Craft
This year so far, I've been focusing a lot on my craft. As an artist, when I say craft, I'm referring to my level of proficiency with the media I use, whether that be pencil, paper, paint, ink, or any other medium I may choose to work with. According to Wikipedia, craft is "a pastime or a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work" and I think that encompasses what I've been trying to do fairly well.
For me, learning as an artist goes in stages. What happens is that I tend to take on a challenge one at a time - learn to draw the figure better; learn to draw faces better; learn to draw more than one character; learn to ground your characters in a scene; learn to make your settings as important as the characters, etc. And then once I feel like I've mastered that challenge to a level where I feel okay about moving on, I have to take some time to improve my skills with the media so that everything evens out. A lot of times I see people who get so stuck on their concept or their figures that they completely neglect their ability to work with the media, and then you have this artist who draws these amazing likenesses or these gorgeous dynamic images but the material just doesn't hold up. They go hand-in-hand, and you have to nurture both in order to create images that are finished and satisfying, in my opinion.
Graphite is probably my primary medium. I use it in every painting, and for a long time I think I used it as a sort of crutch. I still do, if I can be completely honest. The major benefit of graphite for me is its subtlety and its impermanence. You make a mark that is wrong, and you can erase it, go back. I make a lot of mistakes in my work, and beyond that I also use the eraser as a shading tool in itself (as most artists who do a lot of graphite work do). It's kind of a similar monster with watercolor, which is what I do (did) the majority of my painting in - watercolor is very transparent and at least semi-re-soluable, and it's hard to put down something that you can't cover up, lighten, or otherwise mask. Watercolor also allowed me to preserve the structure of the graphite drawing underneath, so that I didn't have to rework all the shadow I'd already drawn in with paint.
I think most artists are at least vaguely aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and frankly, you have to be self-aware in order to improve. Either that or have really good friends who are willing to ceaselessly give you a lot of critique, which is unrealistic and even then won't get you where you need to go. I know that I am good with composition (although I'm also lazy and fail to plan things, so my compositions suffer because of that), I'm good at drawing faces, I paint appealing skin-tones, and I have a great sense of color. But I reached a point where the watercolor just wasn't bringing me the level of intensity that I wanted out of my skin-tones (primarily) so I decided to start working back in more acrylic and gouache. I looked at my older work and tried to pick out what it was that I loved about it, and I realized I'd gotten kind of lazy and stopped working acrylic into my images so much.
Part of that is because acrylic is opaque. It can be used as a wash but it's not designed to be and it doesn't paint in a smooth layer of color like watercolor does when used as a wash. Gouache is slightly less opaque than acrylic and it also washes a little better, but it also heavily shows brushstrokes in its dried finish and it is very difficult to layer because it's re-soluable. I was afraid of covering up my pencil drawings with acrylic. I was afraid to lose the integrity of what I'd drawn in the painting process. Especially when working with facial features and likenesses a minor tweak can be the difference between a eureka moment and distraught sobbing.
Anyway, I somehow got past that. I don't know how. My goal was to have paintings that didn't require a lot of retouching in Photoshop when I scan them (levels and selective color, generally), and I'm finally at a point where I feel like I can say I'm confident that I can do that. I think I may have taken a step backwards in terms of setting - I've been working with a lot more graphic elements/backgrounds as I get familiar with this new way of painting - but it's an intentional step backward. Now I just have to reassure myself that I can work at a level where I'm still painting backgrounds at the same level of integrity as I was before I started changing my media.
I'm interested to know what people think - do you notice the difference? Do you see it as an improvement? And of course if you have any questions about my process or about painting in general I'm always happy to answer. I often wonder if people who work digitally struggle with this sort of thing as much as I do.
For me, learning as an artist goes in stages. What happens is that I tend to take on a challenge one at a time - learn to draw the figure better; learn to draw faces better; learn to draw more than one character; learn to ground your characters in a scene; learn to make your settings as important as the characters, etc. And then once I feel like I've mastered that challenge to a level where I feel okay about moving on, I have to take some time to improve my skills with the media so that everything evens out. A lot of times I see people who get so stuck on their concept or their figures that they completely neglect their ability to work with the media, and then you have this artist who draws these amazing likenesses or these gorgeous dynamic images but the material just doesn't hold up. They go hand-in-hand, and you have to nurture both in order to create images that are finished and satisfying, in my opinion.
Graphite is probably my primary medium. I use it in every painting, and for a long time I think I used it as a sort of crutch. I still do, if I can be completely honest. The major benefit of graphite for me is its subtlety and its impermanence. You make a mark that is wrong, and you can erase it, go back. I make a lot of mistakes in my work, and beyond that I also use the eraser as a shading tool in itself (as most artists who do a lot of graphite work do). It's kind of a similar monster with watercolor, which is what I do (did) the majority of my painting in - watercolor is very transparent and at least semi-re-soluable, and it's hard to put down something that you can't cover up, lighten, or otherwise mask. Watercolor also allowed me to preserve the structure of the graphite drawing underneath, so that I didn't have to rework all the shadow I'd already drawn in with paint.
I think most artists are at least vaguely aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and frankly, you have to be self-aware in order to improve. Either that or have really good friends who are willing to ceaselessly give you a lot of critique, which is unrealistic and even then won't get you where you need to go. I know that I am good with composition (although I'm also lazy and fail to plan things, so my compositions suffer because of that), I'm good at drawing faces, I paint appealing skin-tones, and I have a great sense of color. But I reached a point where the watercolor just wasn't bringing me the level of intensity that I wanted out of my skin-tones (primarily) so I decided to start working back in more acrylic and gouache. I looked at my older work and tried to pick out what it was that I loved about it, and I realized I'd gotten kind of lazy and stopped working acrylic into my images so much.
Part of that is because acrylic is opaque. It can be used as a wash but it's not designed to be and it doesn't paint in a smooth layer of color like watercolor does when used as a wash. Gouache is slightly less opaque than acrylic and it also washes a little better, but it also heavily shows brushstrokes in its dried finish and it is very difficult to layer because it's re-soluable. I was afraid of covering up my pencil drawings with acrylic. I was afraid to lose the integrity of what I'd drawn in the painting process. Especially when working with facial features and likenesses a minor tweak can be the difference between a eureka moment and distraught sobbing.
Anyway, I somehow got past that. I don't know how. My goal was to have paintings that didn't require a lot of retouching in Photoshop when I scan them (levels and selective color, generally), and I'm finally at a point where I feel like I can say I'm confident that I can do that. I think I may have taken a step backwards in terms of setting - I've been working with a lot more graphic elements/backgrounds as I get familiar with this new way of painting - but it's an intentional step backward. Now I just have to reassure myself that I can work at a level where I'm still painting backgrounds at the same level of integrity as I was before I started changing my media.
I'm interested to know what people think - do you notice the difference? Do you see it as an improvement? And of course if you have any questions about my process or about painting in general I'm always happy to answer. I often wonder if people who work digitally struggle with this sort of thing as much as I do.