Friday, November 30, 2012

Break Off Your Eraser


These last couple of weeks I've been waiting for some contracts to start and/or pan out so I've had time to work on personal portfolio stuff and my own shortcomings.

Being a good artist is like being into yoga. The moment you feel like you've mastered a pose, you learn there's an even harder pose. Yogies are always learning because they're actively pushing themselves towards things they can't do.

I push myself by using my sketchbook. Up above is book called Drawn In. It's filled with interviews from illustrators who talk about their sketchbooks and what the process of sketching means to them. I really recommend it. The other book there is just the newest of a long list of reference books I have. This one's about animals and it's very thorough. Check it out.

So, what does my sketchbook mean to me?

It's a testing ground for ideas; a place where I can work things out and learn new stuff. But most of all it's a safe place where I can make mistakes before I do it on a large scale.

This is why you should not be using an eraser in your sketchbook. Using an eraser is attempting to fix an image that is not a final product. If you screw up, draw it again. If you screw up a lot, then you need to take your time. You'll get better the more you sketch and if you don't have an eraser to fix your mistakes, you're going to learn to make educated strokes much faster. 

It's really hard to riff on new ideas when you try to make everything you do a work of art. You can't explore without hitting a few dead ends. Come to terms with your mistakes as something good for you, because you have to know that once you've mastered the technique your practicing, there's always something harder to learn.

Embrace mistakes, don't erase.









And of course, here are some of my more rendered works of the week. Like them or hate them, I had fun exploring these ideas.





Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think. I'm always trying to get better at things, not just my artwork.

-Garret AJ

1 comment:

  1. Can't believe there arent any comments yet. All these posts are really great, they really give me something to think about.
    A really nice site to pop in and visit. Thanks for putting these up :)

    ReplyDelete