On Improvement
Friday, April 29, 2011 at 1:00AM Insert self-indulgent post here!
I’m at a point in my life where I’m recognizing how quickly I’m improving. Granted, I’m working really hard at it. Most days, I draw for hours and hours on end, whether that’s the 10-14 hours I tend to spend working on Walking on Broken Glass, or whether I’m working on some other Broken Glass related thing like prints or pencils or whatnot, or whether I’m just working on sketches. This past week, I found a listing for a sketch artist opening at Pixar and at first I felt I was woefully inadequate for the position because I am an artist and that is what artists do. But as I researched and got some helpful links from my Dad, I found I actually might have a little bit of a shot at this. Which is, frankly, brain-exploding.
I have been working really hard to improve lately. I’ve had my eye towards hands and feet especially; I know where my sticking points are, and they’re getting better with every attempt I do. I’m gaining more and more understanding of perspective and how to make it work for me. I’m working and I’m working and I’m working, and good god it’s showing. I can see my improvement. I can look at something I did not two months ago and wrinkle my nose and go ‘ugh!’ because I’ve improved so much. And really, all it has been is observation, observation, observation, and application.
For hands, I’ve been looking at, well, hands. The bone structure of the hand, the way the thumb moves, where the nails are located on the fingers, how knuckles are shaped. But I’ve also been watching a lot of animated movies of the mostly Disney persuasion to see how they do hands. Some of them aren’t very helpful but oh my god, I am in loooove with the hands in Atlantis: The Lost Empire and The Emperor’s New Groove. I love the way they stylized them. I know well enough not to learn to draw something from another artist’s interpretation — at least not as my BE ALL AND END ALL REFERENCE for how this thing is drawn — but it is really helpful to see another artist’s observations and how they translated that into simplification. For example, the fingernails in Atlantis are triangles, and that was an interesting observation on the shape of fingernails for me. It led me to look at the shape of fingernails more closely to see what led to that stylization.
Anyways.
I’m rambling of course. It’s late! Don’t mind me. What brought this on is I’m reading Demo, by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan, and I am frankly blown away by the inking and the style and frankly everything. But as I was marveling at they way they drew feet in one panel, it hit me:
I could do that.
It would not take much improvement for me to get to the point where I could be this good. It would not take much at all to get to this level of drawing. (Inking, now, that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. I’m going to be drinking in everything they did for inks in this book because it’s gorgeous.) That realization was really crazy. For someone who’s always felt they were behind the curve, who’s always felt they were looking up at everyone else, that really struck me: I can do that.
And thus, I was in awe.
I guess drawing 14 hours every day has its benefits. :D
Reader Comments (2)
Get $15 coupon savings at jsbags.com with this coupon code: S615DF
Rules of the Code:
1. The coupon code is only applicable for $100+ full-price item(s).
2. This coupon code is not applicable for promotional items or discount products.
These are adorable! I love when you do paper crafts. Your ideas are so simple and cute. I'm bummed I didn't make it to ALT Summit. I would have loved to meet you.
--replica bell and ross watches
excellent points altogether, you simply gained a brand new reader. What would you recommend about your post that you made a few days ago? Any positive?louis vuitton damier replica