Happy 4th!

The Nation Makers by Howard Pyle

When to Walk Away...

As an artist there are three situations where you really need to learn to walk away...

1. If there is an opportunity to work on a project that won't help you get better, or advance yourself as an artist (particularly in the field in which you want to be creating art), say no and walk away. 

Money is a tempting thing in this world and I, like many of you out there, have taken on projects solely for the promise of getting paid. These were all projects in different niches of art, illustration, and in some cases graphic design that I had very little interest in other than the fact that there was a paycheck at the end of it (and in some cases not even that). When I look back on those projects I can take very little away from them that helped to make me better at what I want to do; not one of them sticks around as a piece to advance my career and at this point in my life, to be completely frank, they feel like time ill spent.

2. If you've been working for more than 4 hours straight you need to walk away, albeit briefly. Take breaks often when you are working. Not so often that you lose your flow, but often enough that you can come back to the easel with a fresh eye now and again. Even more so if you are having trouble with a particular passage; walk away and leave it for a while. Go take a walk and look back at it later. Work on something else. Either way let your mind work on the problem while you focus your efforts on other things. The next time you're back at the painting, or working that particular passage, it might be a no-brainer. The answer may have been there all along and you just weren't in the right state of mind to see it.

3. When your painting says all it needs to say; when you have sufficiently told the story; when everything is finally done... walk away. 

This is easier said than done.

It often feels that art is never really finished; given the opportunity an artist might work and rework a piece forever. Second guessing themselves and changing things. Tweaking things. Sometimes the best thing to do in this case is just walk away. Call it finished for now. Look back at it in a few days and see if you're still seeing the same stuff, the same problems.

Frank Frazetta's Conan the Buccaneer upon publication

Unless there are hard deadlines involved you always have the freedom to go back and change things. Even after deadlines or print dates, you can always rework your painting for yourself.

Frank Frazetta's Conan the Destroyer, reworked after publication

Zorn Limited Palette

My early experiences with color in school always left me feeling a little unfulfilled. Like I was always using the wrong tube colors for the effect I wanted. I needed to find a starting point. Those basic colors with which to paint that would give me what I wanted...

Anders Zorn used a limited color palette almost exclusively. The tube colors of which I have seen vary depending on where your information is coming from. In any case the essence of the palette remains constant.

White
Ivory Black
Yellow Ochre
Red

The whites have ranged from Flake to Titanium, Flake being the more traditional choice.

Ivory Black is the standard, however I have seen this subdivided into warm and cool black mixtures.

Yellow Ochre remains unchanged.

Red was traditionally Vermillion but Cadmium Red is the adopted standard. I have seen the reds vary between Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Red Medium, and Cadmium Scarlet.

This is a great starting palette for figurative painting. It may seem basic at first but with a strong understanding of color theory you can get a surprisingly wide range of colors from this strictly limited palette.

Crossroads

As an artist you face infinite possibilities when it comes to creating your art. These possibilities can be limited by a number of things; content, intent, style, material, all of which may already be set and some that may not be. Either way, when you encounter a situation where you can go left or right. Just go. Make a decision and proceed. 

In other words...

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it"  -Yogi Berra

Donato Giancola had a great post about this over on Muddy Colors, you can read it here.

Cheating

There have been a few blog posts over on Muddy Colors in the past couple of days on the subject of "cheating" in art with the use of photography and/or digital media. 

This term "cheating" comes up frequently with digital media in regards to images that either use photo reference, photo collage, photo paint overs, or even just straight hyper realistic painting. Often people will accuse the artist of "cheating" because they may have used shortcuts to get where they ended up with the final. The truth of the matter is that when it comes to image creation and process there is no such thing as "cheating". Any means you use to get to a final image is fair game. However, since some of these processes may include the heavy use of photos it would be up to the artist personally to determine whether the use of these photos is to them "cheating". 

An example of this would be an artist who uses a combination of photo collage and paint overs. If this artist poses his own models, takes his own pictures from those models, edits those photos and collages/paints over them then that artist can feel fulfilled in that he truly created his image from start to finish without cheating. Conversely, that same artist could use images they found online or from a magazine, collage and then paint over those images and feel like they cheated to get to the final, even though they may have extensively altered or painted into/over those photos. In this case it is up to the artist whether or not they cheated by using images they found rather than images they created (not to mention addressing copyright issues with found images and whether or not it is legal to use certain images within your work).

This is where the artist needs to take a step back to see if they are cheating themselves in the creation of their art. For instance, if you think that posing your own models or sketching from life would have gotten you to a better quality final than having found reference elsewhere, then I would say that you were cheating yourself to some degree.

This is the only 'cheating' that I think really makes a difference to an artist and only in so far as they are concerned about their own process and how they got to the final image (which is what really matters).

Underpainting

In painting one should always have their eye on the final layer.

Everything you do from the very first thumbnail should be to facilitate the final piece. The end goal. That perfect image you had in mind from the very first time you put pencil to paper.

Unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way. For instance, you might find yourself laboring away at your work for hours, days, weeks, or dare I say months ending up nowhere near where you started but still not any closer to finish. Needless to say we all stray from our planned path at times but that doesn't mean we won't end up exactly where we need to be in the end. Sometimes it requires a simple course correct and sometimes you've just got to wade through the mud. Either way, everything you put down is just the underpainting for what comes next.

The underpainting is your foundation. It will inform every decision you make throughout the process. It is where you can make your mistakes, take risks, or just play around.

Even when you look back at what you did and say... "nope, should of done this instead. This would have gotten me there quicker"... realize that you had to make those mistakes and take those risks to have found that out.

Could it have been easier? Yes, and you know that now.

So when you work and you work and all you can see is the underpainting, just know that it's all building up to the finish. In the end it will only make your painting that much richer, that much more involved; and you can always look forward to the moments where your earliest underpainting still shines through. Those moments where you know you got it right in the first pass, where you took a big risk and it just worked. The moments that stood up to all the scrutiny that everything else didn't, because even finished isn't really finished sometimes.

What to Listen to...?

I know I'm not alone in the fact that I need to be listening to something while I work. This of course raises the question "what to listen to...?"

For me it is frequently changing and is usually dependent on my tastes for the week. I've gone from music to audiobooks and back but every so often I like to throw in the occasional podcast. There are hundreds of podcasts out there but today I want to direct you guys to one in particular.

SiDEBAR is a comics, art and pop culture podcast that can be found here. This podcast is just fantastic. It's hosted by some great guys and they've had some fantastic guests. Everyone involved is very down to earth and they all just love to talk about ART. I've heard some amazing stories from these interviews and picked up some great tips on the illustration business and on life as an artist in general.


They have an extensive archive (the BARchives) and all of their shows can be found there. I strongly recommend that you go browse and listen to some.

Below are just a couple (several) of my favorites...

George Pratt (part 1)
George Pratt (part 2)

Greg Manchess

Iain McCaig

Brom

James Remar

Drew Struzan

Irene Gallo

James Gurney

Phil Hale

John Van Fleet

Jeff Preston

Justin 'Coro' Kaufman

Brad Rigney