Search and Discovery
Okay. So I'm all switched back and stuff. Thanks for your input, Tom and everyone who signed my guestbook to express your opinion. You're right. I still think the other template was nice, but let's face it... it's really not me. Too conservative, too organized and subtle. I am so none of those things. And I'll have a real actual wee doodle installed there for the topper by December 1st, worry not.
Still, I'm aching for some kind of change. I actually think it has nothing to do with my template. I think it has more to do with my overall illustration style.
Thing is, I've never really thought of myself as having a set style. In fact, though there is a consistency in the work I've posted here so far, a certain way of drawing, and I've developed a certain way of working in Photoshop that may be loosely called a style, I really don't think I've found my personal style yet.
It seems like a simple exercise on the surface, defining your style, but you know...I'm finding it very problematic. Illustration is very different from writing. For me, at least.
I write the way I talk. The way I talk to myself in my head, anyway. I just sit here and pound at the keyboard and try to keep up with the tumult in my brain without making too many spelling errors and out comes my voice. And it seems to more or less come out just the way it should. It sounds like my voice, all high pitched and squeaky and goofy.
But when I sit down to draw something, it's altogether different. I'm not sure how to describe it. It's kind of like my brain shuts off, that constant inner chatter that keeps me internally entertained dims to the merest whisper and I just float off somewhere else. "I" sort of cease to be. I sort of float off into this weird void, kind of like I imagine outer space to be. In fact, sitting here trying to explain it, the image that keeps popping into my head over and over again is that of an astronaut, narrowly tethered to some spacecraft.
And out comes stuff. But here's the kicker... I'm not sure if it's my stuff.
Does that make any sense?
I think, like most artists, I'm heavily influenced by others. And that's okay, in moderation. It's important to learn from others and to be aware of what else is out there. To be excited by the other art.
But I've been thinking recently that I've lost my own personal perspective. I think I've become so involved in trying to evolve my way of working digitally, that I've lost touch with the basics.
Paint and canvas and my love of good old fashioned line work.
I mean, I know it's all been done before and the best you can hope to do is simply do it your way. I just think I haven't focused enough on doing it my way. That's perhaps the curse of commercial illustration. When you're trying to please your clients, you sometimes forget about pleasing yourself. And in the end, to be truly successful and original, you must be true to yourself.
Was it T.S. Elliot who said something to the effect of "in order to arrive at what you are, you must go through the way in which you are not?"
I think I've been spending too much time going through the way in which I am not.
For all the pieces I've produced over the ages, there are only a handful that I feel truly hint at where I want to go with my work. One is the painting up there at the top of this page. It's the only piece of mine hanging in my office. I did it years ago, during an experimental phase when I was trying to incorporate collage work in with my painting, and it's not entirely finished yet.
But there's a loose quality and a spontanetity about it that I like. I like that it's rough and unfinished and that up close (though not so much in the digital copy), you can really see the brush marks and even a couple of the hairs from my old, chewed up and cheap brushes. I should note that the actual painting doesn't have the kind of patched background you see there, but the piece was too large to scan in on my little scanner, so I had to tile it. In the end I kind of liked the patched effect, so I didn't try to make it meld together seamlessly.
So I've resolved that I'm going to get back to nature so to speak. I'm going to put down the mouse and pull out my paints for a while. I'm going to get messy and experiment and be bold.
And in the next little while, hopefully I'll be able to treat you to a glimpse of the true me.
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