No words this week, just scribbles.
Viewing entries tagged
drawing
The doodles went a little weird this week, but I'm kind of digging it. After all, I was going to talk about why I choose to focus on certain subjects, so it's the perfect time to change. I usually avoid trying to justify anything I draw simply for the sake of it, but hopefully we can avoid any amount of artist wank-speak along the way.
It's not often that I get to be happy about a lack of content, but when it's the result of being productive in other ways, I'm cool with it. So this week there's only a few doodles to show, as I've been spending more and more time putting paint on canvas.
I can't remember if I've talked about confidence much in the past, but it's definitely been on my mind this week. The usual theme might be how to overcome a lack of confidence, which is important to learn, although too much can be a curse. In fact, there have been many times in life that an overabundance of confidence managed to lead certain folks astray.
For a fleeting moment this week, I thought I might focus on doodles that aren't faces. Then I realised that I've yet to exhaust my interest in faces, and I'm not sure I ever will. Nevertheless, there's something to be said for forced diversity, as it keeps the juices flowing… or so they say.
It was bound to happen sometime, but I skipped sketchbook 84 last week thanks to a bunch of personal commitments and generally being too busy. The up side is that part of the distraction was related to a big art project, so I figure it all balances out in the end. I'm still not keen on skipping weeks, so here's hoping it's a rare occurrence either way.
Sometimes it's easy to forget that the world is a constant mass of writhing organisms, constantly changing and evolving into different forms. I suppose it's what people mean when they say "back in my day", as their 'day' felt a lot different to the now. Of course there are tangible changes being made at all times, but I had the pleasure this week of experiencing a more ethereal form of nostalgia.
This week I spent a bit more time on a digital sketch, so it's not really a doodle per se, but I've included it on purpose. In comparison to the limitations of pen on paper, I was reminded that digital sketching offers a lot of nuance and detail. I was also reminded that I don't suck as much as I thought I did.
The monstrous offspring of Pasiphae and the white bull, the Minotaur was sentenced to by Minos to the gigantic Labyrinth near Knossos. Later, Theseus would venture through the labyrinth with the aid of Ariadne's thread. The journey would see Theseus battle the Minotaur, and ultimately slay it with the sword of Aegeus, before abandoning Ariadne on the island of Noxos.
Lately it's been a bit hard to find the words to put to these posts, but that's just the rolling nature of life. It's bound to happen in a long term cross section of experience, as we can't make them all winners. I suppose the best we can ever do is implicit in the doing, thanks to all the aspects intrinsically linked to one's ability to do.
Just a couple of visualisations this week. Mainly because my mind and body have been elsewhere lately, and I've been doing other things.
Going to keep the words super short this week, as I'm soaking up some time away and enjoying the view.
I'm pleased to say that 'operation quantity' is going quite well. In fact, I present to you another set of doodles that continues to grow. There aren't any digital doodles this week, but they're only a sometimes bonus either way. It's all pens and paper, which is right where I like to be.
Last time I mentioned that I'll be changing things up a little to try and up the quantity of doodles in each post. So this week I'm pleased to say that I have twelve new doodles, as well as a little bit of discussion on how they came about.
Sometimes you need to take a moment to reassess a project and use the experiences you’ve had along the way to improve on the initial brief. It helps avoid any unnecessary complications, as well as breathing new life into something. The latter is especially important for long-form projects, like these weekly doodles and posts.
I'm in a bit of a fix this week, as I'm occupied by a different project. It's a big project, so part of me wanted to turn these weekly doodles into progress reports, but that kind of defeats the purpose. In some ways it's exciting to share what we're working on, but I've also learned to try and keep my mouth shut until ambitious endeavours have come to fruition.
Part of me wants to write an entire post about the practice of pitching, or speculative work. It's something that artists of all mediums have to deal with at some point in their life, so I think it's an important thing to think about. However, I figured it might be a bit too much "shop-talk" for its own post, so I'll put it here instead.
I'm sure we've all heard it before, but sometimes coming up with a creative idea is as difficult as any other test of skill. Maybe you've heard the stories about writers staring at blank pages, artists gazing over white canvas, or musicians droning through random noise. There are times that the pursuit of an idea can feel impossibly unsurmountable, but then there are times when the dam bursts, and the rush is beyond euphoric.
Something as simple as a line can be so enticing sometimes. Of course many things are made up of lines, but we tend to look at the forest instead of the trees. Part of the reason I love doing doodles with pen is that it forces you to think about the lines you're making as you place ink on the paper.
This week is all about enabling creativity, as it's been a central focus for me in recent times. It can often be seen as a way to procrastinate or delay the start of a project, but ensuring that creativity has an opportunity to grow might be the most important part of the process.