Art Training

[pasithea]

I wonder how many artists have found great improvements through public transportation. I know the Crumb mentions it as the birthplace of many of his ideas. Sitting on buses and in cafes. There's probably a lot to be said for it.

If you stop and think about it, it's maybe one of the best places to learn to draw better. It's a block of time that you have to spent sitting about. Your mind don't wander to the fridge or what's on telly because those things aren't near you. You could bring them, I suppose, in this modern age. I see all together far too many people on the train watching re-runs of Family Guy on their portable DVD players or using their expensive laptop computers to play Solitaire. Sadly, it seems rare to even see someone reading a good book. Most people are engaged in fully vegetative activities, of which, even staring out the window might seem an improvement.

As for me, I can't say I'm better. I'm not great artist and probably never will be. But at least it's a good time to study and lots of subjects to look at.

The above drawing is from last Wednesday. I was late to work by over an hour. I'm so blaise or at least pre-occupied that I forgot to even mention it. From what the conductor said, someone called in a bomb threat on our train. This resulted in us stopping at a station, being made to leave the train, the train was then backed away to a siding and the police went through it. The train traffic was closed down for a while. Eventually they sent another train around to collect us and carry us on to our destination. I think though, that what makes this most interesting to me is the disparity between the reaction of someone reading this, 'OMG! Bomb threat!' and the reaction of myself and the other passengers. Terrorism works well with the media. To someone who wasn't there, it's easy to say 'what a frightening experience that must have been!' and likely as not, a lot of people will feel compelled to say 'yes! It was horrible!' but the reality of it is. Neither myself nor the other passengers seemed very terrified, though the word 'bomb' was mentioned at the station. It seemed more like the majority felt inconvenienced or that it was a great excuse to be in late to their dull jobs and it would give them something interesting to talk about on an otherwise dull Wednesday. As for myself and some others, we mused that it was a bit of an adventure and at least it wasn't raining so it wasn't such a huge inconvenience. Maybe that's part of why I find so much contempt for 'anti-terrorism' rhetoric. The people who are most afraid, likely as not, live in their white bread houses and drive their big SUVs and they're really at no serious threat from 'terrorism'. The people who are at possible risk, by contrast, really aren't very afraid. Sad then, that the cattle in their big cars should push to throw away the civil liberties of all of us to make them feel less afraid, when the truth is they are never really even at risk. *sigh*

On a brighter note, I think I can say, all these french comics are not affecting my artwork at all! Really!

Comments

[yetanotherbob.livejournal.com]

Solitaire is one of those things that really, if you think about it, blows away your mind. Not less than 5 decades ago, electro-mechanical monstrosities filled large rooms to compute and calculate things which can be done in the palm of your hand. And now, with such staggering power at our command, what do we do with it? Let it idle 99.9% of the time, playing solitaire.

I remember during 9/11, some of the malls closed in the paranoid fear that they'd be next. I never did understand that line of logic. Follow up thousands of deaths at a gigantic national symbol by... bombing The Gap in a small mall. White suburbia needs to get a grip on itself sometimes.

[frith]

White suburbia works in office towers and owns stock in mega-corps sensitive to the whims of the world market. White suburbia writes and reads the media, thus perpetuating and accentuating its own fears. White suburbia is trapped in a Hitchcock film, fear fed by intangible monsters and innuendo.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I never saw people with laptops on the Los Angeles busses, but I saw people with DVD players now and then. I'd usually see other people with books - maybe 10-20% of the other riders - but I never saw anyone else drawing. I'd see people with notebooks sometimes, possibly doing creative writing; who knows?

My time as a bus rider was wonderful for my art. I got a lot of practice in.

Oh, no, French comics from the seventies aren't affecting you in the slightest...

[paka.livejournal.com]

There's a certain level of... I dunno, immediacy and distance and that stuff involved with things like bomb threats. People don't think about stuff the more remote it is. The bomb threat, nobody saw a bomb, none of the riders were even on the phone fielding the threat - no immediacy. Having your commute stalled, now that's immediate. It's probably not surprising that people care more what's right in front of their face.

Like pretty much everyone living in the Bay Area, we both have the possibility that the next earthquake might be The Big One, or that should some very powerful idiots opt to cause a nuclear war, our current residence will probably go up first. Not immediate. Heck, the possibility of getting killed out on the road, thanks to some Raiders fan, is way more of an issue than some bomb threat, and even then that seems so minor until you're actually faced with a gigantic, poorly balanced 4x4 driving badly near you.

On the other hand, people like immediacy. It makes them alive. And while I'm cool with that, while I feel sometimes like I'm too distanced from things myself, I think people can have really poor taste in that respect. The whole OH NOEZ TEH TERRORISTS thing is a great example. Or the mourning for 9/11 coming from people who have no personal connection to NYC. I think the need for connection and immediacy gets manipulated by a batch of powerhungry idiots.

Anyway, those drawings could be a lot more French. You know, like that warrior woman with the bone armor was pretty typical of Metal Hurlant.