pasithea

Babble about the book Last night in design class I read through the first of three books in a series Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock. Interesting. It's done on the pretense of a pair of people sending letters and post cards to each other. (I won't go into too much detail and spoil it) It's pleasantly surrealist although the art is a little sedate and at points he also tries a bit too hard to distinquish the characters in their personalities and writing styles. Through the book I had mixed feelings, alternating beetween enjoying the art, finding it sort of juvenille and lame heterosexual fantasy, finding it sexy, and finding it kind of creepy and stalkery. The end of the first book left me wanting to read the second though so I guess that's good.

In no particular order, some little quips that I felt worth hilighting: Italics are my own notes jotted in on the side, which are necissarily the only interpretation of the passage, just some expansion for myself I wanted to add. bold for things I probably really ought to pound into my head or I feel conflicted about.

Students who cannot look at form, who persist in seeing the person, draw the model akwardly, without life.
Those who can reduce the person to form can bring the model's personality to life.

Is this person a squiare? A circle? a Squiggle?

A small intesne color shape balances a much larger neutral color shape.

A small, irregular shape will balance a larger circle, rectangular, or simple shape, even if it is of the same color, value, or texture. The smaller shape is more interesting and therefore has more visual weight.

Line often suggests movement in a drawing or painting.

Variety in the thickness of lines creates surface interest.

Gestural lines indicate action and physical movement. Our eyes follow the active lines as they swirl across the page.

SLOW DOWN, enjoy the process and the product.

This is a majorly important one for me. i've sorta been learning it with animation but I don't remember it and hold to it nearly enough. Enjoy the process.

Don't tell yourself, "this is awful" or "this is wrong" or "theirs are better"

This is something I so need to work on. I'm so frickin' overly competative for NO reason. At least I tend to keep it internal but it's still pretty shallow and childish. I hate when I catch myself doing it and force myself to say something positive about their work to myself and find something in it that they do better than me, but I still do it. Pleh.

Build on what you CAN and WILL do - your strengths, not yoru weakness."
Look at and respect what others do. See above

What has the artist done and what can you learn from this piece? I know this, I just need to make more use of it

More time equals faster progress

Revise and reevaluate your required time frames relevant to your life style.

Knowing yourself is a worthwhile and necessary goal. That includes your understanding and feelings about the world, life, humanity, etc. wrapped up in a masterwork of artistic elements intelligently organized to express YOU.

Content, design, and techniques are the three most important areas to address in evaluating an art piece. Look at a piece for itself - not in comparison to other artists or other works.

The way you look at a subject, how you relate it to your experiences, the media you choose and the way you handle ALL of these equals your "style". Your resources for style are your direct impressions of nature, your inner self and your materials.

I don't totally agree with this. I think they left out who influences you. I guess that's part of your inner self but I don't see it that way. I often get an image in my head in some particular style and try to mimick it but it is not the style I might choose for another piece

The arist must have something to say, for mastery over form is not his goal but rather the adopting of form to its inner meaning.

I have mixed feelings about this. My strongest urges to make something come from political motivation, hate, contempt. I don't want to draw these things, I don't want to be these things. On the other hand, the handful of sexy or beautiful images I hold, I'm not able to render as I envision them and they become painful and hateful in and of themselves because it seems like no matter how much I work, I cannot bring these images to life. It's very distressing. I feel this note is important but I also feel like it causes me more frustration than just about anything else.

Always experiment. You will become stagnant if you repeat over and over what you already know. I think I handle this pretty well

Do not be afraid of making mistakes. This is another one I've learned to deal with despite my inner perfectionist

Subject matter is nothing compared to how you feel and see your material.

I've been burned so many times for expressing emotion that it's hard for me to create images that contain emotion for fear of having them brutalized. Beneath the face I present is a fragile ego which is easily damaged. I also feel this starts to conflict with the rule for having your art critiqued and remaining detached from the critique. Is one supposed to be emotionally involved with the piece during the making, then turn their back on it and let it be shredded? Isn't htat like setting yourself up to get hurt?

No mater how clumsy and uncertain you are in your techniques, be sincere and use your ability of the moment to express, even in simplest terms.

But what if clumsiness causes the feeling to get lost and replaced with angst, self-loathing, and discontent? :/

If you are not interested inyour subject, how do you expect anyone else to be? A lot of the time I really don't operate in the right headspace, I think.

Still life will teach you more than any other subject matter. And how do you keep this from conflicting with the previous statement?

What good is technique if you have nothing to say?

I have things I want to put messages in but they're always ham-handed and trit and ugly. why can't I just make something beautiful or sexy? I feel my worst pieces are the ones where I'm actively trying to say something. On the other hand, I do feel this is closer to the core of my problems. Much of the study I do is geared only towards learning. It has no passion, it's trying to learn how to make because there's such intense frustration with not being able to make what I want to see. I think I tend to approach art with the imperical eyes of an adult. I can rationally gruellingly study this problem and solve it. I know what I am doing is crap. I know that my message is not being conveyed. I never had the nurturing environment where I could stick it on the fridge and say, 'Mommy I made this!' and have it praised despite it's being crap. So I'm afraid to work on something like meaning because I should be able to rationally build up my art muscles to be able to say what I want to say before I say it. Catch 22.

Work as you see and feel at the time and place, not as someone else might feel.

I'd ammend that to say, or put yourself in the headsspace for the right time and place. Still though, it's hard to do shiny happy art when you're bitter and depressed.

Always look at what others are drawing and designing.

You'd think this one was obvious but until Peggy moved in, I was largely happy to work in a vaccuum. Surely if I kept looking at models and drawing what I saw without ever glancing at what other people did, I'd somehow magically figure it all out and create my own new and unique style that isn't copied from anyone and I'll show them all, HA! Or maybe I'm just a MORON!!! Anyhow, after I finish this post I'm going to go curl up with Sin City.