Sunday, March 17, 2013

The Technique Solidifies

My poor blog, how I have neglected you. But alas, I have been working away diligently into 2013, with just a couple things to show for it. It's been an interesting start to the year, with a few personal realisations coupled with growth and understanding as I transit into a more mature, grounded adult and begin to know and understand myself as an individual even more so then I did before.

But who cares! We want to hear about the art.

The art, oh the art. Well actually it's going pretty well, and I'm enjoying the comfy ride for now to be honest. Whatever it was I stressed over, colour, value, anatomy, etc, although it's still not the definition of perfection, it seems to have sunken in through practice and dedication. Until that is, my feathers are ruffled by the realty that there is still such a gargantuan smorgasbord of things still left to learn, great powers still yet to be harnessed.

There's a few main paintings I've been working on, I just need to kick my ass into gear to see those finished (which I'll post when they're finely completed). Besides that it's been lots of character designs and a bit of practice here and there. Character designs that I've been coming up with during my class demos. I feel now that I have a very solid work flow, one that I am comfortable and happy with.

This work flow, for me, was something I needed to figure out for myself. I could have emulated someone else, but my belief is that an artists workflow has a lot to do with their personal style. Because it takes a while to develop a technique that you're truly comfortable with, a technique that you know 99% of the time you'll be able to execute with confidence. Which really, when you think about it is so important when it comes to working in a studio or as a freelance artist. You don't want to be sitting there trying to figure out how you're going to construct your idea, that should be the easy part, the idea itself is what you want to be focusing on. Well, later on at least, once you've got those fundamentals down. In the end, the fundamentals, the technique, the work flow, these are all just tools that you're able to use to present an idea. Know how to use the tools, and your only obstacle then is, figuring out the idea you want to construct with them.

So workflow, and technique. Pretty much the same thing. But for now, how did I solidify it? In my opinion I believe it had a lot to do with me being able to simplify the complications of drawing, colors, values, painting and rendering in my mind. I took some of the stress, and importance off of me to try to understand more and more about this stuff, and just accepted that the knowledge I have is enough, and now I need to use it; I need to put it into action. Because otherwise at what point would we ever say that we've learned enough, now lets start to create!? We wouldn't because we're artists, and every artist knows this journey is always expanding as we continue to climb to greater heights. But in realizing that, we need to do something with our growth, with that ever expanding knowledge. And in doing this, the knowledge begins to come, not so much from an outside source, but from within, we start to teach our selves through experience. Occasionally, we'll go back to second hand knowledge, to studying the world around us and refreshing our minds with the information that outside sources provide, it'd be foolish not to. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten. But again, there comes that time, when alot of learning comes from within, tying all that we know in together with ourselves.

Goblin Huntress

Simone

Tentilize

Assassin Wizard


http://www.claytonbartonartist.com/

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