Getting Back on Track

Feb 25, 2020
3 min read

With the unfortunate and sudden loss of our cat I have really not been able to find myself able to focus on work over the past two weeks. This week I began trying to get back on track and catch up with work. Originally I was continuing on with shading the first drawing I showed in the last blog but I just hated it more and more. I did not feel inspired and decided to just move on from it. Part of my book I have been ready is focusing on when to let a piece go and just move onto the next one and forget about trying to make each piece "good".

My challenge I gave myself this week was to create a drawing from scratch that used no references. This is because I want to get better at imaginative drawing, oppose to observational drawing. This will help me draw faster and more unique pieces.

After this I moved on with the next part of my online coursework. Learning more about drawing fundamentals. A few hours and several pages of notes later, I was yet again on how much I learned about just the basics. I brushed up on a lot of good technical rules for having dynamic drawings, asymmetry (this is one I really need to improve in), drawing using line weights to your advantage, and some just overall general workflow tips.

I have really tried to focus on drawing faster. Drawing faster is an asset. The faster I draw, the more drawings I'll be able to complete, which means more progress and reaching my goals of becoming better faster.

Another big thing learned is that I heavily rely on reference photos. This has been something that has been limiting me and was one of the things I had issues with last semester. I want to become more reliant on myself and my skills and knowledge rather than just "copying" something that I observe.

I worked more on my character for my Character Pipeline class.

I was able to use a base model to start with and I have scrapped my previous one done by hand for this one. I was getting really stuck on trying to sculpt a character without having any previous experiences in Zbrush.

After making a few modifications to the base model in Zbrush. I have been teaching myself not only Zbrush but also Marvelous Designer, since the majority of my character is her outfit. After I get the clothes more detailed out I will be bringing her back into Zbrush to add more detail.

Another large section of this week was doing two presentations for my History of Interactive Media Class.

My first topic was the material of everyday life - focusing on happening art in everyday life locations and then everyday objects into art. I researched artist like Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Cornell, Jenny Holzer, and Julius von Bismarck.

My second topic was about self perception and self observation in artwork. I researched artist Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, Frank Gillete & Ira Schneider, Dan Graham, and Myron Krueger.

This week I also read several more chapters in the book Art and Fear.

It touched on the very interesting topic of artists and the concept of "Talent", seeing that special "thing" that seems so outstanding in other artworks and wanting to capture that in your own work, and a lot of examples on how people who do more work are overall much more successful than those just hyper focusing on perfecting a few pieces. This really is hitting home with me and is a theme and topic I am continuing to research.