Nocturnal Artist

After intense struggles with life itself, I've finally reached a place of contentment. I transferred to a new university with a clean slate. My classes are stimulating, and both my productivity and creativity have soared lately! As a result, I'm posting to the blog again. My classes are fairly rigorous, but I have heaps of spare time as well.

Along with the university is a new painting class. I'm exploring mediums I have very little comfort in. Recent practices have been with Cray-Pas. I find them gooey and imprecise, which contrasts my usual style. My first attempt with them was an unsharable disaster, but to the left is the result of my most recent practice session.

The drawing is a study of color, done in patches rather than in intricate detail. I spent nearly three hours in a field sitting on moist grass. My legs were asleep, and every time I switched positions I was jabbed by pins and needles. Nevertheless, every artist should step out of his comfort zone to grow and become more in touch with his creative process.

We are awesome!

I am so incredibly frustrated.

My family's adorable new kitten decided to completely shred some of my works. It left me pretty devastated. Kittens will be kittens, so I keep my door shut at all hours now, and made sure that my remaining art was safely stored away in a portfolio. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. I live in Maine, in a very drafty old house. I came home last night to a room that was literally freezing. As in, under 32 degrees Fahrenheit. I found a bottle of frozen water by my bed.

It's not a big problem. I can protect my works from a little kitten AND keep my door open if I find a new way to store things. That doesn't mean I'm not angry about it.

After spells of drawing aimlessly I begin to question myself. I want to know why I've been repeatedly drawing the same, meaningless things. I want to move on to bigger, better artworks, but I don't have the time or materials. Why keep drawing flowers, landscapes, and fruit?

Because practice gives us the skills we need to be successful in later projects.

The experience from studies on anatomy or value, line or perspective will be there to support your work when the inspiration does strike. That's when you can focus on your idea, instead of struggling with the mechanics.

It's an elementary concept, but sometimes when work gets boring a reminder becomes necessary. I just wish I had remembered this when my instructor had me drawing a billion bikes last year.

What better time is there to practice drawing faces than a boring class?

I just scanned an image, resized it, and then lost it some how. I would say that's a pretty good indication that this nocturnal artist should try to get some sleep.