Exciting news this week: I drew an illustration! I have been looking at art tips and trying out a few things here and there as I work on my comic strip, and I wanted to do a big illustration to put some of those techniques together. So I ended up with my spinning psychic here. I’m very happy with how it turned out. My big goals were to have a clear action line, to play around with the proportions, to have a foreshortening element, and give myself some minor challenges with the pose. I got all that done, and I like how it looks. I do have some regrets, in that I wanted to go really, really big and do all kinds of new things all at once, and I couldn’t do every little thing I could imagine in one picture. I tested the brush markers at my disposal, and I don’t think I have the necessary tools to accomplish what I was imagining with them, which itself wasn’t fully clear to me. The one that gets me most is probably that I had wanted more of a sliding scale in detail across the piece; like, the hand would be the most realistic, and then the extended foot would have been the most cartoony. I kinda got some of that, but the boot is a simple enough shape that it doesn’t come through as much, and in general I have a hard time with dialing back. When I’m working, I feel like everything needs to be even, if that makes sense. There’s always next time, though; I have a lot of time to spend, with how much of a buffer I have in my planned release schedule for this comic strip.
Speaking of, I found a piece of advice last night I want to put into practice. If it hasn’t been clear, I don’t have formal art education, and I’m not in a position to get any. But I found a thing where someone explained a method of practice that I want to try. In simple terms, it’s basically just “practice,” which I’m not great at. Specifically, they described a structure for how to practice, and it starts with breaking down reference photos into shapes, before moving onto drawing from imagination, and so on, which you can repeat with any subject. I honestly don’t think I have the time to do three hours of practice a day, every day, indefinitely, because I have a full time job and this comic strip I want to work on. That being said, I am drawing and will continue to draw every day, so it’s not like I’ll be missing out or how no place to try things I learn. Plus, there is a first step that would greatly help me: Learn how to break things down into shapes. I’ve said before that I’m not good at that sort of thing. Like, looking forward to this practice, all I can think of are the ways I’m scared that I don’t know what to do with any of it or how it can actually work with the way I know how to draw currently. I’m terrified about not knowing what to do or what the right or even a good thing to focus on would be for my future.
But that said, I have so many basic deficits in how I draw and a hard time figuring out how to draw new things. Let’s forget pros for a second; I see other non-professional artists who are doing things I can’t picture, and I want to get to that level. I feel stagnated all the time, like I can’t actually carry out a vision for what I want to do, that I’ll never be at a point where I can make the books I imagine myself, and it makes me want to curl up and compromise on what I should be doing. I recently had my birthday, so I’m officially old, and like with so many other parts of my life, my art is flailing on the starting block, just hoping that as I continue to flop, it’s in the right direction. I’m very tired of being this way, of not having a sense of community, purpose, or conviction. Basic things that, I’m at least told, most people have, and I’m so terrified about being in the dark that I’m paralyzed trying to find my way towards any of them. It’s incredibly frustrating, because I apparently have ambition and desires and I can’t fulfill any of them until I get some light.
Like, tangent, I was stopped by a woman at work, who commended me on being brave for dressing the way I dress in public. It’s so brave that I show the world who I am, and she’s happy to see it in the world. And like, I don’t know what to do with that. I’m not being brave; I long ago conceded that it’s what I’m going to do anyway, and it’s the thing I like, and I don’t take anyone or anything else into consideration. It’s not bravery because I’m not considering any hate or aggression that could be directed at me; it’s not bravery because I’m not considering what seeing me does for other queer people. Like, it’s maybe kinda bravery to some people in that I’m accepting something about myself, but I experience that as giving into the uncontrollable, dark unknown on the inside and appreciating the happiness I get from it.
I draw in largely the same way. I have no idea what a career in art looks like, and looking into the subject is deeply frightening. I don’t have a clear idea on what I want to do or how to accomplish it, and I’m too scared to go beyond, “just do it,” as a plan. I have no confidence in my skills, and since this doesn’t seem to be improving in the way I tend to intuitively understand and master many other skills, it’s hard to see the point in making anything. Even now, as I put my art out into the world in some form, and plan to release a series that promises to last a long time, I have no vision for success or the courage to face the masses. I’m just accepting of the fact that even if I wanted to stop to avoid the suffering and simply enjoy my hobbies, it won’t happen. I’m going to keep drawing and wanting to make things of my own. I’m fully sidestepping any larger sense of responsibility and purpose and place in the world, because none of that actually matters to why I’m doing anything in my life.
So, if I’m going to do it anyway, I want to be able to accomplish what I have in my head. I want to improve in a tangible, notable way that transfers across subjects. I want some method that will give me the ability to take something unfamiliar, relate it to something familiar and workable, and then process the unfamiliar into what I was wanting it to be. And most importantly, I want it to be something I can do right now, in my current position, so that I don’t have to feel stuck unless XYZ circumstance happens that’s outside of my practical reach.
Calming down from the heights I worked myself up to, all this is saying is that I’m going to figure out how to break things down into shapes. I’ll be looking into resources on that early on, and once I get a handle on what it actually means and entails, I’ll continue the studies on my own. I think it’ll be a way for me to get better, and if it somehow doesn’t work out, that should also be enlightening. It’s something I can do today that I think will work out in the long run, and that’s what I need.
Weekly Drawings 7/14-7/20/2024
Life in the Gutters 