract a goth crowd? Do I have a morbid fascination with death? No, not really. I think I've mentioned it before, but I have an obsession with faces, so, getting to know what lies underneath is important. And, there is something really important I learned last night, or at least realized partially. Follow me for a second, the logic might be kind of convoluted, but it makes sense.

I say up from that I'm learning to draw skulls because of faces, but, I think there's actually a deeper thing going on.

When you start to learn a skill, you're attracting to a certain way of learning it, your natural rhythm. In the case of drawing, you're just attracted to drawing certain things. Now, that might not be your end destination, but, it's a very important part of the journey. As you begin to get better at drawing this thing, you begin to enjoy drawing it more. That allows you to practice a whole mess of skills without getting bogged down in the knowledge that eventually you're going to have to learn how to draw a whole mess of things. I think a lot of people get stuck in this step, and what they used to start learning become their 'thing' vs just a step to something greater. So, skulls are basically my focus to get better at the skills that are necessary to drawing a whole mess of things. Sure, I'll still have to become familiar with their forms, but how to get to those forms is gonna be a whole lot easier because of the practice I've had just drawing skulls. Is that crazy? Or does it make sense?

Anyways, to the next piece :)

Now, you'll notice the entire appearance of the skulls changed. I still used the same images, mainly, but the brush strokes are way different. That's because I decided to try a different brush. I know it's really important to be able to vary the strokes and their appearance to be able to give images an edge. An outline is great, but without the right kinds of dabs, strokes, and swishes, that's all it will be, an outline. Also, if I want something to look a certain way, having done experiments like this I'll have a better idea of how to do it :) And, as I always say, what's the worst that could happen from experimenting like this? You make a drawing that looks bad? Who cares? You don't have to show anyone.

You'll notice the drawing in the bottom right seems to go a little off the rails.

That's what happens when you don't trust the process, or you decide to go your own way. You can see it as good, or bad. For me, it's just another lesson, getting to practice the old, 'if you screw up, how do you still make it look cool?' The important thing was understanding how the skull works. The top right is actually the beginning of an experiment, 'what happens if I draw a skull by feeling and memory?'

Which leads me to the third page of the evening :)

I don't know if you can tell, but this page has the most of 'me' on it. The experiment I began on the previous page continued on to this one, drawing from memory (mostly). I was in the process of getting comfortable with how everything fits together. How the spacing worked, the shadow placement, even how the shadows worked...and, teeth..getting those down too. Got a long ways to go, but so far so good. You can't get too hung up on how good something is, especially at this stage. I know I've said it a million times and I'll say it a million more, don't focus on the bad, just figure out how to do it better. You think about how bad it is and suddenly that little voice that whispers doubt into your ear will start shouting...and then you're fucked. Getting the voice to quiet down again is probably the hardest thing I've had to do in the past. Ignoring it is even harder. I'm nowhere near that point, but, hopefully someday.

If you're interested and want to see me draw this last page, I did another time-lapse :) Check out Ep. 04 of Watch me Draw!

Music: BoxCat Games