The pause between finishing and starting.
Black Friday, crayons and unconscious influences
Musings
I’ve heard someone using ‘illustrative’ in a derogatory way, as in, the painting is too illustrative. It annoyed me then, and annoys me still, because illustrations are not a style. They are simply paintings, drawings or prints that illustrate a concept or story. You might have an image in your head of a block print or a line drawing when I say illustration, and an oil painting if I say painting. That’s because line drawings are quick and easy to scan, and oils can take literally weeks to cure, so are unfeasible for most illustration projects outside depictions of biblical scenes in 16th century churches. We live in a digital age now, though, and I have seen entire comics of images that look like oil paintings, because oil paintings can be illustrations when it’s practical.
I think about this, because it’s the sort of thing subconsciously influences an artist, because you want to be accepted, and therefore you should make an effort to do proper fine art for galleries that can’t be confused with the commonplace drawing found in books. The best art is made yourself, a necessary urge, and not for a secret and judgemental audience that is restricting you, and personally I think it can also be a neat picture that looks like the thing it is, but it’s a worry buried in the dark recess of my mind.
It’s good to stop and think about what opinions you might have unconsciously collected that are influencing your choices such, as one must always be busy (best to have two projects on the go so you are never hit dead water), or ideas, the artistic muse, are rare and precious, and must be acted on at once. I don’t believe either of those, but I find them lurking in the background.
It’s actually very easy to fill the void of finished work by immediately starting a new project. When you are working on a thing, other ideas pop up, and it’s tempting to blindly follow them. If you don’t pay attention it might lead you in the wrong direction, so I like to reflect before starting a new project.
What have I achieved? Was it what I wanted to achieve? What have I learnt? Did I enjoy making it? Do I want to do another, similar? Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should. Just because other people value other styles more, doesn’t mean they are right, doesn’t make me less of an artist if I don’t please them. If we don’t assess these influences carefully, we could stuck in a rut of drawing in a style we no longer care for. Does it make your heart sing?
Making your heart sing is different from being a good piece of work. You can do a good piece of work, really beautiful, and feel off about it because it doesn’t have meaning to you, or doesn’t convey the meaning you intended. That’s what illustrative should mean, something done well, but something functional. All those things are fine. There is no need for illustration to be used negatively by any critic, as long as that’s what you intended when you set out.
So it’s good to pause and evaluate before starting off, just check in with your map, make sure you are heading in the right direction, which is why I’ve not started a big new project yet, and might not this year. I’ve been given some fabric from Minerva for a bag I’m excited to make, I’m doing some sketches for fun, but mostly I’ve been doing reprints.
News
Reprints are not the most fun, but I am grateful of them, because it means things are selling and that means an income which is always nice when you have developed a quite expensive crayon addiction. It’s sort of like juggling at this time of year, as soon as one is restocked, then another is running low. The shop is very full though, please do check it out.
Black Friday is upon us and I think it’s sort of awful, but I do promise the special and exciting offer of one beautifully hand written note with every order. That’s a year long offer.
I did benefit from Black Friday, sort of. The sun has been shining through the trees out front in a spectacular display, and I was eager to draw them in my favourite sketching medium; neocolor crayons. Some people call them pastels, but I really lean into the concept of crayons, the smell of a new packet, the blank paper full of potential, stealing the bravery of small children who never seem to hesitate to make their mark when given a crayon and a piece of paper, or floor, or wall.
I really like the nostalgia of crayons, with out having to actually try and draw with them, because crayola are pretty rubbish. Neocolor crayons are not rubbish, which is why they cost a lot. Always championing the underdog, my very favourite are the less popular and harder to find Neocolor I. There are over 100 colours of neocolor II (the water soluble version) but only 50 of the proper waxy Neocolor I. This seems unfair, but given my tendency to want every colour in a nice box whether I need it or not, it’s probably for the best. Long story short, I only had a few and they were the wrong colour and I accidentally bought a ‘Black Friday’ deal (on the Thursday) because I had an Amazon voucher. They were still a lot, but the world is frightening, and if it is going to blow up I might as well enjoy the pure unbridled happiness of a bit of colouring in with really, really good crayons first. I’d urge you to try it but the set was no longer on sale by the time it was actually Black Friday, and also amazon is terrible and sent it in a un padded envelope that dropped to its terrible doom on the floor. The replacement didn’t have any packaging at all, but i’ve managed to get a full pack of unbroken crayons between them (I hope).
More important news
It’s been a quiet sort of week, the owls are becoming quiet which is a little sad, and the cormorants are not at the lake. I know nothing of the comings and goings of cormorants; I’ve only seen them on the little lake in winter though there’s always some at the big lake, so thinking of it, I don’t know why they only come in winter. Are they like bats, with summer and winter haunts? There aren’t any bats either; I last checked on Halloween and found only one, in the avenue where there are always a few overwintering in the big trees. The lakeside summer roost was abandoned; I always thought it was odd how bats are a Halloween decoration when it’s the wrong season for them. Night creatures are spooky, I guess, but you never see a Halloween hedgehog.
What I have seen a lot of is molehills. Whoever said ‘don’t make a mountain out of a molehill’ has not seen the architectural constructions of the small, velvet worm destroyer currently living under what I optimistically call my back lawn. I’m sure the squirrels and jays that have been hiding acorns in there are very annoyed at the disruption. When I was young, in the olden days before ultrasonic mole deterrents, I used to take the sound thing out of those annoying cards that play happy birthday upon opening and bury it in the lawn. You can tell moles are highly sophisticated musically, because they would dig them up and eject them onto the surface.
Anyway. That’s it for November is suppose. Onwards to the Christmas season. I’ve made a resolution to gain new readers for this newsletter, so please do force it upon your friends x