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Saturday 6 April 2013

The Unfortunate Artist

Richard Williams, while working on Who Framed Roger Rabbit found this pinned on the notice board:

''Epitaph of an unfortunate artist
He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits:
This formule for drawing comic rabbits paid, so in the end he could not change his tragic habits this formula for drawing comic rabbits made - Robert Graves''

Just recently I learned how lucky I am to not be in the working world. My drawings can be on anything; I am not paid to draw one particular thing. Making money off your art is a wonderful thing, I know, but it filters your creativity in a lot of ways. If you're a classical animator then you can be on the same scene for years. Apparently it really drives the creative juices of of your free time drawing, in fact some artists completely stop drawing outside of work when they get an art related job. Yet others aren't phased by this at all, so I guess it's really down to the individual.

I know someone who is an extremely good clarinetist who went to a school with many other very good clarinetists. He was good when he was a kid too, but there was someone better than him, so in his orchestra he never got to solo because the better clarinetist always did. My life artistically is a little like that. I'm reasonably good at drawing, but of course, there is someone who is always better than me. I've always been the cartoonist of the coop. Only a few days ago did I very suddenly realize that I need to learn to draw. To really draw. Oh dear. Anyway, I was always the one sitting there, artistically alone in the world, while the other girl (who is such an amazing person, she is truly wonderful) was swarmed by art consuming birds, squawking 'mine' like those seagulls from Finding Nemo. Everyone wanted to be drawn. She has to power to make people say 'wow' out of pure shock, and rub their starstruck eyes at this skeptical wonder.

I also think being an artist is a little like having anorexia. Everyone looks so much better than me at art, and I often can't tell whether that's true or not because of my self critical judgment. I also tend to compare myself to a lot of artists. It's more of a subconscious thing, because I research a lot of artists and look at a lot of movie concept art, read lots of comics and watch a heck load of animation.

Drawing isn't a instant gratification thing. It's more a very, very long journey with lots of little milestones.
But it is a wonderful experience. After a while when you get better you can learn to tweak your drawing so that NONE of them are bad! I can do that with cartoons, so my books are filled with nice pictures, but I've just started learning to draw portraits. Well, I hoped that having the ability to draw cartoons would give me a boost, like learning your second instrument would. Nope. My art book is now being filled with good cartoons and very bad portraits. I know that someday I will look upon them and cringe, but they are truly vital for the journey. To be good you must first be bad.
Thank Ralph Waldo Emerson for this uplifting quote. Uplifting is such a cheesy word, but it fits. Believe it or not I used to say the word 'groovy' all the time. Now I say words like 'dandy', and 'spiffy'. I'm a strange piece of work.

Anyway, go and draw me an awesome stick dude!