My experiments with my camera have got me thinking. What good as an animator with no camera? Animation is meant to be filmed. And clearly there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. And if there is a right way then it follows there must be a better and a best way to do it. And I do want my animation to look the best it can. To perfectly capture the colours and details I create. Heaven knows I don’t want to put up with any of that colour correcting nonsense that’s been making mainstream films look awful for over decade. I want the camera to perfectly capture what I see or possibly see it even better. Whether that can be done I don’t know. But I’ll start investigating. I’ll start reading some books on cameras and photography when I can.
But another thing that crossed my mind. My films are all analogue. Pencils, paper, crayons the works. Made me wonder. How much sense does it make to then film it all digitally? Yes it’s more convenient. But when has that ever stopped me? I like taking the hard road if it makes the art better. And normally it does.
I’ve decided to look into film photography. Might as well try to bring back two dead art forms at once. I will look into making my movies with film to see if that gives me results closer to what i want.
I went down to the photo guys room and asked if we had the tech needed on campus. They both had trouble understanding the idea i was pitching and seemed to think I was mad (I’ve gotten that look before. For many reasons) But they gave me a film camera and some B&W film. I was given a brief tutorial on how to use it and left to my own devices.
Since then I’ve been using it as a companion to my main camera. It’s a bulky thing and the textures and smell of the thing remind me the the cameras my Dad always had on him in the 90s. But working with it does really make me consider every shot. I think working with film, even if it turns out to be dead end, will make me a better photographer.
On Tuesday (Yes I did all this parallel to my current project and making my final piece. And maybe i’d have gotten more done if I hadn’t But I did finish it and I’m thinking about my future here) I brought the film into be developed. Working in the dark room was a strange, magical experience. It’s more like magic than science making real photographs.s Specially the early bits. But boy it does feel wonderful.
I don’t have much to show yet. But I have my film
A picture sheet (Or whatever it’s called) and at least one B&W photograph. It’s been very interesting. And I hope to learn more soon.
I think all this time around the camera (and weeks of stress-induced trauma) are making me soft in the head. I noticed the lights on campus where looking really beautiful in the dusk gloom on night. So I photographed it.
And as if that wasn’t silly enough I noticed just playing with the camera on the stairs it would do odd things with the lights. It would turn the space around them darker the closer in they were. bring them in real close and it would make it look like a single light in the darkness
Grovey. And honestly kind of beautiful.
Another thing that’s made me think about my future was something quite unlikely. The release of new TV series based on the Book ‘Green Eggs and Ham‘ by Theodor Geisel. Better know the the world as Dr Seuss.
All attempts to adapt Dr Seuss’s books into film (Barring a few entries he worked on personally) have been underwhelming and best and horrifying at worst. So I expected nothing out of this. But It blew my mind. It’s the best animated anything I’ve seen in years. But more importantly it’s all done in real, traditional, 2D animation. And the best that’s ever been put into a TV series at that too.
Just take a look
To say it blew my mind was an understatement. It’s made me rethink my future. It might be that hand-drawn 2D animation isn’t dead after all.
I’m still going to pursue a career in the indie scene so I can make totally analogue animations. But when the next Green Eggs and Ham comes around I want to be a part of it. I want to help MAKE things like this.
But the animators who made this didn’t use pencil and paper. It was done with a digital easel and digipens. So I’m going to swallow my pride and learn how to do this the modern way. I want to be someone they call when they need something like this made. A pro.
So I’ve talked to Morgan to see if He’ll give me some one-on-on lessons in TV paint. That way i can learn the program and get some classical animations lessons at the same time.
Morgan’s down for it. And he says he’ll talk to Owen about it.
The future is going to be very interesting indeed.
There’s not much left to go over. I’ve been extremely in depth in this. Probably more than anything else. But I might as well tie together the last few pieces.
I came in in Tuesday just wanting to die. But I had another very productive day. I can’t say how. But yes. I did the drawing and most of the undercoat. It was good work. My camera battery died again so I have nothing to show. But I did well and the I noticed while my inner doubts do eat at me a lot It’s not just a case of living with it and numbinging myself with small abouts of reading (or the internet). My inner monologue can change to more positive things. Maybe I should have less or no monologue. But at least I no I’m not just trapped with my own angst. My mind goes to odd places when I’m working well on art. When I’m in deep my mind starts playing long clips form old Thomas the Tank Engine and The Simpsons. In quite a lot of detail too. I don’t know why. But I’ve had this happen to me before in long life drawing classes. I think it must involve some deep part of my mind coming to the surface.
I wasn’t back on schedule. But I was doing good.
On Wednesday I felt like I want to be dead. But I still came in. In didn’t work as hard. I’m sad to say I slept a little in the middle of the day. Something that often happens when I’m stressed. And my output wasn’t as strong. But just when I felt like giving up I realised something. When I feel like something is too hard I shut down. But all I really need to do is think about what needs to be done next, or what can be done next, and maybe rest a little (though I’m hoping to cut that stage out) and I CAN do it. I can go on and do the thing that seemed impossible or too advanced or stressful for me. I could do it all along.
Everybody has times in their life when their hearts are filled with doubt
Frustration builds up inside, still makes you want shout
But if you take that first step, the next one will appear, then I find I can walk, and run, and fly
I left tired. But ready to do do the thing I most scared of. The faces.c Feeling almost confent.
Here’s how it looked at the time
I was pretty happy with e drawn version of face. I not only looked like a real person’s face. It looked like a woman’s face. That’s so rare for me it hurts.
Probably the best human face and expression I’ve ever done. Though I did have some real help from James.
Well today I came in and appield the oils. And her face didn’t get worse, it got better. The whole thing got better. I think I’m currently better with acrylics than oils. But damn to oils feel nice.
I I painted the three figures in oils and added some details the rest of the piece. Then I realised something I was done. Sure there’s more I could do. The thing was very messy with rogue bits of green splattered all over the place. But Everything that needed to be there, was there.
I did it. I actually finished something. By myself.
I hadn’t truly finished a project since 2015 at least. I think i’d believed I’d never be able to. The enormity of this moment made me want to cry. Whether from all the years of failure or breaking through that cycle I don’t know.
Here’s all my pieces together.
And here is the final piece
Wow
I cleaned up. Gave my presentation and wrote this up.
I feel like I’ve had a lot of limits and boundaries pushed these past few weeks. I may have even learned a few things. i just hope I can carry some of it. Any of it into new year.
At least I will be working with James again.
I’ve also talked to Morgan about my interest in photography and learning a bit about digital 2D. He’s onboard. Awesome.
This has been quite a week. I feel very tired. But I think I’ve done well. I think I may have even learned a bit about how I work. I’ve certainly been able to work for longer periods than I was last week. I think for the first time in ages I might even be on time for once (fingers crossed)
This is pretty surprising considering my slow start.
On Monday I was finishing off my photography journal and that was a pain. But I did it. And I think it will have long term consequences.
On Tuesday I didn’t come in. I had to get some Christmas presents from town and sort out some personal stuff. I know that sounds very unprofessional but sometimes life outside uni takes presence.
On Wednesday I did not feel great. I had not felt so behind in a long time. I had turn four blank cardboard canvases into paintings that could be turned into cutouts and a few days. It sounded impossible. But unbelievably, something clicked. I started working hard and fast and I wasn’t even thinking about stopping.
I started with a stick figure
Then I made a shape woman
And I decided I’d go the opposite route to watch I did making the coloured pencil drawings. I’d do a complete drawing for the new Eve and paint over it. But only make a shape man for the new Adam and paint over that. In coloured pencils I’d gotten almost equal (if different) results, with the Adam one being better (Though that might just be because it was a better drawing). Would history repeat itself here? We’d find out.
So I made an actial drawing over the shape woman. Putting the leg on the right in a different angle to see if it would look better and have more gravity. it didn’t. And I think the anatomy is broken. But it doesn’t look too bad unless you’re looking for it.
I liked the drawing so much is photographed it four times, to see which setting would give me the best results (Something I’ve been struggling with for a while).
Taken with the Portrait setting
Taken with the Smart Portrait setting.
Taken with Auto mode
Taken with Auto Selector.
There isn’t much difference between the four of them. But I do think the Portrait one is the best one. I I think it has the best lighting and does the linework the best.
In the scene from Perlandra this piece is inspired by the Un-Man gives the new Eve clothes made of leaves. This does not cause her to fall from grace (That can only happen if she walks on the fixed land) But it does help her to discover vanity. I feel this image really gets over that feeling of discovering pleasure in one’s self for the first time. Vain, sexual, but still very innocent. And the expression I did here captured that idea better than any of my other attempts so far. It’s also the best attempt at her hair I’ve done.
I like it so much that I photographed it in close up just so this rare good face and expression would still exist even after I’d finished painting over it.
I went over the pencils with gentle washes of paint.
And the face still looked good.
Thankfully when I showed it to James he said it was fit for purpose as a cutout. Meaning I could leave it as it was. I got to work on cutting it out.
I then got to work paintinf the full background. It’s fine I guess. I’m trying to come to terms with this whole undercoat idea. I gave the sky an orange undercoat and the land a brown undercoat but painted them the same yellow. Does it work? you tell me.
Her it is take with different focuses and lightings.
It’s not great.
I then started work on the new Adam. I had trouble translating this won to the cardboard and keeping it small. In the end I just ran with it and let him take up the whole canvas. Even going over the canvas and putting his knees on a small, extra piece of canvas. Part of being experience is knowing when to give up and go with the flow.
I made a very boxy shape man
But the picture wasn’t very clear no matter what I did. So It tried something new and fiddled with the light settings on my camera to see if making the pick darker would make it clearer.
Not really?…. So it tried a third time. This time at half darkness.
Maybe this helps a little?
I think zooming in a bit so their was less border helped more.
I was able to get the undercoat of colours done
I think it looks goofy as all hell. And the background is more orange than I wanted it to be. But James seemed to like it. He suggested I could add in the fine details with pastels. I was reluctant at first. But knowing I was short on time I accepted. James gave me the pastels the next day.
Bare in mind this was all in one day. A crazy amount of work for me. But the craziest part was when I got round to drawing the great wave I did the drawing in 20 minutes! With no redraws! Normally this would take me an hour
And it’s better than any of the other versions I did too.
I even wrote “How the hell did this happen!?” in the margins.
I also tried darkening the camera image again. A little
I think it can kinda help.
unable to believe my progress I started drawing the fixed land. And again in came out as I wanted it on a first try. Even if it took a little longer.
Yes. Zooming in does help.
Thursday was an even bigger challenge.
I started off doing the painting for the great wave.
I know it doesn’t look like much. But this feels like the most accomplished painting I’ve ever done. Everything just fell into place. The colours are right. The line work is right. The textures are right. And that grey-yellow sky is perfect. It’s not that it’s a good painting. It’s not. But it looks like what I wanted it to look like. And that feels strange.
Here are some other photos of it.
Nice warm colours.
I went back to the new Adam. First adding some extra layers and shading to his trident, which I do think looks better for it. I then used the remaining orange to alter his posture so he didn’t look so hunched over.
I then realised I still hadn’t given him his maleness. I whipped up some green (Sidenote. I’ve been trying to do all this the proper way. Just using Blue, red yellow and black and white. Mixing them together as needed) and painted in a penis and testicals. I think they look good for not having lines to trace around. Possibly better for it. But they are slightly in thee wrong place. Maybe I should include the genitalia in the prime drawing in the future.
I had enough green left over to add in most of the fine details. Just look at the difference between the two.
Pecs, abs, knees, fingers, lighting, shading, better hair, and even some facial features. All using the extra green.
I then added in eyes, a nose, a mouth, eyebrows, and some ear bits using the pastels. not only did it look better than I thought it would. But again i got a good expression out of it. The dependability of which I’ve been doing that is starting to scare me.
Again both the full drawing and the working over a shape person have given me interesting results with possible strengths. But I think this one is the stronger painting
Here it is in extra detail,
—-
With that done I got to work on cutting the things out as best I could. Like I said, these were probably meant to be miniatures to put in front of the painting. But between my main painting being portrait-style and my having trouble scaling these down that wasn’t really an option. I’d have to put my “Cutouts” to the side or slightly behind or in front like some kind of polyptych or shrine. But I could still cut out all the empty space that had noting in it and make them cutout like. Maybe that makes colouring the entire sky pointless? I don’t mind. It was good for experimenting with undercoats and for adding variation to make the skies look real, for lack of a better word.
Here’s the Wave as a cutout
Looks good to me.
And here’s how the new Adam painting looks as a cut out.
Probably looks a little better as a cut out.
The New Eve in her leaf clothes was the only one I’d been able to make small. So it would probably look good as a cut out.
It’s fine. It also looks like a head when viewed from the back.
After that my Camera died (I took these photos later). And I decided to go home for the evening. Feeling that I was on time for the first time since…. I first came to Cardiff Met probably, I decided to celebrate with a large Domino’s pizza with all my favorite toppings. That, was a big mistake.
I have a rule against ordering pizzas like that for a reason. Something I’d forgotten about.
I arrived in on Friday feeling ill. I did not feel able to do anything. So I let myself go to the computer and started writing this journal. Yes. This has taken four days to write. But that’s because I’ve been altinating it with doing small bits of work. Even while typing on Friday I did some drawing. Remer how I had drawing of the fixed land but no coloured version?
Nor did i paint the cardboard version?
Well what had happened was on the day I was going to do the coloured pencil version I forgot to bring them in. D’oh! So I made the painted versions instead. In truth it was probably a godsend. It made me push forward and tries my best. I could have just painted the pencil version raw with no coloured pencil version to work off of. But that didn’t feel right either. So I finished the cutouts instead. It was tempting to just move forwards and make the final piece. But it should be clear I don’t like to walk away from things. And I didn’t feel ready for the big challenge yet. So I doodled in my sketchbook. Slowly adding colour to the final drawing.
The purple clouds were nice opportunity to start experimenting with different colour mixes and techniques. I know I’m tempting fate. But I feel I really have improved in the past few months. Here’s were I was in September
And here are two scans and a photograph of the central purple cloud.
The detail. The tonal variation. It’s getting close to professional level.
Having not come in on Tuesday I decided I’d do something I’d never done before, and come in on Saturday. Yes. They let you do that.
On Saturday. I was feeling terrible. I wasn’t unwell anymore. I just felt trapped in my head. All the time away from the net was making me aware of somethings I was suppressing. Still. It’s best I come to terms with mty issues. Hopefully this will help.
But taking it easy, planning ahead. And letting myself stop to read every now and then, I finished the Coloured pencil version
It. Looks. Good.
Not professional level. But it looks like an actual drawing. Like I think I might be good at this some day.
Even if I don’t finish the final piece, I’m not sad. My painting and drawing skills have advanced since this module started. It was only just the start of November. It’s crazy. It’s been years since one course had made me learn like this. I salute you James. For giving me a real challenge.
I chose this module because I hoped it would help me with my drawing. And these coloured pencil drawings and painting experiments, they’re my real final piece. The real works I poured my heart and soul into. The ones I tried to make as good as possible. And in that regard at least I’ve well and become better.
Don’t think I gave in though. I went straight ahead and started making the painted version (After cutting out the the extraneous bits). I even got half of it done.
I may have even discovered a new sgraffito technique (That’s when you scratch into wet paint to remove it and make lines and shapes with the negative space). I was trying to erase some pencil lines that had wet paint on them. The result was this soft, organic looking sgraffito
I think this could be used to some interesting effect by someone who knows what they’re doing. I showed it to James who was interested by it.
Sadly it turns out on Saturdays they kick us out at 5:00. If I’d know I would have worked harder.
Here’s where I was.
Not to be deterred, I did another thing I’d never done before. I took my work home with me.
I was too numb to do much. But on Sunday I went out to the winter fair and had a great time. Even if I was totally soaked in cold rain.
Getting home I did to a little. Not much. But I added in some texture to the sky and ocean. I made a dent in that mental barrier.
I also tried writing a bit of journal at home. Something I haven’t done in a long time. My Laptop is too slow. But maybe it’s time I fixed that So I can do both types of work at home and can spend less time on the internet here. Given that’s what the laptop is for seems kinda important.
I came in today wishing i could just skip the whole thing. Just give up. Or just curl up in a ball. But I did anyway.
I alternated between painting, writing this journal, and taking care of some important Constellation stuff that I had to take care of. It was a bit of a chore. Jumping between these three things made it hard to get into a groove. But in time the final cutout painting was almost done
Quite the improvement from Saturday wouldn’t you agree?
But I wanted to make some final additions. I wanted to add an extra layer to the fixed land itself. Go over it with a wash. Then paint the the fine details again in brighter colours.
Here’s how it looked at first.
And here’s how it looks now
I think it kinda looks better this way. But James felt the original was better. And that’s fair.
Here’s how the final version of it looks.
I painted in some waves (as best I could). But they were too bright. So I went over them with a white wash to dull the colours. It’d tried white on one side and grey on the other to dull the colours to give a sense of depth. (Seen above ^) I can’t say which I feel is better. Bet James said he like the white better so I went with that here.
And here’s how it looks now.
Taken without flash
Taken with flash
And now all that was left to do was arrange the cutouts and wax paintings around the main painting so I had all of them for easy reference when I make my final piece. I did so, and it really does look like a shrine of some sort.
Why can’t this just be my final piece!?
I’ve put all my materials and tools in order. There’s nothing left to do. No other jobs that need to be finished. I have two days to make my final painting.
This is one of the longest journals I’ve ever done. And I think it my represent a turning point in my work. Strap yourselves in. This is going to be a big one.
I have, as I have been trained, trying to record my working. It’s somethin teachers like, or that they at least say they like. I never seem to get praise or better marks for it.
Anyhow here is the work I made last week.
But rather than just show what I did and say how I feel about it. I want to use this journal to to show I’ve been working on trying to find the best way to record my drawings. Using both my camera and the art-block scanner in differnt ways to see what works. To show I have been experimenting, not just in drawing, but in my recording too.
For each drawing I will show the differnt versions, say what I took it on, and if I can remember, what i did to make them the way they are (There’s a lot I’ve forgotten).
I hope this will show that I am engaged with the project, and still trying out new things to improve my recording.
Firstly I start with just doodling what I imagined in my head using the coloured pencils. The results were surprisingly on point. I felt no need to correct them or try again.
I then followed them with simple thumbnails to figure out the actual composition and make the details a little stronger.
The doodles and thumbnails.
Taken with my camera
Taken with my camera from further away. No improvement.
Taken with scanner. Looks a lot better, But maybe too bright.
Taken with scanner. Way too bright.
Taken with scanner, trying to aim for a mid-point between the other two.
Individual doodles: The New Eve
Taken with my camera
Taken from my camera closer up.
Taken from my camera as close as I could get and with better focus.
Taken with scanner.
I love how the texture comes out. But the red and the main green are way too dark. And the light green doesn’t quite look right. The colours in the photos are in the dark and slightly washed out. But they look right and look how they do in the real world.
Taken with scanner at a brighter setting. Kinda better. But the colours are still wrong. Maybe it’s a contrast thing.
The New Adam
Taken with my camera. Forgetting to focus.
Taken with Camera. No better.
Taken with Camera. Focusing a little (I think)
Taken with scanner. Colours are good. But it’s too harsh. Like bits of it have been shaved off. It’s good. But It’s not right.
Taken with scanner at a brighter setting. Linework looks better but even more detail is missing. I don’t get this.
The Wave
Taken with my camera. Forgetting to focus
Taken with Camera. No better.
Taken with camera. More focus. Closer up. A little better.
Taken with scanner. At first it looks so much better. But the colours slightly off, The wave and sea are too close in colour. The figure on the right seems to be a bit too sickly. The island and figure on the left and too dark. And the colours in the clouds are too separated. It’s like the colours have been smooshed together and the fine details done with dark colours get extra darkened. I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m ungrateful. It just the scanning seems so good at first it makes the imperfections stand and so much more to me.
Taken with scanner. Waaaay too bright. It’s a sensitive tool.
Taken with scanner, trying to aim for a mid-point between the other two. The colurs are almost right now. But a lot of detail is still missing.
The Fixed Land
Taken with my camera. Forgetting to focus.
Taken with camera. No better.
Taken with camera. Actual focus. Slightly better.
Taken with scanner. The slight colours look great and the details come out so much stronger than in the photographs. But again the dark colours are too dark. So nearly perfect.
Taken with scanner at a brighter setting. It makes the colours less blocky, which I like. But it phases some of the lightest colours out and the dark parts are even darker. Urgh.
Taken with scanner, trying to aim for a mid-point between the other two. I guess it looks okay. It doesn’t hit a sweet spot though. The scanner really struggles when there is light and dark colours or shades on the page at once. It can do both very well. But it can’t do both at the same time. The fact it sometimes makes the darks darker really doesn’t help.
The Thumbnails
Taken with my camera
Taken with scanner. A lot better. But it makes the dark lines too dark. The wave (The one with the least dark lines) looks the best.
Taken with scanner at a brighter setting. For some reason it looks better here.
Individual Thumbnails: The New Eve
Taken with my camera. An awful lack of focus.
Taken with scanner. Again. great Focus. But the dark bits are too dark.
The New Eve
Taken with my camera. An awful lack of focus.
Taken with scanner. More focus. Dark bits still too dark.
The Wave
Taken with Camera. Awful lack of focus. But the black coloured pencil makes it stand out better.
Taken with scanner. This one also looks better and I don’t know why.
The Fixed Land
Taken with camera. My hands must have been shaking hard.
Taken with scanner. Both times this was the worst one. Why? Was it just the worst thumbnail? There must be some more technical reason?
With that done I started making test drawings, to iron out the kinks and figure out the details.
All taken with Scanner. Darkened compared to the scans of coloured drawings.
I think this process helped enormously. Yes the thumbnails gave me a lot to work with. But this let me understand how these would need to change to fit the greater detail of a larger scale.
They were also extremely useful for taking notes for my future self when making future versions of these. A trend I have and will keep using.
I started off with The New Eve
Taken with camera kinda blurry.
Taken with camera. Even worse.
Taken with scanner. Objectively better.
The New Adam
Take with camera. Pretty good.
Stronger lighting but Not as good.
Taken with the scanner. Best one. But I wonder if it over-dramatizes the difference between the light and the dark lines. Ironic considering how it smooshes colours together (As we’ll see later)
The Wave
Taken with camera. Little blurry.
Taken with camera. A lot better. Must have been using a better focus.
Taken with camera. Again, at some point my experiments with the camera made things worse.
Best one taken with the camera. Or at least the clearest. Not sure why.
Taken with scanner.more defined. And certainly has more weight to it. But the feeling of depth is lost a little.
The Fixed Land
Taken with Camera. Not too bad.
Taken with camera. So much better. Don’t know even know how I got a look this good.
Taken with scanner. Also good. I think the fact the dark lines are lines I wanted to be dark helps a lot.
The Final Drawings
Then I started making bigger drawings to finalise the design, and then be coloured so I could finalise the colours as well.
I’d do them all with H pencils so the lines would be easier to rub out and leave less mess. I think this worked a little. Better than a B pencil would have. But nowhere near as well as it should have. Talk to Morgan about this.
For The New Eve I would draw her as a stick figure. Then make a person out of shapes. Rub that out, and add the coloured drawing over it.
First her legs in the stick figure stage.
You can barely see anything. The camera is not good for extremely light H pencil drawings.
Now here she is as a shape woman.
I think this one came out okay. The H pencil quality doesn’t matter as much if there’s more on the page.
Taken with Camera. This time close up, showing nothing outside the paper. Seems good for H pencil work.
Taken with scanner. Darker lines look better. Has more weight to it. But it feels less cohesive.
I then started colouring over the shape figure. Something I’d read in the Acrylic colouring book must have carried over to my coloured pencil technique because the legs came out far more subtle and clear than any of the pieces I’d done before.
I was so surprised by the quality of the work I had to stop to record it. Just in case the rest wasn’t as good.
I took it from the same distance. But taken from a portrait angle instead of landscape. Somehow it came out a lot blurrier. But I must have done something differnt for the next one, which was also portrait. And the detail looks great.
The colour is just right. How did this happen?
I got the whole then done and it looked like a drawing. Not scribled junk
For some reason the top half of this photograph is a lot blurrier than the bottom half.
This one is lot better. I think the top being blurrier must have something to do with the hair being redrawn a few times. I went a bit overboard on the arm muscles though. Must tone that down for the final image.
Now the background is fully coloured (And it somehow has a slight blue tint the other photographs didn’t have That’s my only issue with it). The expression on her came out good on the first try. So good I didn’t want to do a second attempt for fear of spoiling it. I’ve never done so well at my first attempt at an expression. Am I… Possibly…. getting better at this?
Well. For contrast. Here’s a coloured pencil drawing I did for animation in the spring of this year.
Maybe I’m getting a little better.
Here it is again. Now done with the scanner
The whole thing is too dark and the colours look off. The greens are all smooshed together, For once I think the photograph might be better.
Taken with scanner with the brightness turned up. The woman looks nicer. But now all the browns are missing from the background.
I originally had the clothes made of leaves red. To contrast with her skin. But as I made the plant life on the island blue (to contrast with the yellow sky) I thought I’d try blue leaf clothes here. Honestly, it doesn’t quite work. Maybe Red just reads far more easily to us as plant material than blue does. Either way, in the final version I’ll make the clothes either read or purple.
I began doing The NewAdam.
With him I would draw the whole thing out. Stick figure, shape man, then full man. I’d then rub out bits of the full man and draw with colours on top of it. I didn’t photograph the stick figure or shape man this time.
Taken with camera. Decent quality. Even got in some detail despite being all done in H pencil.
Taken with camera. Far blurrier. And for too much shadow.
Taken with Camera. This time close up, showing nothing outside the paper. Better light balance and focus. Looks okay.
Taken with scanner, Looks better. But with too much of the erased details showing.
Then I started doing the colours. This time working over my old linework rather than drawing new lines. It also came out well it seems both techniques are valid. I will have to learn which is better or which is better for what later.
This is the best colorwork I’ve ever done, and I don’t know how I did it. Again. The expression also came out good rather quickly.
I even tried some the the colour techniques I read up on in the acrylic book. Using brown for the shadows rather than just darker green or black. I think it sorta works. Must look into this further.
Photographed again with the camera further out and (accidentally) more shadow on the piece. Face seems blurrier. Shadows make the colours pop more but take away from the subtlety of the linework.
Taken with scanner A bit too white to be the best one of him. but the way it brings out the subtle greens and blues warms my heart. I think I could do great things with the scanner and coloured pencils given time.
For the next two I’d try the opposite tack. I’d make the wave a very detailed drawing and colour off that and make the fixed land as simple and light as I could with getting in the minimum details and see which gave me the better results.
The Wave
Nice focus. Far too much shadow.
Taken with camera. Decent focus. Nice detail. Still more shadow.
Taken with Camera again. This time close up, showing nothing outside the paper. Better light balance. But now there’s too much detail. You can see all bits i erased time and again. Making it look messy.
Taken with scanner. Shows off the best and worst of what I’ve mentioned about that scanner.
Taken with camera. This one really gets the textures and subtleties of the coloured pencils. specially in the sky
Taken with camera under differnt lighting. It does do a nice job of showing how the colours blend together. but sadly some of the colour details on the clouds are missing.
Taken with the scanner. I hate this.
The Fixed Land
Taken with camera, Not great.
Taken with camera. Just not feeling it.
Taken with Camera. This time close up, showing nothing outside the paper. Still doesn’t help with the light pencil work not showing up. Does at least bring the perspective out.
Taken with scanner. It’s better. Still not good.
It seems in general when there is little on a lot of paper bothe the scanner and the camera struggle. But I suspect the camera will usually struggle more.
I still haven’t colour the fixed land (This journal took 2 days to write!) so my experiments end here for now.
I also did some life drawing in the same drawing book. And recorded that for the hell of it.
Taken with camera. It’s fine.
Taken with Camera. I think I might just need a better camera.
Taken with scanner. A lot better.
Camera. Tried to take this one from an angle. Didn’t work with the light marks with the H pencil.
Scanner. Still looks not great, But a lot better.
Camera. A little better.
Scanner. Best B&W image I got from the scanner.
Taken with camera. Awful.
Scanner. Decient.
Taken with Camera. Again, H pencil drawings seem to be easier to capture with a camera if they’re large and have more detail.
Taken with Scanner. A lot better. But missing something organic.
Taken with the scanner at a darker setting. apart from being darker and a little dismal I see no downside. It just looks better this way.
And that’s all I have right now. I will try to build on what I’ve learned here (if I have learned anything that is?). My next update will have less photographs. But hopefully better ones.
****
Afterwards
Sometimes the photographs look better. But normally the scans look better. The scans take a lot more time to do. The Photographs normally look better or the same I have a large, solid object or image to shoot. Which is lucky for things like my painting which is too large to scan.
Thankfully even the photographs (Even the less good ones) are all I need to evidence my work for the university. So I can keep doing them for now. Maybe doing scans if it’s important to get the fine details of something. But sticking to the photographs will save me a lot of time.
Strangely, photographs tend to look better if they’re focuses in rather than showing the space outside the drawing. At least if it’s a big drawing. Thumbnails and doodles not so much.
But I know I can get better results with both camera and scanning. Specially for the extreme closeups
These were taken with an Ipad camera and are so much better than any of the close-ups I took with my own camera. Remember this?
And here are the scans of my thumbnails as scanned my Morgan (Done on a program That I don’t know how to use). Look at the detail. Look at how nice the colours are. Nothing is ever too dark, or washed out. The linework is just right.
Now take a look at my best scans.
Now look at my worst ones.
Again. Why don’t mine look like Morgan’s?
I must learn. In fact. It’s time I learned more about photography in general. I can’t make animation if I can’t film it.
I will have a journal about my experiments in film and photography soon.
I will show this journal to others to get feedback on how I can record better. I hope by starting to learn this i can eventually learn the perfect way to record my work recording and my animation.
This week’s been a little kinder to me that last week.
I did get the undercoat done by the end of Monday. It was very basic. James (our painting tutor) gives us a lot of good advice and guidance in how to paint with acrylics. But I never retain any of it. I should maybe reconsider taking notes? The problem I’ve had with that in the past is when note taking it takes me so much time to write anything and it takes so much concentration on my part that I miss 95% of what is said. Maybe I should swallow my pride and have a note taker again?
Well for now I’m going to try to compensate for this problem by reading and studying in my spare time. I’ve always struggled learning in a class or even on-to-one. But when teaching myself, like when I wanted to learn the history of Religion or how to play Brutal Doom on the highest difficulty, I do surprisingly well. I’m going to start reading more. Books on general art, and on whatever type of art I’m studying at the time in particular. I would like to thank James for inspiring me with this. He did suggest we look up ideas in the library (though I think he was more suggesting we go there to find unconventional artists to take inspiration from). I have borrowed a book on acrylic painting and a another one on drawings. Maybe this can be a first step to learning how to work with my third pool of energy I mentioned in my journal “Why am I so bad at this?” https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/11/04/why-am-i-so-bad-at-this/ I’ve said in the past that I work best when I have to use all of my brain as well as my body all at the same time and being able to think about it when not working instead of just doing a purely physical task or problem solving in the moment. Or at least I might learn a little.
My undercoat was apparently good enough for James. I don’t remember Tuesday in much detail. But something was clear to me by that point. I didn’t have the skills I needed to make this the way it needed to look just using the basic acrylics and colour mixing. I would have to bring in my oils from home. Complete with the turpentine and liquin, it was a heavy bag.
So I had to make a whole oil painting in one day. That’s not an easy thing to do, even for pro. And even after all the years I’ve spent painting (And using painting in two of my final pieces) I have no more idea how to paint than a newcomer.
I regret having no pictures of the underpainting.
I started by adding washes and highlights to the piece. I think this prototype has the best contrast on the woman. And maybe the clearer brush lines on the background added something that has lost.
I like the pale blue for the shadow here. I tried to recapture the effect here but never could.
By now I had the background with the colour scheme I was after. It centralises the perpcitve more. Wish i’d kept more white though/
And I also tried photographing it in Sepia. Just for fun. I think it looks good.
I got some of the contrast back here. She has lost some of her curves though.
I tried altering her expression. But this one looks like she’s sleepy.
i altered it again. She now kinda looks like she’s pouting. But it’s the best expression I was able to get (And by this point the canvas was covered in paint and altering it more could have ruined it). I’d also made the background a little better by this point. It’s not great. But it’s okay for four hours frenzied work (With some breaks).
Sadly, as always when painting. most attempts at planning and logic devolved into a frenzy of just throwing more and more paint onto the canvas. I couldn’t remember any of the techniques or ideas James had told us about. I could only paint. I’m not sure the techniques he suggested for acrylic paintings would have been of much use for an oil painting anyway. But I need to learn how to really paint. With my brain and not just my heart.
Anyhow. Here it is at a higher resolution
When I showed it to James he actually seemed to like it. And he even felt the underpainting was still working. So maybe I did something right.
On Thursday we were given a new task entirely. I’ll give this module this. It’s not giving me too little to do.
We had to try out using hot wax techniques on acrylics. Similar to batique work.
We had to first make some simple paintings. No pressure. At least we were given pieces of wood and card that were smaller than A4. Keeping with the theme I’m working with, I painted them yellow.
I made one abstract with tick paints. One painting with heavily watered down paints and one with my watersolouable crayons. Thinking they’d blend well with acrylics.
Here’s how they looked.
And here’s how thay look after adding some wax techniques to them.
My crayon work had a hard, sketchy look, even using water. I liked how it looked. It could be great using the paint for backgrounds.
I tried using identical wax colours where possible. Only keeping the eyes free of wax. Honestly. I hate it.
My wash painting was fine. Not much to say.
This one actually really looked better with the wax. I added colours that either could have been in the original (Green on the human, Blue on the clouds) or colours that were similar but different to the originals, like orange over the yellow. I like this one. It reminds mr of Rembrandt’s ink and brush work (If I may be so bold).
This abstract was lovely. Why’d I have to ruin it?
But there are bits of the second version I like. I tried putting opposing colours on top of each other. I like the yellow wax on the red paint or the black on the pink. But other bits smudge together.
I think this is good for pieces that have a lot of texture on them. Not so much flat bits.
I did try all the techniques we were meant to try like adding sand or painting into the groves. But they didn’t seem to have any real effect on the pieces I made. And even though it was yesterday I’ve forgotten what a lot of those techniques were.
Still. Not bad for a days work. At least I experimented and tried.
Today I went for the life drawing class here for the first time… ever really. Even brought my huge A2 sketchbook. And despite being so rusty I felt like i could draw at all I somehow lasted about 2 hours. Not bad.
I’ve spent the rest of the day writing this journal.
By next Tuesday I need to have some designs and I ideas I can turn into cutout paintings. I should have been working on that today. So I’m still behind in my work. But not as bad as last week. And at least I still have Monday.
I came in today thinking Field would start today. Turns out it starts tomorrow. So I decided rather than just going home to try to act the part of a dedicated student and continue with my project as if I meant to continue it. I wanted to continue my various projects after deadline last year but never did. But If I’m going to because a real animator I’m going to have to try to up my dedication and keep trying even when people aren’t telling me to do things. I’ve only recently begun to realise how co-depeant I am.
The next piece of work I had to do was the pond ripples scene. It’s one of the longest parts of the animation and the raindrops are timed to the music. I timed them in Premiere myself.
I opened up the program and looked at the timeline. Now this next bit is important. I cut off all the animation before the pond ripples so the timer on the ripples and would be set to zero. Making the maths simpler. Neil had don’t the same thing for me when I was doing the daylight raindrops.
I cut the extra bits off. Pulled out an X sheet and started working out the timing. Hoping to get to grips with this all important part of the animation process.
I worked at this all day. Doing the timing. Seeing where the keys overlapped with each-other. And trying to keep it consistent.
I filled out four X sheets. But just when it was over I decided to listen to the animatic again. And the visuals and music were out of sync! I’d somehow shifted the visuals and music markers so they were misaligned! I’d spent the whole day writing the wrong information. The X Sheets I’d spent all day makinging were worthless!
This really hurt. I hope I can learn something from it at least. From now on I will keep this mantra as part of my notes
“When timing to sound always check and recheck the sound and images are in sync. Always! Always!!! ALWAYS!!!!!!!”
People make art for many reasons. For a cause, for money, for therapy. As a time waster, as a way of expressing one’s self, as a private expression, for company, to preserve memories, as a way of bonding with others, or just for sheer beauty. But the inalienable fact is that people make art. Art does not appear out of the ether or grow on trees. People make art. But I feel sometimes we forget this. We subconsciously think of art as something that manifests into the world through its own magnificence. Complete in its vision of itself. When I show people works I have made people assume the thing on page is exactly what was in my head. The opposite is normally true. When I see one of my own works what I see is 50% my own limitations of skill, 49% mistakes, and 1% my vision.
There are two schools of thought on how to treat art that are as opposed to each other as they both tyrannical. The Death of the Author. Which states that anyone’s take on the work is a valid as the creator’s. Which in practice means the critic doesn’t have to listen to facts and reason. If someone wants to say that The Lion King is a vicious character-assassination of the poor they don’t have to care about what the actual point of the filmmakers or what actually happens in the film (Timon and Pumbaa are not only “poor” in as much as wild animals can be but they don’t even own land. Making them poorer than Hyenas. And the “Rich/poor” divide is at best a minor theme in the movie). The fallacy of Death of the author is “The Author’s take on their work is just as valid as anyone elses, no more or less” this argument ignores that having facts will make your take more or less valid. And with the exception of Stephen King on Cujo the author always has more facts about the work than anyone-else (King was suffering from drug addiction at the time and claims to have no memory of writing that book). Normally once someone has taken Death of the Author to heart they will only accept their own take on the work. Having disposed of the person who knows the work best they have no reason to listen to anyone-else. They are right by virtue of being right.
The other idea that is just as dictatorial is the maxim “There is no art. Only artists!” That the artist is the true work of importance and the work is just a vehicle to promote the artist. An artist can declare anything to be art and said art about whatever they say it is with little work put into making the work speak for itself. The work only has value because the artist made it.
I call both these terms dictatorial and tyrannical very deliberately. These two philosophies put their respective beneficiaries on a god-like pedestal. The Critic or the Artist can now perform alchemy and turn one substance into another at will. The critic can declare a work about anything they want and all must bow down to them. The artist can make anything art and cannot be challenged or told they have failed. One speaks divine truth, the other is divine.
And make no mistake. These two concepts are at odds with each-other. When people tried to reinterpret Duchamp’s over-discussed urinal as a statement about the beauty of forms in “dirty” objects, calling it a “Buddha of the Bathroom” Duchamp was furious. His work was meant to be read in the way he intended and nothing else.
I have many problems with both these outlooks. But one thing I’d like to point out is how both of them somewhat erase the idea that art is something that is made, over time, with human effort and human error.
The critic treats the work as if it just appeared out of nowhere. Exactly as it was meant to be. The postmodern artist cannot afford to admit to any flaw or failure for fear of their magical aura fading away. And many modern artists don’t even make anything at all. Some just find objects and claim they have made them art or just have abstract thoughts can call them art. Art as something that is made by human hands over time is something that is being obscured by these ideas.
The way people make art is rarely discussed beyond maybe the most technical details. Perspective, two-thirds framing, colour theory. That sort of thing. But the way people go about making art as shown in books and movies is almost comical. The artist will either be lying on their sofa despondently or making a frustrated, impotent attempt at making a failing piece work. And then inspiration strikes them and in a manic display of energy they start making the work flawlessly. And the end result is exactly as they envisage it.
Maybe this is more proof of my incompetence than erroneous presentation, but in my experience it’s nothing like that at all.
Making art isn’t a transfer of an idea straight into the physical world. It’s a journey.
There are three phases in making a work of art. The mental, the Physical, and finishing the thing. Let’s start with the physical.
For the sake of good faith I must point out that a lot of what I write is based on my work in animation, which is what I’m studying. It may have biased me in some areas. But I have limited experience with writing, painting, metal work, photography, and most importantly sculpture, which I almost chose over animation. I feel all the things I say here are just as applicable to them as they are to animation.
Making art is tiring. It doesn’t always involve a lot of movement. But it can wear on your body. I’ve flopped down on my bed exhausted after working on pieces. That’s rare, but it does happen. And when you get tired it will affect the quality of your work. Sometimes it makes it better, normally it doesn’t.
While getting tired is rare I have on other occasions gotten my fingers or fingertips sore from sculpting work, my eyes tired and arms sore after life drawing. And it’s not uncommon after a lot of work for one’s head to feel heavy and sore. Like huge chunks of one’s brain have been replaced with sand. When any of these things happen it’s often best just to give up and go home for the day. You’re not getting you’re peak back today (Though I’m guessing many professional artists just have to work in this state or risk losing money. I hope when the time comes I will stand my ground).
Everything you do has limits. God only knows how different all the classic art works would have been if you could have given there makers all the tools we have today. But even living in the present day I am limited by what pencils I can afford. What paper I can get ahold of. What camera’s I can find at short notice. The lighting I can work with. How much information and reference I can find. And hundreds of other factors. I’m not saying this to whine or to make excuses for poor work but to point out just how much the limitations I have end up shaping the work in ways people don’t consider.
There’s also repetition. One thing that is never brought up in films about artists is how much repetition there is when making art. Oh the repetition can really get you down. I supposes seeing one person doing the same thing over and over again doesn’t make the greatest cinema. But it really does get to the core of how the idea that art is made is sort of erased from our culture. The thing about it that’s odd about is it can be positive and negative for both you and your work. It can obviously really drag. But it can also be soothing or even uplifting. And strangely it not always a case of one then the other. Sometimes it will start out soothing and turn into a drag, but sometimes it will happen the other way round. And sometimes it only goes one way. It can just be relaxing, or it can just be a drag. The latter is more likely if the repetitious action takes a long time to do for each cycle. If the action is complex or delicate it is likely to strain the mind. It’s harder to keep track of all the things that need to be done. And sadly when it’s something like this that’s when you need to be concentrating the most, even though this is when it’s the hardest. Sometimes when the repetition is just a drag and it’s making your brain hurt its best just walk away for a bit. But once again sometimes that’s not an option.
That’s how repetition can be good and bad emotionally. But it also effects the quality of your work regardless of your emotional state. I should point out that not all repetition in making art is necessary, but it is often useful for saving time or getting a consistent quality of work, this is great. But it has drawbacks. As time makes the idea fade you start deviating from the effect you’re trying to repeat. This is well documented effect. Listen to Homer Simpson from 1990, 2005, and 2019 and they’ll sound like three separate people. There are ways you can work to prevent this. Visual aids and strong plans can do a lot to keep you on track. But to err is to be human. And the big downside of choosing to use repetition is how it gets in the way of being creative. A non-repetitive approach will always give you more freedom to express yourself and make a more striking impression. Every second you’re just repeating yourself is time you aren’t learning or growing as an artist. In fact you can start stagnating and loosing skill. While you grow impatient you might start experimenting on side. Adding in little differences to try to find something new. On occasion you’ll find a better way of working. But what’s more likely is you’ll mess up the whole project.
And of course there’s time, as I alluded to above. The greatest of man’s adversaries. Even non-artists know stories of movies and games that came out bad because of time restraints. But it’s not like if things are going well time is just a non-factor If you’re being smart (Which I’m often not) you are always cutting things down or simplifying them just to save time. It hurts. But it has to be done. I’m only now starting to get the hang of how to do it and how important it is.
And of course one is always limited by skill. I don’t think that ever changes no matter how good you get.
So that’s the physical work. But making art is just as much about the thinking you do as the work you do with your hands.
The hardest part is when the whole thing is in your head. You have a glimmer in your head, or you have a group all goals you know you have to achieve. But you don’t know how to turn them into a consistent, solid idea you twist and tweak and try to make things match up. Yes sometimes you do have that big moment of inspiration I mentioned earlier. And I tend to get those moments more often than most or so it seems. Art teachers hate those big moments of vision because they want you to write about all the failed experiments you made before finding the right idea. And if you just have a great vision from the start people get cross. If everyone had these movements as often as do art teachers wouldn’t care so much.
But moments like this still aren’t the norm. Even for me it’s more common to have a flash of one strong idea and then having to flesh it out. More often when I have to is sit down and just think. No distractions. Just asking myself what I want to accomplish and that isn’t working. I sometimes go round in circles trying to hit a breakthrough. I put all the facts in order and try to see what works. And if I’m being smart I’m taking notes (I’m usually not). As I keep saying, your vision for the work fades over time. You can get bits of it or even the whole thing back in moments of clarity. But you have to work and think even when the vision is dull. When you’re fleshing out the ideas or adding in new ones to tie things together you may get one of those moments of clarity and realize the fleshed out or new ideas don’t quite fit your original vision. When that happens you can throw the new ideas out, abandon the vision, or tweak things so the new ideas and the original vision mesh. The third option is usually the correct one but sometimes you have to use one of the other two.
It’s not like once you have your eureka moment the magnificent vision in your head stays there, perfectly clear. It fades and warps. New ideas come in and distract you. And sometimes things are just forgotten until way later. And that can cause some annoying reworking you never wanted to do. And sometimes those bright ideas never come back. And that’s one of the hardest parts to bare.
Around this point is when you start making concept art. This part is always depressing. Trying to wrestle the ideas out into paper as they look and feel in your head and it never being good enough. I suspect this would be easier if I was better at drawing. But there are also gaps in your mental images that you don’t notice until the thing is on the page and you realize you don’t know where you actually wanted that guy standing. Obviously that shows why this stage is so important, but it’s grating as all hell to find one of these mental gaps. And it can take some serious reworking to iron these kinks out.
But in the end you’ll have a strong enough idea that you’re almost ready to get started. But before you do there’s another annoying phase to go through. Deciding how you’re going to it.
Hopefully some of this will have been covered in the first two stages. But you WILL have to really think hard about how you’re going to make the thing at some point. This stage is often depressing because it’s where you have to make compromises. What to cut, what to rush what to tone down. For me this hurts in particular because the concept art I make is often too detailed for good animation and I have to tone it down. It hurts.
When finally getting down to work it’s tempting to believe that the thinking stops and you just produce it like a machine, and in some small parts that will be the case. But for the most part if you want the work to be good you don’t stop thinking once you start working. You work and think. You can just go at it like machine. But if you are still think while you’re working you’ll be more engaged with the work and it will be better.
The natural flow of work will throw up new challenges all the time, unless maybe you’re a pro I guess. But if you’re doing well you’ll rise to meet them. There’s always something new to learn about your field.
This next bit is very true of animation, maybe more so than other mediums, or maybe this is just a me thing. But one the big intellectual challenges of making art is always switching gears. Once a piece of the work is done and I have to start a new scene or a new stage in the work my creative energy just grinds to halt and I almost have to reorient myself and start again. Art isn’t like marathon running were you can find a grove and stick with it.
There is downside to keeping your brain engaged like this. For me at least my perfectionism starts kicking in. Even when I’m not making actual mistakes I know what I’m doing could be better. There’s no frame of animation that I couldn’t trace better. No pose that couldn’t be a little more realistic. Normally in the early stages of a project it’s very easy to get lost in this kind of perfectionism. It’s only later when time starts getting short that I wise up and start cutting corners. It would probably be better if I had a consistent pace of work across the board.
When I start making mistakes I sadly often act in way that makes the problem. I have spent hours trying make the expression of a character just right. And then I find my corrections are even worse than the original. And as I try to bring it back to the original that I didn’t like but at least suggested the feeling that I was going for I trip up more and more and become so frenzied that I tear the paper with my eraser. I know this is a very animation-specific example. I’m sure there are equivalents in other mediums.
Going back to that big burst of passion and inspiration you always see in movies and books. That does happen. But it’s a short affair. The real test is keeping going after it subsides. Day in, day out. And then continuing to keep going when you’re so tired you have no idea why you’re doing this. When you look at your notes and can’t remember why you decided to do that that way and you just have to put faith in your past self that he made the right call. Even if it seems insane.
My father, who once worked in television, once said that a movie is never finished, it just stops. And I finishing a work is always hard. Even if you have all the bits you need there’s still more you can do. There’s always more you can do. Choosing what to do as you get closer to that deadline is hairpullingly stressful. But in the end you have to pull it all together. And as you do you spot a hundred extra flaws that you don’t have time to fix. And all the pieces never fit together as well as you like. You try to do something to fix it. And sometimes there’s a little you can do. But fate will out and you have to stop.
With everything I have covered here do you see why I hate this idea of the erasure of the Making of Art? This brilliant struggle is something we should respect. I know this must sound like I’m throwing myself a pity party. That’s not my intent. I’m simply trying to point out just how untrue the ideas of art appearing from nothing and appearing perfectly as intended truly are. (And maybe there is some bitterness towards postmodern artists who put in no work at all as well).
I don’t want to fetishize the suffering of the artist. Fetishizing suffering is never good (Except in the actual fetish community where the context and meaning of both those words is very, very different). An artist doesn’t HAVE to suffer to make good work. But we shouldn’t be ashamed of it either.
I don’t want to suggest that the amount of work is a factor in judging the final pieces quality either. Some of the worst movies and games had tons of work poured into them by people who were trying their hardest in an impossible situation. It’s tragic. But it doesn’t change the reality for the consumer. Conversely if hypothetically ‘The Godfather’ had been the easiest film in the world to make due to the skill of all involved it would not be less of a film for it,
The point I want to make is that art not magic. It’s hard work. When we’re young we think of art as magic. I remember the first time I tried to write a book. I sat down with pencil and piece of paper (It was 2001, Most tweens didn’t own computers back then) and waited for the story to just appear. Obviously I’m wiser now. But I feel like both the ideas of Death of the Author and No Art only Artists both unintentionally try to carry this child-like idea of artworks as magical into adulthood. But it’s not true.
A few days ago I discovered that the version of Simple Minds’ Don’t you (Forget About Me) that I’ve been listening to for 15 years is a radio edit. The full song is 7 minutes long. And now I’ve heard the full thing it’s more beautiful than ever. And the song’s composition makes a lot more sense. I thought I had the full story about the song. But there was more to learn.
It’s the same with all real works of art. There’s so much more beneath the surface, more intended by the music than I knew. And every art work is like this. The finished work is only a shadow of the making of it. And if we could see the full work it would be a thousand times more amazing. That is far more magical than treating the work like it came out the ether could ever be.
I really was hoping I’d learn something here. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t care for modern art. I feel most art from the 1970s onwards has become a self-serving mess. Full of artists who don’t make art but only put on a spectacle to get people to talk about them. Tracey Emin and Damian Hirst don’t make art. They make promotions for the Emin and Hirst brands. The statement “There is no art, only artists” has become an excuse for artists to turn themselves into rock stars who don’t make music but just talk about how great they are for existing. I hoped would find my expectations challenged, learn about something cool that I could actually like. Or at least come to understand modern art a bit better and maybe gain a bit of respect for the modern art scene. I was disappointed on all fronts.
We didn’t really tackle the question of the problems and possibilities of modern art as was promised. We were just shown somethings modern art has done and maybe expected to like it.
The pitch was, “For many people contemporary art is both too easy (it often doesn’t seem to require any particular artistic skill) and too difficult”. I’ve always fallen into former camp. I’ve never really felt it was hard to understand. It’s often opaque. But a lengthy explanation of why it exists is always nearby. (And this isn’t even a modern thing. Many classical paintings are impenetrable without the title to tell you what’s happening and totally opaque if you don’t have a strong knowledge of The Bible or Greek myth). But I’ve always felt it was too easy to make (Or in many cases it is never “made” at all), and that I can understand the nonsense being spewed just fine. But I was really hoping maybe I would find out I was a little wrong. Just see that there was something in the modern art scene that I was missing. But I was disappointed again. The past six weeks have been me staring into the void of modern art. Hearing arguments and sentiments I’d already heard. Not feeling my intellect challenged at all. Just wishing this would end so I could put effort into my real work.
The idea that this stuff could help my animation work is a joke. This is if anything a drain. It diverts mental energy that could be going into the course I’m meant to be doing or the writing I should be doing about said real work
The First week of Constellation was the hardest. We were given the most texts of any week and they were the hardest to understand. I was afraid the whole term would be like this. Dense philosophical texts that would make my head hurt. I certainly put more effort into that first journal than any other. I actually tried to make arguments of my own. But it was also the one I found the most disappointed by.
I hoped it would be a look into where art is right now. Instead I found myself knee deep in post-modernist “Narratives are dead” BS that ironically is a narrative. A lot of self-aggrandizement over how the evils of modernism have been slain and pondering how to express one’s self in a narrative free world. But nothing about art or where it actually is. Just where these intellectuals want to go. The irony is they claim narratives are dead but they can only see their own narrative and nothing-else. Like the fish that doesn’t know it swims in water. Why can’t we talk about what art is rather than what non-artists want it to be?
Again. I don’t feel like my mind is being expanded. Just that I’m hearing the same old rubbish.
In short. The first week felt like a debate over question that never needed to be asked. Something I would feel again later.
Week 2 got off to a very bad start. I hated Hito Steyerl’s essay “In Freefall” so much I had to write my own response to it separate from my regular journal. I guess it wouldn’t be a Constellation term without at least one reading assignment that made me regret being alive. But this year it wasn’t because it was badly written but because the ideas in it were so bad.
The theme “What does the world look like?” Doesn’t seem to have anything to do with last week’s theme or the main them at all. If you believe the question is in doubt it will always be in doubt. It’s an eternal question. Not a contemporary one.
The next question was “What are our responsibilities [as artists] to the wider world?” I do at least agree this is an important question, even if I stand by my stance that artists are not social actors and shouldn’t be obliged to make socially conscious art unless they choose to. The only limit I’d agree to is that artists shouldn’t call for real-world violence.
I feel like the whole exercise was just a subtle attempt at trying to make an activist out of me. I resent this attempt to try to shape my political views.
And once again. If you believe artist have some ethical responsibility to the world then what that is an eternal question more than a contemporary one.
We weren’t really shown much art. Just substandard activism posing as art to seem more relevant. So not only is the contemporary part missing, but so is art. It reminds me of when a lecturer in Treforest made us all watch ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. It had nothing to do with art. He just really cared about environmentalism. I’m all for saving the planet. But using our art course that we paid for to lecture us on your politics is a pure abuse of power and waste of our time.
The final question. What, if any, role should pleasure have in art is at least interesting and about art again. But again it feels like a non-question given way more thought than it needs. What is the place of pleasure in art? Art, or at least good art, is inherently pleasurable and that is not a bad thing. Case closed.
I reread all the journals I posted this term. And I feel like I tried really hard to engage with this course. My responses very long reads. But I got nothing out of this. Just pain. I feel like all that has happened is I’ve had all my biases about the worthlessness of modern art reconfirmed. I’ve had weeks lost answering dumb question that never needed to be asked or explored.
I said I’d dampen down my personal projects so I could focus on my work. An I have been I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of things and I’ve been scraping back towards something good. But it feel like nothing is ever good enough.
I have to get a lot of writing done for Constellation done for this Friday. A lot of nonsense that I don’t see the point of. I need to write 4500 words and try to make it look at least a little professional.
I had a full weekend to get started. Granted I was sleeping a lot due to having worked extra hard over the past week. But I could have gotten something done.
But I had a little bit of extra work left over. Didn’t take long. But then a friend asked me to do a little thing for a project he was working on. I had to think about what to do, and then do a bit of writing. No big deal right? Then I saw a writing challenge that sounded fun. Do a little everyday on a simple theme. Surely this wouldn’t take too long? Well it took longer than I thought it would. And in the end I didn’t get started on the Constellation writing at all. Now I have to get these 4500 words done in the week day,
It may sound like I’m complaining about lost time. And that is a problem. But it seems like I have a very limited pool of energy. When I’m done writing creatively I feel the need to rest for a bit. Let my mind wonder over nothing and get ready to open up some space for the next project to enter. After a while I get bored and I get ready to start doing something new.
As well as having a very limited pool of creative/working energy I also seem to have a limited pool of play energy. Stuff for real gaming or filmwatching. I have a bit more play energy than work energy. But I don’t seem able to switch from one to the other quickly. again I need to have a period of downtime where I can relax and reorient myself before I can get to work.
When I find something I really care about something I seem to tap into a third pool of energy, or maybe it’s the other two pools coming together? I don’t know. When really get into a personal project it becomes a burning passion within me. I don’t just work on it. I think about it with all my mind. Sometimes it can be a creative project, like when I made my train installation it became my life. But sadly it’s rarely a creative project. When I get into this kind of state it’s often for projects that relate to my hobbies. Over the summer I got obsessed with trying to perfect my game while playing Doom. Playing it on high skills I normally never touch. Beating levels that even seasoned players have trouble with. I can barely remember what I did over summer. Just the intensity and how much I enjoyed it. It was probably a big reason why I didn’t get as much work done over the summer as I could have. I wish I could find a way to tap into this pool when I need to. But I can’t it requires me engaging both my effort, and more importantly, my mind. The part of me that cares about the work even when I’m not doing it. I don’t know how to tap into it at will. And I’m scared to. I don’t know who’ll become if I do.
But for now I’m just sad that my creative pool is so small that even a tiny amount of personal work on the weekend is more than I can handle. We am I so bad at this?
![Dscn0177[1] by Hawkbittern](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/4210065d-d40f-4940-ad49-0fe61ddb480a/ddlzdda-f25cbbe7-72fd-4640-bcda-a61b6b51ca0f.jpg/v1/fill/w_774,h_1032,q_70,strp/dscn0177_1__by_hawkbittern_ddlzdda-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTcwNyIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyMTAwNjVkLWQ0MGYtNDk0MC1hZDQ5LTBmZTYxZGRiNDgwYVwvZGRsemRkYS1mMjVjYmJlNy03MmZkLTQ2NDAtYmNkYS1hNjFiNmI1MWNhMGYuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEyODAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.clBrurDSgouDUjLvMEJNnOfyUnwK90lkcmvycpPrmog)
John's Learning Journal 