I don't know if anybody even reads this thing. I guess I need to be more proactive about posting more often and trying to get more traffic to my sketchbook. If you do read, you may have noticed that I haven't had anything new to show if over a week. I'm so busy and haven't created any real illustrations in some time. I want to right now but I have no inspiration. That, and I went to a bachelor party last night and I feel like death right now. I just don't have it in me you know?
What can you do when you lose inspiration? How do you motivate yourself to tap into that creative spark in your brain? It comes for me in spurts of seemingly unrecognizable origin. I don't know where the ideas come from but they float in and out of my life like driftwood on a beach shore.
I forget where I heard it, be it a book or a movie, but there was this great speech about how an idea is a living organism that can spread like wildfire, or a virus. I think thought can be contagious like this. I wish when the ideas come, I could hold onto the momentum they bring with them. i know I have endless amounts of books I could fill with art if I only had the inspiration.
Maybe I should approach the situation from a different angle. Perhaps I could look up some dummy projects for an illustrator. Or maybe I could read an article in a magazine or online and design a relevant illustration for it.
You know what kind of inspiration I really want is the inspiration to design a new shirt for threadless.com. I need the money that's for sure. The problem is the knowledge that I need the money will probably make my art forced and contrived.
I wish I had scores of readers who I could talk to about this. Other artists that go through the same dry spells of creative thought. I do have a nude figure drawing class tomorrow evening. I hope I have something worthy of what I consider my fullest potential to display to my ghost town of a blog tomorrow. Till then...
9/12/10
9/7/10
Scenes From The Past: Revisiting My Old Sketchbooks...
I highly recommend you dig through that stack of old sketchbooks collecting dust in your closet. Who cares if you think they're all filled with crap... dig through them anyway. All of the work I'm about to post is unfinished and in the past I would have been embarrassed to display it to anyone. That being said, I'm a different person now. I am amazed at how a peek at my old doodles were like a glimpse into my old thought process.
- A random sketch page... there is no rhyme or reason to the lines and scratches really... I would just doodle and stop thinking and let things happen. On rare occasions, this would create something successful. On most occasions, it would be nonsense. The art equivalent of speaking in tongues.-
For an artist, drawing/painting is how that person communicates best. A sketchbook is not just a place of practice, but a place where the artist can communicate and reason with him or herself on an idea.
-As you may recognize, this is the original sketch for the Herbert the Swamp Monster piece I posted about a few months ago. Compare the 2 and see what I thought was important in the composition vs. what I thought was changeable.-
-My kitten sleeps lazily on the couch directly in front of me. Thank god I had a sketchbook in hand.-
I could go on trying to explain to you how exciting it is to dig through one's past and see what treasures lie in the dark dusty corners of your sketchbooks. Instead, I'm going to post some of the treasures I dug up.
-A cartoon design of a character I had been working on for a long time.-
-Another example of that same character.-
-I don't remember exactly what I was thinking in any of this, but I know what I was trying to communicate.
-This is a thumbnail doodle for composition of a kid flying a kite. There was a while where I was on a children's book illustration kick. I don't remember the story I had come up with but I do remember this kite.
-For quite some time, monsters were a prevalent theme in my sketchbooks.-
-I'm a big fan of black and red ink evidently.-
-Yet another children's book concept sketch. This story I do remember.-
-This was an old art school assignment. We had to do a self portrait with an animal. I choose the monarch because they are graceful. How 'bout the fact that I looked like Jesus Christ with long hair? What was I thinking???-
-I still think that if I refined this piece and vectorized it, it would make a bad-ass t-shirt.-
So these have been the little un-finished visual mind-farts I've had over the years and can't bring myself to destroy. I always found it hard to keep a steady diary. Perhaps it's because an artist draws/paints, they don't write.
Well, till next time...
- A random sketch page... there is no rhyme or reason to the lines and scratches really... I would just doodle and stop thinking and let things happen. On rare occasions, this would create something successful. On most occasions, it would be nonsense. The art equivalent of speaking in tongues.-
For an artist, drawing/painting is how that person communicates best. A sketchbook is not just a place of practice, but a place where the artist can communicate and reason with him or herself on an idea.
-As you may recognize, this is the original sketch for the Herbert the Swamp Monster piece I posted about a few months ago. Compare the 2 and see what I thought was important in the composition vs. what I thought was changeable.-
-My kitten sleeps lazily on the couch directly in front of me. Thank god I had a sketchbook in hand.-
I could go on trying to explain to you how exciting it is to dig through one's past and see what treasures lie in the dark dusty corners of your sketchbooks. Instead, I'm going to post some of the treasures I dug up.
-A cartoon design of a character I had been working on for a long time.-
-Another example of that same character.-
-I don't remember exactly what I was thinking in any of this, but I know what I was trying to communicate.
-This is a thumbnail doodle for composition of a kid flying a kite. There was a while where I was on a children's book illustration kick. I don't remember the story I had come up with but I do remember this kite.
-For quite some time, monsters were a prevalent theme in my sketchbooks.-
-I'm a big fan of black and red ink evidently.-
-Yet another children's book concept sketch. This story I do remember.-
-This was an old art school assignment. We had to do a self portrait with an animal. I choose the monarch because they are graceful. How 'bout the fact that I looked like Jesus Christ with long hair? What was I thinking???-
-I still think that if I refined this piece and vectorized it, it would make a bad-ass t-shirt.-
So these have been the little un-finished visual mind-farts I've had over the years and can't bring myself to destroy. I always found it hard to keep a steady diary. Perhaps it's because an artist draws/paints, they don't write.
Well, till next time...
9/5/10
A New Nude Study...
I have a new nude for display. Though technically it's not complete. I still need to do some touch-up work and complete the background before I seal it and frame it.
This was a 2 1/2 hour study in black and white charcoal on crappy brown paper. The paper was about the same consistency as a brown paper bag and doesn't hold charcoal very well but it does get the job done.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
This was a 2 1/2 hour study in black and white charcoal on crappy brown paper. The paper was about the same consistency as a brown paper bag and doesn't hold charcoal very well but it does get the job done.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
