egotists, artists and other bastards

why stop when i'm on a roll.

i have a lot of pals that are artists. they run the gamut from highly talented amateurs to MFAs to museum curators to people that use art daily as part of their work.

when we talk about my drawing, not only do they ALL give me the brush-off-i'm-not-amazed reaction, but to a person they all give me their little detailed theory on art and what's important. it's infuriating at a level that's hard to imagine.

do these people listen? hell no. why bother when they can pontificate instead. and of course, no two of them say the same thing. in fact, some of them directly contradict each other.

i've never seen a bunch of people that are more self-entranced, self-assured, egocentric and dismissive of any external input than these folks and i've worked with engineers for 20 years for chrissakes.

let me put this another way:

i love mikkel grüner (and therefore, by default, sara). everyone else is suspect.

rule finnmärk.

and yes, i'm done for now.

i've had this nightmare over and over ...

as long as i'm spleen venting, i'll share this little tidbit with you.

since i was at least five years old i've had a recurring theme appear in my dreams. and when i say recurring, i mean i've had dreams of this type at least three times a week, every week, for decades.

in my dream something fantastic will happen. i dream like salvador dali paints, so just as an example let's say that there's a spindle legged elephant walking down the street on fire. i'll be amazed by it. entranced. "whoa! there's a spindle legged elephant walking down the street on fire!"

and everyone else involved will either ignore it or ridicule me for acting like it's a big deal.

i've had decades of dreams of this type, and i'm a pretty creative guy, so every single damn wrinkle you can put in that general category i've done. i can lucid dream, so i can change it around (or i can just wake up then go back to sleep), but i'm to the point now that i don't even bother.

and now there's this damn art thing.

i tell person-after-person that i couldn't draw then i show them my pre-instruction self-portrait and to a person they say something along the lines of "of course, everyone can draw." I'M LIVING MY NIGHTMARES WHEN I SHOW THAT DRAWING. i'm the only one amazed by it (only because, oh let's see, I COULDN'T DRAW LAST TIME I TRIED) and everyone else thinks it's normal.

i don't talk about the situation or show the drawing to anyone anymore. i haven't dreamt of it yet.

but i will.

well hell

so here's the basic problem ...

pickles wanted to work through drawing on the right side of the brain with me, which is a little awkward since she could kick my artist ass, but okay fine. then we summarily sat on the damn book for a year. at my prodding we started talking about actually doing it, but that was going to be problematic due to her school schedule and my hardcore unpredictability. then my pal louella came up with the solution: blog it and everything just works.

okay, fine.

so we set up a 'blog, more to pickles liking than mine (because i don't really care how it looks) and i started up.

i am exactly one day in when she comes in in some kind of hyper-drive funk and changes the original 'blog content, essentially leaving it all to me (but leaving grammatical errors for me to sweep up in her teenage rampage). this without telling me, of course.

the reason? "i didn't know we were starting."

i would think that my buying art supplies and setting up the 'blog might be a hint, but why approach things that way? my response: "i'm exactly one day in. i can stop and wait."

instead of saying that what i should have done is gone and thrown 100 beer bottles against the wall, because it would have had the exact same effect as my glorious statement (which is to say, "nothing") and would have been more fun.

so here's the actual problem:

anyone who's read what i've written in detail knows that i treat my 'blogs as scrapbooks or collections of specific thoughts. i don't use them as a "here's my soul and i'm so goddamn important that i think you should read about it." as i explained in oh so much detail three years ago, i'm not that interested in airing myself on the 'net.

and for damn sure i wouldn't be posting my artistic efforts here.

which means there's a lot of stuff here i'd rather not share with anyone and i most certainly wouldn't have done it on my own. i know it's going to sound paranoid -- but i assure you it's absolutely true -- i have more than a few stalkers, some of whom i'm pretty sure are (or will be) reading this.

BUT i'm also not a quitter or a runner. (unlike my theoretical co-author) i don't start, or say i start, then turn. so i'm going to keep right up here. and you, dear reader, are welcome to it.

the only reason i haven't mentioned this sooner is i wanted to see if pickles was going to re-join (she still could, i guess) and i needed to get the fire in my soul down to a merely threatening level before i wrote anything about the topic. rest assured, this will be the last time i do.

as rodney dangerfield said in caddyshack, "now i know why tigers eat their young."

negative space drawing of a chair

another modified contour drawing

i'm not as happy with this one ... a little too much detail on the pink
panther to reproduce easily/correctly ... the TV was on in the
background -- something that i don't normally watch - and it might have
thrown me a bit ... also, the angle of my hand (combined with the
lighting) doesn't give a lot of noticeable detail.

detailed modified contour drawing

2 hours.

the index finger is *very* close to what i actually see ... it's just a
really weird angle to view and therefore looks wrong.

modified contour drawings

these are all felt tip on glass.

pure contour drawing

my left hand.

my 10 year old house?

we're asked to draw a house as we did when we were 10. apparently the
average student can just crank it out when asked to -- in fact, only 10%
of ms. edwards's students *can't*.

but i don't have a good solid memory of doing it ... and my memory is
*way* better than the average person on most things, but not here ... is
it because i just block out painful art experiences, or is it because it
wasn't important to me, or what?

i know the house would have had 4 windows (even though the 1 i lived in
didn't). and the sun would have been in the sky, not the corner. the
birds are *definitely* right - i liked drawing those because they seemed
really real and stylized.

the tree may not be right. i think instead i drew pine trees as a
series of slashed lines.

the mountains i *think* were pointy instead ... maybe with a horizon
line.

the car might have been a convertible and would be bigger. OH AND I'M
MISSING A SWING SET. that would be on the right.

i didn't like drawing people, so my "basic" wouldn't have had them.

i'm also getting a bit polluted about the concept by reading ahead -- so
it's possible some of the other images and words are brushing off on
me.

it's not important, but it is puzzling.

hmm.

quote of the moment

"the majority of adults in the western world do not progress in art
skills much beyond the level of development they reached at age nine or
ten."

-- betty edwards

headless horseman vs. ian anderson

another inverted drawing of an original by frank duarte.

several firsts here:

* first landscape layout (my choice)
* first "process" (my word, not ms. edwards's) item not in the book
* first heinous centering misjudgement

he's too damn skinny and well off-placement (which is ironic since i had
a starting point and then intentionally moved up). other than that, not
bad.

my horseman is the champ of this set ... i just wish i'd hit his right
front hoof/leg a bit better.

inverted (and shaded!) horse

another inverted drawing ... this a 16th century horse of unknown
authorship that's been converted to a line drawing.

although shading wasn't an exercise here, i went ahead and did that as
well.

i was faster this time @ 75 minutes and cheated somewhat in considering
what the part was i was drawing as i drew it, speeding over the "less
important" parts (e.g. the helmet plume).

i'm really happy with it.

inverted stravinsky

i'm very familiar with this particular piece we were supposed to copy --
a line drawing by picasso of igor stravinsky done in 1920 ... making it
harder for me to "forget what you're drawing" as i copied the picture
upside down.

i spent over 2 and a half hours on this ("budget an hour of
uninterrupted time") and it just flew by. it's interesting to see how
the fundament mistake of not having the left chair arm far enough out
ended up making igor look like he was trying to reposition himself.

i spent forever on the hands and they came out really nice.

one more vase face

i walked past my drawing pad and decided to give it one more go.

it's easy to create the "face" on the left. i follow a rough pattern in
the book and it just flows. i re-trace it twice audibly saying the body
part as i trace it.

but i have trouble with the spatial copy on the right. if i scored the
paper i'm certain i could do it but that seems too heavy handed.

this version i erased a lot.

i understand the exercise, i just am having trouble completing it to my
satisfaction. i'm supposed to write the strategy i use, but at this
point i'd say that strategy is "move to the next exercise."

being tired doesn't help, i'm sure.

vase exercises

if you're right handed, you make a pre-described line face on the left
(retraced 2x more) and copy it inverted on the right.

doesn't make much sense without the text.

puzzled

my general aim here is to keep a steady pace and work my way through the
book. what i'll usually do is read up to the next drawing exercise, do
that and then stop for the day. with holidays, travel and other
projects i'm involved in, there'll almost certainly be large gaps. with
my obsessive behavior, it would be very* easy for me to force feed this
stuff 16 hours a day and be done with the book in three days. i think
it's better to breathe deeper and let things stew -- the learning will
probably be more solid.

but here's what i don't get ...

i did that self-portrait yesterday and it's really not that bad. i've
spent *decades* not drawing anything for exactly the same reason i've
spent decades not stepping on nails. it hurts. i don't like it. i'm
not good at it. and there doesn't seem a whole lot of point in
practicing.

so where in the hell did that drawing come from? the point of this text
is to be shocked WHEN YOU'RE FINISHED, not at the start.

here's some possible fodder for the drawing fire:

* i like modern art. i've seen a lot of it and can actually talk a
reasonable game around it. it's not directly related to the stuff i'm
doing here, but probably comes into play.

* my wife was a hardcore fan of classic art. enough that we had tomes
laying around the house dedicated to it. just like national geographic,
i never read any of that stuff, but i've looked at all the pictures.
and i've spent a considerable length of time in the great art musea of
the world -- if it's north of the equator and is famous for something in
it, i've been there. so maybe part of it is just osmosis.

* i've spent a LOT of time working with and on human interfaces. my
specialty tends to be flow of use but over the years i've become acutely
aware of shading and shadowing in the UI. (q: what's the light source
in a standard GUI -- say windows or mac? a: upper left hand corner.)
it's work i've always liked and have an eye for.

* i've taken drafting since i quit drawing, but that too was decades
ago.

* i've spent countless hours watching people draw. when they draw
something i always think "okay, that's a table and that's a leg. oh!
they just drew in that reflection/line/shadow/whatever that i would
never have drawn. it doesn't 'seem' right, but it 'looks' right."
this, by the way, would be a classic right brain vs. left brain moment
(to use an edwardsism).

i really hate false modesty in a person. i believe it's a low form of
both conceit and lying. consider that when i tell you that i really and
truly couldn't draw. i mean not really at all. laughably bad. kids
laughed at what i drew and i laughed right along with them to keep from
being embarrassed about it all.

I COULDN'T EVEN CENTER MY DRAWING ON A PAGE. i can't tell you how many
times i had to ask a teacher for another piece of paper because it was
off-center, too-small or whatever the hell. i have a stuffed whale that
i did out of construction paper in the 60's hanging at my mom's house.
flip it over and look, the original drawing was too small.

WHERE THE HELL DID MY ABILITY TO DO THAT COME FROM?

on pages 18-20 there are before and after drawings by an entire class of
adult students of ms. edwards. it's a class of 16 people and it's
telling because (if i take her at her implied word), no one was weeded
out for being overly lame.

now in that class, my drawing would sit in the solid middle of the
"before" world. i just find that almost unimaginable. because this is
a class of people who have CHOSEN to take a drawing class. meaning
they're either fearless, have way too much time on their hands or MOST
PROBABLY HAVE ARTISTIC TALENT ALREADY.

and i don't qualify. or at least i didn't think i did. but it turns
out i'm wrong. you know this whole deal isn't wholly removed from
having bad BO -- it's not comforting when there's something about yourself
you don't know (and others might).

i came into this hoping to find a secret backway to my inner van gough,
not to discover that the gate had been open and flapping in the breeze
for n number of years.

the good news is that my drawing is worse than ALL of the final efforts
by a considerable margin. so if i'm happy now, i should be
buzzy-ecstatic by the end.

it does make me cast my doubts about just how far forward i can go -- or
at least the joy associated with it. some of the class-success shock
has already been taken away by my self-discovery and i doubt i'll come
away drawing like miró.

i find myself simultaneously giddy and suspicious about all this. like
falling in love very hard with a girl. you think it's great, you know
how you feel. but you wonder how you got there and aren't certain that
it's actually real or if you're just making stuff up in your head.

i've never felt this way about anything that wasn't a person of the
opposite sex.

and that too is unsettling.

goddammit.

pre-instruction drawing #3

"draw your hand"

this is my left hand the the fingers raised slightly off the table and
my index finger pressing down.

I COULD HAVE PICKED AN EASIER POSE TO DRAW, THAT'S FOR DAMN SURE.

it's not bad, but it's not great.

the pinkie is too long and the index finer isn't quite right. the
thumb's too meaty and the middle finger isn't meaty enough.

the left side of the hand as it rests is good. the little flecks of
hand hair look really good on the drawing, but aren't that obvious in
the real world.

the shiny part under the index finger (right under the joint) isn't good
enough.

the veins in the back of my hand are apparent in my my super translucent
skin, but they're hard to draw. i have redness around my joints (rather
than obvious knuckles). i try to shade them, but that's not quite
right.

what's weird is ms. edwards spends time stressing how important it is to
SEE what you're drawing ... but in both this one and my self-portrait,
there are things i add THAT YOU CAN'T REALLY SEE, that make 'em look
better.

hmm.

ms. edwards predicts that this drawing may well be a person's favorite
of the three, but my self-portrait might be better.

pre-instruction drawing #2

"draw a person from memory"

well, let's see, i could choose my dad, but that's a cheat because i
look sort of like him. i could choose my brother, but ditto. i could
choose my mom but i'd end up slaughtering her and that's bad because i
love my mom.

after thinking, for some reason, the image of ronald reagan came into my
head. i have no idea why.

i couldn't shake him so i drew him.

OR RATHER I DREW THE MONSTROSITY ON THIS PAGE.

goddamn it's bad. i swear to you, if it'd drawn this first, i'd have
quit the whole course right here, right now. it's bad at a level that's
hard to define in words but easy to laugh at.

as i was drawing at times it looked like lon chaney as "phantom of the
opera," in others (much to the pleasure of mikkel, i'm sure), adolph
hitler.

i made it a point to not cheat and look in the mirror at myself, nor
look back at my self-portrait so i couldn't use any "live" visual cues.

the only nice thing about this image is i've already hit rock bottom.
there's no where to go but up from here.

break it up. move along. there's nothing more to see here.

pre-instruction drawing #1

a self-portrait.

let me be very clear here ... this is the first time i've tried to
"seriously" draw *anything* in twice the lifespan of pickles.

overall i'm shocked at how good it is. then again, my self-expectation
bar was so low that if it didn't end up looking like a building block, i
probably would have been happy.

the head shape doesn't look quite right to me ... i'm more charlie brown
and less JFK than that.

the nose is probably my favorite part.

the beard's good, but it's hard to draw the white part down by my chin
... i don't know how to draw white with a pencil.

the eyes are psycho, which is probably the right mental attitude, but
not the right look for what i was seeing ... my complexion is pretty
pink under heavy lighting and it's hard for me to get that delicacy
that's around my eyes.

the shadow from my glasses is there, but when i draw it, it looks (or at
least hints) to be wrinkles.

i like the eyebrow above the right eye image. that shape and look is
right ... my true eyebrows are not that pronounced because they're way
more blond, but i don't care.

the perspective is good with the shading on the left, but off on the
right ... when i look at the picture for a bit it feels like it crosses
from 2D to 3D at the center.

i hate the lips. they feel ridiculously amateurish.

the hair's not quite right. it's accurate on the right but simplified
on the left. maybe i should have erased one side and copied across the
same style to the other.

the semi-jowliness on the left looks right to me and on the right it's a
little off.

i had originally left white reflections in my eyes as pencil rings ...
when i tried to erase them, they smudged, ending up with the opposite
effect i'd hoped for.

i'm including a photo of my subject (i can't get the exact same lighting
for the pic i put here as what i actually see), so you can compare. i'm
sure this is probably some kind of huge drawing student no-no to compare
to a real photo, but once again i don't care.

even though it's not the point of this exercise, this drawing convinces
me i have potential and can turn something of quality out. to be
honest, i'm a little surprised i can do *anything* in this world.

note for the drawings that follow

in her book, betty edwards suggests writing down what's pleasing and
displeasing, easy and hard, about each image.

i'm including page number references for our review and anyone else who
may stumble across this site. ms. edwards doesn't ask for the time it
took to draw, but i'm including those as well. i'm just curious how
long all this stuff is going to take me.

artistic expression progression

"i believe the logical progression for a person starting out in artistic
expression should be as follows:

from line > to value > to color > to painting"

-- betty edwards

the 5 basic skills of drawing

1. the perception of edges
2. the perception of spaces
3. the perception of relationships
4. the perception of lights and shadows
5. the perception of the whole

just that side of "stupid"

about a year ago, pickles gave me a copy of drawing on the right side of the brain.

it was an interesting but mildly anxiety-laden gift because although i was somewhat familiar with the book (i'd worked through a few exercises in a copy that my wife had), my formal art training ended in 5th grade. which is to say i haven't done art of any type in almost 40 years (assuming lining your car up in a parking space doesn't count). in the roughest artistic terms you could safely say that my abilities lie slightly above the stickmen-with-fingers category.

this wouldn't be that big a deal except pickles wants to work her way through the book with me as i go along. a problem because she is not merely a budding, but accomplished, artist. easily able to do things like oil paint realistic versions on chuck taylor sneakers or craft paper mache mermaids with their hearts hanging out "for fun."

pickles and i share exactly three traits: we're both human, we both speak english and we both have inferiority complexes that include thinking we're bad at art. in almost any other way you could imagine we're different -- much to our collective relief.

my pal louella suggested blogging our progress which is not only a good idea but also makes it easy for pickles and me to track each the progress as we go along.

i'm looking forward to the experiment. i like to push the boundaries of my thinking and ability occasionally, but this particular effort isn't going to be without a fair amount of self-loathing and pain.