AM PS ftw

This is just me playing around with PS at 3am in the morning. I'm working towards using shadows and the possibility of coloured lines. We'll see how it goes. I'll update this image as it progresses. The original design was from a pitch package for a show based on aboriginal classic stories.

Art Rant V1

Personal "style" is very important. It's like a thumb print. Traditionally, we are the products of our predecssors. We take their foundations, stand on thier mighty shoulders and hopefully add our small contribution to the mix. It's often small, some slight arrangement of lines and shapes that by chance sets us apart from the flock and defines us as us. A Pollock could have only been painted by Pollock, Picasco only by Picasso.

This is not to say that this is is an example of such a thing. No, not in the least, but it is what I want to see when I look at something I do. Nothing is more discouraging for me, then when I see tired, old conventions being worn out in my own drawings. When I do, when I start to rely to much on the old circle for a head, ovals for eyes, I often dig through the old pile of drawings by my desk and look for something that is uniquelly "hodgey." I may pick up a "bad" drawing, but if is still unmistably my drawing, that's a better start than to simply rip off someone else.

This, I find, is the mistake we make when determining what is a good and what is bad, in terms of aestitics

In my opinion, a bad drawing is as follows: It is a poor imitation of a successful drawing which lacks any original insight or creativity. It is literally a copy. Google "anime fan art" and you will find many, many bad drawings. It's not that anime drawings are bad, far from it. It's that someone has taken something already drawn and redrawn it ... poorly. If you've seen it before, it's not necessary to repeat it.

Which brings me to Jean Dubuffet. I was introduced to Dubuffet in university. I had to write an essay about him. I may not remember much about that essay, or any of the paintings, but ... I do remember his philisophy about art. It sticks with me today. He took the idea of the tradtional foundation and outright rejected it. Too quote

" Art doesn't go to sleep in the bed made for it; it would sooner run away than say its own name: what it likes is to be incognito. Its best moments are when it forgets what its own name is ".

Jean took the idea to the extreme. Have a look at a few of his paintings and collected pieces. Most people find them ugly and crude, and by any tradtitional sense they are. However, approach them from this perspective: When he created these pieces, the idea was to avoid relying on any tradtional conventions. He wasn't drawing the balls shapes in the heads, he wasn't sight measuring, none of that . The idea is to approach it from a completly new and fresh perspective. The idea is dazlling. Personally, I've always been inspired by the potential there. Imagine stripping away every convention you use when approaching a piece and realizing it in a way that is new. What would it look like?

Jean Dubuffet