Monday, May 11, 2015

A fancy gif and PASSION

Bland artwork - Hmm, I know, I'll make a gif out of it! 10/10

I think it's quite amazing how I've steadily gotten better at traditional pencil on paper art during the last 2-3 years, but I haven't gotten any better at digital drawing. Actually, it feels like I'm worse at it now than I was before! If you take a peek into the past and the archives, you'll find art that will reinforce that sentiment. 

For example, take a look at this wonderful digital drawing from 2013.


I mean... Christ. It feels like it wasn't even me who did that. That is the absolute top drawing I ever made with a drawing tablet and a PC. It's originally from mid 2012, but the version in that entry is from early 2013 and had been slightly improved. But that's so long ago! What was life like back then? Dinosaurs?

In retrospect, part of what made it so great was, well, I spent many hours on it. I had such good flow that evening, and night. And the morning after, too, when I finished it. I also used a photo of my own face as a reference for the proportions and perspective of the face (Not for the shading, though!). I really haven't done any digital work by reference since, which I'm sure is one reason I'm not making any progress. Drawing from reference and then repeating it without reference is a really efficient way to learn. But, well, I just haven't been doing that. 

In fact, I don't draw enough on my tablet at all. That's the big problem. I don't spend enough time practicing. I don't draw a lot on paper either, but my pencil and paper skills don't deteriorate nearly as quickly as my digital drawing skills do. And they really are two very different skills. You get rusty very fast if you don't consistently draw on the computer.

I guess the fault is in me not being passionate enough. Passion is greedy. Passion always asks you to be more passionate about your passions. It seems you can never have just enough passion for something. Passions are by nature catastrophically unsatisfiable. It's at the core of the artists struggle with never being good enough. Passion is such an ungrateful bitch!

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