Out With the Old...

Pieces of My Mind #3

A typical, menacing spring day in the mountains.

Spring is on the way here in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The daffodils are trumpeting, the spring peepers are peeping, and the boxelder bugs are…bugging. And in true mountain weather patterns, I’m writing this while sleet plinks off the window panes. I love this time of year.

I’m in the spring cleaning mood.

First up is my new schedule. Schedules don’t work for me due to how my brain is wired, but mostly to juggling my many responsibilities and commitments with unpredictable work. I’m unschedulable in the traditional sense. But I still need guidance, so I made a plan.

I stuck a bunch of Post-It notes to a large foam-core board, each Post-It detailing tasks yet to do on various projects. This is the great and mighty TaskMaster™, lord of the studio. The schedule, which is really basic, then tells me which of these tasks I’m allowed to work on for a given day. Every morning starts with an hour or two of writing. I have a separate list of notes stuck on my Mac with writing tasks that need to be completed. If it were up to me, I’d just write day and night and do nothing else. Unfortunately, that won’t pay the bills!

The remainder of each day is branded with a particular discipline—such as drawing Monday, painting Tuesday, etc.—to which I then refer to my TaskMaster™ to see what needs to be done under that particular discipline. This keeps my skills sharp while chipping away at my every growing list of projects. And the best part, my schedule remains loose enough to account for interruptions and other responsibilities. It’s worked splendidly.

The Artist’s Way weekly updates are still rolling out. There are so few helpful art books out there that I plan to highlight and recommend the best ones I’ve found. The Artist’s Way is a little different in that I’ve never read it before, and I’m completing its twelve week course in real time on this website. We’ll find out together if it’s worth a damn. Right now I have mixed feelings. I’ve kept track of my observations, what has worked and what didn’t stick, to share in a wrap-up at the end of the course. Then, it’s time for some heavy hitters that I think all creatives must read.

Getting rid of what no longer works is an important step of spring cleaning. We mend what’s broken, replace when we have to, and use our wisdom to know when to let it go entirely. In scheduling my life, I realized that I lack the time to pursue sculpting. Whereas I’ve drawn and painted forever, sculpting is new to me, and I have a lot yet to learn. Unfortunately, the handful of hours I can dedicate to my education each week is insufficient. I’ve decided to put it on the back burner for awhile until I can carve out the time needed to get my skills up to snuff. This is not a goodbye, but a see you later.

Likewise, Youtube is too time consuming for the return I get. For Youtube, however, it is bon voyage. I just don’t care enough about it to make quality content. Sharing my life on video is too intrusive. No one would even know I exist if I had any say!

To sum things up, I’m focused and ready to kick ass.

The wisdom to know what to drop is a marker for a seasoned artist.  It’s one of the reasons I’m so reluctant to share works-in-progress. In the end, no matter how much time I put into it, I’ll burn it with hellfire if it doesn’t meet my standards. If I’m not feeling it, it won’t see the light of day. That drives non-artists insane. They don’t understand how you can put 20-40 hours into something then trash it, but that’s how it goes and that’s how it’s going to be. Thankfully, it’s a rare occurrence, but it still happens. The amateur thinks everything they make should be hanging in a gallery.

Page one of my new studio journal.

In an earlier POMM update, I expressed a desire to maintain a working process  record. To that end, I started a Leonardo style studio journal where ideas, studies, and such will be recorded. This is not a place for exploratory sketches, really. My sketching style only lays a loose, messy groundwork and isn’t something worth preserving. At least as far as I’m concerned.

So far, I’ve filled the studio journal with foundational portrait drawing observations that I’ve learned over the years. It’s been a nice refresher as I’m knee deep in portraiture work at the moment. I’ll share pages in the future. 

One change in my process worth documenting is my decision to work oil paints differently. I’ve only ever painted using what’s called an indirect method—the art snobs way of saying many layers, waiting until each layer is dry before applying the next. This is a perfectly fine approach to painting as a hobbyist or as someone who is independently wealthy, but the production is much too slow for most working artists. At least, the way I do it.

Instead, I’ve taken the biggest leap of faith in my life, trusting the Universe to manifest a net to catch me if I fall, and have begun the process of retraining my brain to paint directly—or all at once.

While this will greatly improve creation time, it’ll also give me an opportunity to explore a more artistic style than what I’m use to. The trouble lies in retraining my brain to approach my work much differently than I have my whole life. It’ll take a lot of hard work, but I can do it!

One challenge comes in managing brushstrokes. Oil paint is, well, oily. Very slick and buttery. Paint applied atop wet paint will simply mix. The more strokes, the more mixing, until it’s a chalky mess of a color—far from what you’d originally intended. Limited, bold brushstrokes and thoughtful planning are a must. Scary!

In the vein Leonardo and other renaissance artists, I’ve experimented with transferring my drawings to wood panel for painting using a technique known as pouncing. I may detail the process in the future, but I prick small holes along the line work of my drawing, lay it on the wood panel, then pounce charcoal dust through the holes. This produces delicate charcoal dots that can then be connected with ink or thinned paint. 

This method has proven to be much less time consuming than using transfer paper and stylus, or some version thereof. It also preserves the original drawing to a greater degree. Not my greatest concern, but is a nice bonus in the event I want to transfer the drawing a second time.

Handmade pounce and ground charcoal.

I’ve worked heavily on Breezy Meadow. Story arcs have been written and an art style has been settled on. Originally, I’d wanted to do ink and watercolor. I hate working with watercolor. I’d sooner paint with mud (and I’d be better at it!). I’ve never gotten a handle on it no matter how hard I tried. For Breezy Meadow, I figured I’d give it one more shot. While I was more successful than I’d been I the past—successful enough to be confident in using watercolors throughout the comic strip—it all quickly went to hell.

I hate that blasted medium. It gives one day and takes away the next. Not the reliability I need to run a comic strip. I sadly decided to ditch color all together. Black ink only. Which would be fine. Far more comics have been produced in black ink than color. 

But, it just felt so wrong for what I want Breezy Meadow to be.

The cycle of colored pencils: stroke, stroke, stroke, sharpen, repeat.

As days passed, the more I hated the idea of a black and white Breezy Meadow. I looked at my options. Oil paint? Perfect if I wanted one strip per month. Acrylic? Nope. Acrylic is the evil bastard cousin of watercolor. Colored pencils? Hmm. Maybe. I gave them a try and found a happy medium between time commitment and coverage. A real colored pencil artist will easily spend a dozen hours to achieve a painterly quality. I simply don’t have time time if I want my strip to go out on time. I’ve plenty yet to learn, but I’m comfortable moving forward.

I’m happy to report that Breezy Meadow is back in color! The launch will be very soon!

First attempt with colored pencils.

Life is good. I have a lot to look forward to this year, and everything is moving in the right direction. I’m on the cusp of an accomplishment that’ll require celebration. This makes me nervous—one reason will be discussed in Week Three of my The Artist’s Way series. Be on the look out for that.

The other reason is that I see certain people in my life differently than I have in the past. I see them for who they are.

This art game isn’t new to me. I’ve sacrificed and worked my ass off for the past fifteen years in to grow my skills and career. I’ve had lots of people come and go in my life and it was only recently that my eyes were opened to see a pattern—many were there to celebrate my success, few stuck around while I built it.

This realization hurts, but I’d rather know where people stand so that I can reward those who stand for me!

I see those who support me, who visit my gallery shows and aren’t ashamed to tell their family and friends about me. I see those who buy my art, who buys it for gifts, who buys it just to support someone they love.

To those people—thank you. You are seen, you are loved, you are appreciated, and you are family.

And because I see this, I can’t be stopped.

Until next time.

-Victor

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