The Art of Loosening Up
Oct. 24th, 2009 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darthfarJust finished another Les Misérables illustration:
In which Courfeyrac almost meets his end, and Marius comes to his aid.
I haven't been drawing anything but Les Mis illustrations since the end of last month. I don't even have to withdraw into Deep Introspection Mode to understand why.
Almost four years ago, I found the KotOR community, and was inspired by the gorgeous fanart I found at KFM to learn to draw properly, and to learn to paint. And I did learn, and improve. Eventually, however, my digital painting skills far outstripped my drawing, to the unfortunate extent that I kept raising my self-expectations bar ... and began losing my mind over the smallest details that I could or could not fix. And with improvement came increasing pressure: to market my art, to exhibit, to get published, none of which I wanted. I finally snapped when I was told by someone that I shouldn't put anything up that had mistakes in it, and that I shouldn't settle for less than perfection, because that's what I would expect from any other artist.
It almost broke me. As it was, I found myself unable to paint, to draw for months; anything I *did* produce, I inevitably hated for the slightest mistake I did. It was becoming increasingly likely that I would never paint again.
And then I found Les Mis, which, like KotOR, sparked that flicker of interest in illustrating scenes again.
I'm seeing this as a second chance for me. An opportunity to relearn to draw. To be completely free with my pencil, to be restricted to small pieces of paper, and not be able to zoom in to do detail of any sort. To accept that even the professional artists that I worship, Scott Hampton, Peter Gross, even Dave Gibbons, have screwed up in major comics before, and therefore, that I shouldn't come down too hard on myself when I find errors in my own; to accept that sometimes, you have to know when to stop fixing things. And, ultimately, to enjoy drawing again, because, at the end of the day, it's still all about having fun.
I'm holding off painting, until I really, truly feel that burning desire to pick up my stylus again. The next time I paint, it will because I need to, and not because I'm making myself do it.
In which Courfeyrac almost meets his end, and Marius comes to his aid.
I haven't been drawing anything but Les Mis illustrations since the end of last month. I don't even have to withdraw into Deep Introspection Mode to understand why.
Almost four years ago, I found the KotOR community, and was inspired by the gorgeous fanart I found at KFM to learn to draw properly, and to learn to paint. And I did learn, and improve. Eventually, however, my digital painting skills far outstripped my drawing, to the unfortunate extent that I kept raising my self-expectations bar ... and began losing my mind over the smallest details that I could or could not fix. And with improvement came increasing pressure: to market my art, to exhibit, to get published, none of which I wanted. I finally snapped when I was told by someone that I shouldn't put anything up that had mistakes in it, and that I shouldn't settle for less than perfection, because that's what I would expect from any other artist.
It almost broke me. As it was, I found myself unable to paint, to draw for months; anything I *did* produce, I inevitably hated for the slightest mistake I did. It was becoming increasingly likely that I would never paint again.
And then I found Les Mis, which, like KotOR, sparked that flicker of interest in illustrating scenes again.
I'm seeing this as a second chance for me. An opportunity to relearn to draw. To be completely free with my pencil, to be restricted to small pieces of paper, and not be able to zoom in to do detail of any sort. To accept that even the professional artists that I worship, Scott Hampton, Peter Gross, even Dave Gibbons, have screwed up in major comics before, and therefore, that I shouldn't come down too hard on myself when I find errors in my own; to accept that sometimes, you have to know when to stop fixing things. And, ultimately, to enjoy drawing again, because, at the end of the day, it's still all about having fun.
I'm holding off painting, until I really, truly feel that burning desire to pick up my stylus again. The next time I paint, it will because I need to, and not because I'm making myself do it.
