inspiredartstudent

[inspiredartstudent]

I enjoyed this ink drawing.  I was experimenting with painting with ink, since it’s actually water soluble while it’s still wet.

I love trees.

[inspiredartstudent]

The Process of Great Ideas (Musings of an art student)

I am beginning to appreciate the process of coming to great ideas.  Perhaps this is the one most valuable lesson I’ve learned this first month of the school year.

We can have great, awesome sparks of inspiration at any time.  We can have “great ideas” in an instant.

But when we go to put that into a complete, fully rendered drawing or painting, we can’t translate that idea perfectly from the get-go.  This is so frustrating!  Even if I can technically draw the thing that spawned from my head, what ends up on the paper typically isn’t as epic, as beautiful, as detailed, as intriguing or as visually interesting as the vision from my imagination.  I take a moment to stare at what I've drawn and I wonder, ummm so how could someone look at this and feel the same excitement about it as I did when I started this? Because it sure don’t look as epic as I imagined.

In part, I realized this as I was copying other artists’ work that I deeply admired (not to steal it of course, just to learn and study their work).  When I saw their artwork, I felt a rush of excitement.  :D BIG GASP “OH WOW THAT’S BEAUUUUUTIFULLLLL!!! I lovvvvvvvvvve it I love it!!!”  And when I did master copy of their work, I found I could recreate much of that same feeling.  But otherwise, when I flip through my own sketches, I miss that feeling. :/�� Part of that right now is because much of my own drawing is focused on improving my technique and my skills observing from life, so I draw a lot of people studying or looking bored, and random objects and plants I pass throughout the day.  But I still have plenty of my own imagined, conceptual types of sketches.  And although they were all sparked by some intriguing idea, they don’t command any viewer’s attention.

So.  Then we go to the present reality in which I am starting my first real illustration classes, and I have to come up with 15-30 thumbnails for each project.  For whatever reason, this does not sound like very many at all in my mind, but this is still a huge increase from the 6 thumbnails I had to come up with in high school.  However, let me tell you that 30 thumbnails takes me a couple of hours of deep brain work, and at the end I feel like I maybe have 2 or 3 fairly good ideas.  And even at the end of 30 thumbnails, I feel like there’s something better out there I have not yet uncovered.  And whatever that idea is taunts me.

(Here are a few of those ugly thumbnail pages.  It’s not always about looking pretty, but exploring and getting ideas onto paper-therefore eliminating a lot of ideas that just ... don’t ... work.)

Is there anyone else out there on the interwebs who has felt similarly?  I have loved art for a long time, but it’s only been recently that I have experienced this strong push, or this nagging.  For whatever reason, the only analogy I can visualize is octapus tentacles (they’re pumpkin-orange in color) reaching out and taunting and tugging at me (not violently but firmly and persisteringly(?)).

It must be the Octapus of My Artistic Aspirations.  Come, young art student, do or do not, there is no try.

(That’s the Minoan Octapus Flask from c. 1500 B.C.E.  One of my favorite ancient art objects.)

But back to the point!

The lesson I’m learning right now is that creating a work of art that is inspiring, that’s engaging, that people can really latch onto, and that you can say honestly communicates the vision you started with, is a process.  It takes time, it takes nurturing, it takes energy and revision and work.

Nurturing.  I like that word, instead of just simply saying “work”, because nurturing has the natural diligence that comes along with love.  Nurturing is passionate work, and it does not force or push too hard or too quickly.  It’s persistent and diligent.  And nurturing is a very rewarding kind of work.

For me, right now, nurturing my artwork is about taking my sketches and loving the ideas which inspired them whilst treating them more like sticky notes, simple, quickly jotted-down ideas.  Then I go into a great exploration and revision process.  The exploration and the revision are simultaneous.  They must be for at least a while, or my work will become static and boring, lifeless and dull.  I can’t be too hesitant to try something even if I think it’s crazy, as long as I am in this stage.  Next I evaluate.  Am I staying true to my vision, or better yet, am I creating a better vision?  If so, I can make whatever small tweaks I want to my thumbnails and then start the “comps”/final piece (”comp” is design school/industry jargon for an art piece that is much more developed than a thumbnail, offers a good depiction of what the final piece will look like, but isn’t yet the finished product).  At my present state, I generally do not think my thumbnails are aligning with my vision, so then I dig in real deep, figure out why it isn’t working yet, assess whether I am realistically capable of making those alterations, and then I do my best to improve what I’ve got.  At some point, I just have to move forward and finish what I started whether it lives up to my hopes and dreams or not.  But I do my best, and I do my best starting out in the idea/thumbnail/development stages.

That’s my plan for here on out, at least.

Just remember to be practical and use good judgment.  Even the artists I most admire admit that their end result is typically different from what they envisioned.  Some artists, I’d say especially young and developing artists, get really frustrated when they don’t achieve the results they hoped for.  My suggestion is to remember and appreciate how far you’ve come.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my life, it’s that I’m ALWAYS learning.  So I have the potential to improve.  And so do you!  Just keep nurturing those skills.  Little by little you’ll improve.  There’s up days and down days.  We all do.  Just keep trucking along, and never forget why you first loved it.

(This is really long. Should I add pictures?  Would that help your eyes read this textbook of a post?  Haha, I’m so great at tumblr, guys. xD) **Goes back to add pictures :) **

[inspiredartstudent]

More truth from Kelley McMorris.

[inspiredartstudent]

Wow this was perfect, exactly what I needed right now!  There’s a focus, but there’s also a journey.  What does your focus look like, and how does your journey compare?

I think this year (in these past two months), I’ve seen my winding path to becoming a professional fantasy illustrator and I began to panic!  I was freaking out even yesterday, wondering Oh no, what am I doing here? The coursework I’m doing right now has little to do with the artwork I want to end up creating--is this a waste of time? Is this going to help me in the long run? At this point I am a sophomore, I’ve got 3.5 years left of school, but I feel more like I’m circumnavigating my dream destination more than I feel like I’m heading towards my destination.  Anyone else in a similar boat right now?

I’m so glad I stumbled on this video from Marco Bucci.  He clears up so much of the fog I’ve been in this semester.  I still have some things to figure out, but I can keep moving forward with renewed faith that I’m on the right track.

And anyone who has been in this boat but has since emerged and found themselves where they want to be, what’s your advice?  I would love to hear it.

[inspiredartstudent]

WHAT TO DRAW WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DRAW

Draw from life. This is the best way to learn to draw. Drawing from life teaches your mind to translate 3D objects in your vision to 2D shapes on paper. Learning to think in 3D will give your drawings a visible confidence and consistency. Draw people at the cafe, on the subway, in church. Draw your pets while they’re sleeping, draw your own feet, visit a zoo and draw the animals, set up a still life on a table and draw that. It doesn’t really matter what you draw; as long as you’re drawing from life, then you’re exercising that 3D-to-2D muscle in your mind.

Draw from photos. Drawing from photos doesn’t help you practice thinking in 3D, because you’re translating a shape from one 2D surface (the photo) to another (your sketchbook). However, photos can introduce you to shapes that would be difficult to find in real life - cool stuff like castles, tigers, planets. Sketch any photo that interests you - and it is totally ok to trace things just for practice.

Draw from your imagination. This is where you develop your personal voice. When you draw from imagination, you’re not just copying what you see, but remembering things you’ve seen before and interpreting them in your own way. Keep this fun and light; don’t try any complex crowd scenes or else you’ll get frustrated. The more you draw from life and from photos, the more material your imagination will have to work with, and the easier it will get. All three practices feed into each other.

(If you liked this post, I have more advice and tips for aspiring artists at my blog!)

[inspiredartstudent]

Feeling inspired...

I started to compile a slideshow presentation for myself of the artists and work that inspires me the most, and man, it’s been so amazing.  I think it is helping me realize or remember why I started studying art seriously, and in which direction I want my artwork to take me.  It’s still a long process I’ve only just begun, but it’s been very refreshing after a year of college work and generic drawing exercises.

[inspiredartstudent]

How I learned linear perspective!

If you want to create believable artwork, you need to understand perspective!  Perspective is basically the rules explaining why we see things the way we do.  We can learn the rules and then use them when we observe real life and when we create artwork!

How did I learn perspective?  Basically, I just got a cheap, really awesome and straight-forward book from Amazon.  It’s called Perspective Made Easy, by Ernest R. Norling, and I find it super comprehensive and easy to use.  It’s kind of an oldie, but it’s a goodie.  I read the book and practiced as I went.

After that, I started observing the things around me like crazy. I also picked up some great advice helping me fill in the missing gaps.

A few helpful tips:

1. The horizon line (where land and sky meet) is always --ALWAYS-- the viewer’s eye level.

Horizon = Eye Level

(So if the viewer/you looking down, maybe the horizon line isn’t even your drawing!)

2. A vanishing point is the point where a set of parallel lines appear to converge in the distance.  So if you look at a regular rectangular wall, you can see that the line of the ceiling and the line of the floor look like they would intersect if they were extended infinitely in each direction.

Vanishing points are always somewhere on the horizon line, except for a few extreme exceptions.

You can have multiple vanishing points in your drawing, but usually it’s just one or two if you have a simple street scene or a room or building in your drawing.

3. If you draw some kind of box-like object or building, the vanishing points need to be faaaaaaaaaaar apart. (One of the two might even be off the page.)

4. As a general guideline, if you draw from real life observation, start with the closest vertical line, such as the nearest corner of a building.  By doing so, you can easily set the scale for the rest of your composition.

5.  You can always ask someone if your drawing looks right.  If if doesn’t, chances are it’s not.

I hope this helps!  I am still learning to draw, but I have come a long way in the past one and a half years since starting to learn these tips!

What did you learn?  Do you have any tips to share?  I want to hear from you!

[inspiredartstudent]

HAIR!!!!

Week 12: Hair

Here’s week 12′s resource list for 50 weeks of art improvement challenge. You can find all the previous weeks’ tutorial lists here. Happy arting :)

Hair Tutorial

(another) Hair Tutorial

Sections of hair

Braiding Tutorial Reference

How to Draw Curls

Planning Flying hair

Hair Coloring Tutorial

GrizandNorm hair tips

Glenn Keane hair tips

Black Hair in Depth

Inspiration/References

Ancient Chinese hairstyles

Islamic headscarves

UK Hairdressers Gallery

20+ Ways to Tie a Headscarf

Edwardian Hairstyles

Victorian Hairstyles

1920s Hairstyles

1930s Hairstyles

WWII Hairstyles

100 Years of Beauty series shows so many hair styles from so many countries

That one super cool pen for drawing hair by MediBang Paint

Also, the book isn’t public domain yet, but if you google “The Mode in Hats and Headdresses,” you’ll find a lot of historical hair styles and fashions.

[inspiredartstudent]

So, it’s just occurred to me that I haven’t posted any art here for a few months?! So I’m going to try and catch up a bit.

This floral feline is an ink transfer drawing.  After the ink dried, I went in with watercolor paint.  It reminds me of stained glass!

[inspiredartstudent]

This has come to describe me this year.  The more I look for beautiful things, and the more I learn about what makes art beautiful, the more I see beauty in everything around me.  Perhaps it’s also due to living on my own, but I’m not sure if that’s the case for people in general???  What do you think?

claudemonet

Sea Study, 1881

@claudemonet-art

[inspiredartstudent]

Advice & Inspiration for Illustrators

Here’s a list of blog posts I’ve written for aspiring and professional illustrators. I hope you find them helpful!

Advice on freelance and professional illustration

List of Online Art Schools

Types of Illustration Careers

How to Get Started on Twitter

3 Essentials for a Children’s Book Portfolio

Do You Need to Learn Digital Painting?

Track Your Time

The Peppermint Monster Principle: Do They Have Money to Pay for Art?

Advice on self-publishing

The Difference Between Traditional vs. Self-Publishing

Authors: 10 Tips on How to Email an Illustrator

6 Tips for Aspiring Kickstarters

The Costs of Running a Kickstarter

Encouragement and inspiration

Successful Artists Remember their Critics, Trolls and Doubters

Stop Beating Yourself Up

Tips for Staying Motivated After Graduation

Be Happy With Your Work

Drawing tutorials

How to Paint Lifelike Skin Tones

How to Keep Your Illustrations Fresh

5 Tips to Draw Faster Without Getting Sloppy

[inspiredartstudent]

A good artist does not necessarily draw everything right the first time.  Instead, they recognize where they can improve and they keep trying.

[inspiredartstudent]

Observe everything.  Learn everything.  Be inspired by everything.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted something here, as I’ve been going through a major life transition and settling in to a new routine.  I’ve started some great art classes.  I’m in a new place and I am observing a new climate, landscape, wildlife, people, and opportunities.  I feel my creativity being fueled by just about everything I see and experience.

Earlier today I went to an amazing dance performance.  The music, the costumes, and the dancing were incredible and inspiring.  There were dances in various styles from various cultures.  I came home, and (instead of studying for an upcoming test) I began drawing.  My mind was full of the mood and the movements of the dances I witnessed.  I let some of that out onto the page in front of me (onto my Spanish notes).

In one of my art classes, I heard something that resonated with me, and that I feel is true and absolutely vital for a successful artist, successful creative, successful professional in any career.  

“Learn everything you can about anything you can.”

Honestly, as an artist, this is imperative.  In class, we saw a graphic that showed the fields Graphic Design, Illustration, Animation, and Photography each in overlapping circles.  Then other circles appeared which overlapped with the circles of the first group: Architecture, Landscape Design, Web Design, Fine Arts, Dance, Film.  Then dozens of other circles, including Business, Biology, Political Science, Creative Writing, Accounting, Philosophy, Psychology, Music, Medicine, Physics, Astronomy, Engineering, International Studies, Language, and many more joined in the mesh.  

In truth, --everything-- in one way or another overlaps and strengthens everything else.  An animator who understands psychology and acting can strengthen their art and connect to their viewers at a more powerful level.  An artist who understands business can successfully market their work, reach a wider audience, and make a good living.  Scientists who know how to write can better communicate their findings.  Journalists who have understanding in science, culture, politics, and government can sound like they actually know what they are talking about.  Random people who pay attention to the world around them can tell when they are being lied to.  Etc., etc., etc.

Back to the point.  As artists and aspiring artists,

Observe everything.  Observe the wild, the exotic, the interesting, for sure!  I love new and unique experiences.  I love seeing beautiful and intricate structures and arrangements.  But also observe the mundane, the simple, the every day things around you.  Observe light.  Observe shadows.  Observe the directions of the lines on the walls, door frames, and counter tops.  Look closely at faces and find the simple, basic shapes and angles.  Watch the way people walk, sit, slouch.  Note the design lines in clothing and evaluate how well and why they work together or not.  Watch how different birds walk or hop around.  There is so much around us every day that we don’t see unless we stop and look for it.

Also seek out new, interesting experiences.  This is what can really inspire us--when we explore outside of our mundane, everyday bubble of life and take the opportunity to find inspiration in something incredible.  Go to performances, galleries, museums, movies.  Go to new places.  Read great books.  Whatever causes you to respond creatively.  Whatever inspires you.  You can learn so much.

Observing everything and learning everything you can--about anything you can--will inform your creative mind.  You will have better ideas and stronger execution of those ideas, because you will understand the inner workings of the world we experience every day.

One more thing.  Sometimes we prevent ourselves from drawing only because we think we don’t have what it takes to make the drawing really awesome, whether it is time or skills or our ability to mentally focus.  We don’t try because we feel pressured to make everything we draw perfect.

Don’t always be so focused on creating perfect or beautiful art!  I did not apply my greatest drawing techniques and line work in the doodles you see in this picture.  Occasionally you just need to feel the freedom in simply drawing what comes to mind as it comes, or observe something quickly.  It’s still exercising your creative muscles.  Have fun and let loose from time to time!  Draw/paint/create for fun.  Do it for you.  Work hard and focus on skill-building when you can, but also don’t let perfectionism stymie your creativity in a moment of inspiration.

[inspiredartstudent]

I said I would start talking about ballpoint pen in last Wednesday’s post.  Here’s me actually doing so. ;)

A year ago, I began a practice of using only ballpoint pen in my practice drawings and sketches.  I did this for several months, and I still go back to it frequently.  Drawing with ballpoint pen has a lot of benefits for learning and improving.

The Benefits:

1. Ballpoint is super sensitive and responsive to the pressure and strokes you use, more so than any single graphite pencil you might use.  My advice is to stay light and loose.  One of my worst habits I’ve had to work to break is to get too heavy too early.  It ruins the sense of depth and form to do so, and it can even damage your paper and make it very difficult to fix your mistakes later.  It’s a skill you have to learn quickly in ballpoint pen, and you can carry it over to other media like pencil, pastel, charcoal, and even paint.

2. You can layer it up!  Start light to “ghost” or “mass” things into place, get your sense of perspective or space down on the page.  Layer up from the back to the front, gradually render the piece one step at a time.  You may see several great artists who don’t build their drawings up in layers, but from what I can see, this is usually because they already understand space and form really well and have learned to visualize and create that from a blank page.  Also, many of them have already done preliminary drawings before you see their final piece.  In general, you want to learn to layer, layer, layer!  The results of effective layering in any drawing or painting medium are beautiful!

3. You can’t erase.  Because you can’t erase, you have to learn what I’ve already talked about: staying light, loose, and layering.

4. It helps you see where you’re weakest.  Because you can’t erase, and because it is very easy to see where you overwork an area, you can easily pinpoint what you need to work on.  For example, in my drawing of the room crowded with people (in my mind, spirits or angels), I can definitely tell where I struggled and overworked the guy sitting down.  I got way too heavy and dark too fast. Looking at it, I can’t believe there is space between him and the wall behind him. Actually, the space on the left side of the drawing just looks wrong altogether.  I did better on the right side with the girl in the foreground -- you can feel the volume of her hair and the roundness of her sleeves.

As another example, I am working on a painting of a house that I first drew in ballpoint pen.  I can easily tell that I struggled with the corners of the roof and the gutters because they are the darkest, heaviest parts of the drawing.  They stick out like a sore thumb.  On several of my drawings of human characters, it’s the noses, ears, and hands that stand out, so I focus more of my practice time on studying these.

5. It’s portable and cheap! And it is a drawing tool that works really well on paper that’s usually terrible for other media (such as copy/printer paper).

I hope this helps you see how ballpoint pen can be a useful tool for drawing and learning to draw!  If nothing else, you can learn to be a pro when it comes time for Inktober in a couple of months!

My hope is to start creating videos to demonstrate some of the techniques that I talk about on this blog.  If you want to be informed when I start creating YouTube videos, be sure to give this post a heart and follow my blog!  You can also follow my Instagram to see even more of my art @Inspired.ArtStudent

[inspiredartstudent]

I sketched the characters as I watched The Force Awakens. It was a fun exercise.  Here’s my favorite sketch of Rey.  I am still learning to draw the figure, but I am getting better!

[inspiredartstudent]

The Year’s Journey & Goals for the Future

I thought this was a good time to talk a little about ballpoint pen, my journey as an artist, and my goals for helping other students learn the skills necessary for creating really good art. 

As a high school student, I took art classes, but I never really learned to draw well. My teachers introduced me to concepts like observational gesture drawing and contour drawing, and what that should have taught us, but I honestly don't think I got that much out of it. My high school teachers never even taught us how perspective works (and perspective is a really big deal!!). I am not sure many art teachers understand the actual point. Or how and why different techniques work when they are understood, practiced, and taught correctly. So, although I enjoyed my time drawing and painting every day, I was usually frustrated because my artwork was not improving.

These pictures here are of drawings from about a year ago, as I started working with a teacher who understood! We started with ballpoint pen and drawing "inventively" and worked from there. Since then I have seen my artwork improve tremendously. I realize that there are many art-loving people out there who want to improve their art but feel stuck in a rut. My hope is to share the resources, knowledge, and practices that have made the difference for me, particularly with drawing (for now). I am on my way to college to study art. As I keep learning, I hope to keep sharing. You can become the amazing artist you've always wanted to be! Don't give up!

(I will talk more about ballpoint pen in a post to come very soon.)

[inspiredartstudent]

Recent sketch of a wizard. Ever noticed how similar old bearded wizards look? I like what is going on with the shading around his face. I like how the sketch sort of dissolves into nothingness near the bottom; it hardly seems noticeable, and I think in part that is due to the way I have layered up the pencil. Layers are super important and it is something I am only just realizing and figuring out how to do. Don't just draw; you've got to learn how to build things up layer by layer. It takes practice but the end result can be stunning. One place where I did not layer enough is the hat. It looks flat because the light/dark values are flat. And that one strong dark line at the bottom rim of the hat bothers me. I should have layered up the shadow beneath the hat and let the highlight of the rim stand out on its own. I'm such a lazy little stinker. Too true, but true. Haha. Overall though, I like this sketch. (For now, at least.)