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Frogstopper — Blue thing from Star Wars
Published: 2012-04-11 16:04:39 +0000 UTC; Views: 2082; Favourites: 24; Downloads: 36
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I went through a copying Star Wars characters phase.Related content
Comments: 17
Looking at this again now that I have indulged myself with paint for a while. This is really good and much freer than the stuff I do (I overwork everything). You need to bite the bullet and paint again.
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Remember I had the original in front of me while I was doing this. I was going to moan yet again that when I try to do stuff straight from inside my head it always looks awful - but I've just realised I always want to do non-abstract stuff that people would recognise and be able to see how far I had missed the target. Maybe I should start abstract, then at least I could lie and say "it's meant to look like that!" Would you say you're becoming less abstract as you go along? I don't know how to put it - your things more and more look like things and not just shapes, if you see what I mean?
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I take your point, but there will always be a disparity between what we aspire to and what we can actually achieve with present competences; that gap can only be narrowed by an understanding gained through practice, my present status. I guess that it depends to a great extent on why you want to draw or paint; strictly for yourself as a result of whatever it is that compels you to do so (my condition), or as a member of the mainstream where images are produced primarily to be viewed externally. Creating images or creating art? In the former case, the result is an end in itself which satisfies some internal conditions, it may or may not appear to be artistic, however, that is really not the point, if it is seen as such then that is a bonus you might say; the other point is that you become more proficient in the use of the materials. In the latter case you are trying to produce images which will conform to some extent with your view of what art is or should be, both in subject and finish, and until you have the the expertise you will not be able to meet that ideal; inevitably a self defeating strategy. I don't think that you arrive at the figurative via the abstract, but the reverse, simply because the rules which needs must apply to both are probably easier to absorb in attempting the figurative; Picasso and Braque being prime examples.
On the point you make about my things looking more like things and not just shapes then I would agree with you, but qualify by explaining that this is the result of the medium being used rather than a change in motivation; the things maintain the shape of the previous shapes at least nominally. Acrylics tend to drive me towards defining edges for some reason and this has meant that my shapes become more three dimensional, although still with a total disregard for light direction or perspective. The last one posted, which was really an experiment in using blue also had shadows added, which I usually dispense with and this gives a feeling of solid things, but apart from the fingers in bottom left nothing else has a direct analogue in reality (at least I don't think so). This is a commission with certain guidelines, one of which is to include an insanely painted poodle and to suggest water to some extent along with my mispronunciation of coquille st jacques; I have always pronounced it as cockeel until corrected by the missus last week. My son and one of his friends always give one another a totally pointless and quite often vulgar gift at Xmas, a person common to their childhood and their visits to the pool goes by the name of Eric who keeps poodles. We had a great laugh coming up with this concept. "Sister Erica, guardian of the Pontiffs poodles dreams of swimming with the cockeels." Probably pornography.
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I personally simply want to create the sort of picture that I like looking at. I know what I like, but I don't know why - and rarely dwell upon why I like it. I'll make you an open-ended promise to do something soon - just don't hold your breath...
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Haha. I think we're on the same wavelength. I don't know why either and I'm not really convinced I know what it is I'm trying to draw although I guess it will become apparent once I succeed. This is getting pretty zen like
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Featured in my journal here > roomofashes.deviantart.com/jou…
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That is really well drawn, can I be rude and ask if you're going to post more?
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If I ever pull my finger out and actually do some more. Trouble is I don't want to do any more copies of other art/photos, but I'm too rubbish to do the things that I want to do that exist only inside my head.
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Cardinal Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do a thing so well that no man could find fault with what he had done." That's what has constrained me to some extent, now I dont give a f.... My issue is that I don't have anything I want to draw, its purely automatic, straight from the recess, what I do want however is to be able to render it as well as I can so that others might get something from it. By the way, this is the second conversation I've had today on this subject and probably misquoted Newman. Just step into the void.
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I know, I know, it's just laziness finding an excuse (but I can't even mix the right shade of blue I'm after!). Have you ever read Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea'? (If not) it's a short tale about an old fisherman who goes out in a little boat and catches a huge marlin or something like that. It's so big he struggles to get it back to shore, and it gets so nibbled by sharks that all he manages to land is a part of its skeleton. I don't know what the canonical lit-crit interpretation of it is, but I saw it as a metaphor for the difference between what an artist tries to achieve - what he/she has in their mind - and what is actually eventually produced. I only want to do big difficult paintings - I'd go out intending to catch Moby Dick and only end up landing a badly mauled sprat. It's not just laziness, I suppose it's also childishly being too impatient to learn to walk before I run. But thanks for the encouragement anyway, I really like the attitude you have to your own work, you seem to treat them as something interesting you've found, rather than as something you've sweated over for hours. I need to develop a more 'work is its own reward' attitude, I suppose - shit that's 3 major character changes I need to undergo before I can paint. No wonder all I do is sit on my arse reading all the time, at least that's easy!
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Yes, saw the film, Spencer Tracey as the old man brilliant story. I do in fact treat what I do as if they are something interesting I found because at the end of the day, the finished product tends to be just that. There's nothing I do which is me realising the draft I have planned beforehand. The last one Wtf2 is an example. Just putting the light on it changed it to something quite alien to what I had been drawing, hence the title. I have a feeling that the really big difficult painting I will do is the aggregated of everything I have done up to the point I shuffle off. I guess I don't have the language available to allow me to verbalise certain things hence the need to put it down in colour, I have that need. Possibly you are comfortable with words but you should still give it a go, you might be surprised.
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The 12-year-old sci-fi nerd in me want to inform you that this is Max Rebo, the mastermind behind Jabba the Hutt's house band which includes that weird anteater with the lips. Now, if you excuse me, I think I'm going to skulk off in shame. Great painting!
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Thanks for the info (I've tried to suppress the 12 year-old SF nerd in me) and thanks for the compliment.
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No problem. I'm kind of a fount of useless sci-fi trivia, and was glad to pass that along. Your artistic interpretation is actually more expressive and endearing than the actual muppet.
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