If you look over at my 'Blogs you should be reading' section, you'll see an [e]. That's the blog of Eric Canete, a comic artist that isn't correct. He's wrong. Wonderfully wrong. Pleasingly wrong. All artists should wish we could be as wrong as he is. No, I'm not off my nut.....at least at the moment....
Too many artists spend too much time stressing over 'getting it right'. The proportions of the face must be 'right', the lighting on the tree must be 'right', etc to infinity. Well, you're all wrong, and it's not the good kind of wrong, either. Distill it down and art's only rule is that it should be pleasing. Sure, you have to know light, color, value, etc to make it look pleasing, but don't get hung up on all that overmuch. In the end, it has to look good and if you've fussed over the fundamentals too much, you can obscure the 'right' of a picture. Eric Canete stretches and distorts his figures and it all should look wrong, but it doesn't. It looks fantastically good. It looks 'right' even though it's almost totally wrong.
The two ways you can get your picture to look good are:
1) Composition. Study this. You need to know composition before you know anything else. Seek out books by Andrew Loomis, preferably 'Creative Illustration'. There's a wealth of composition information in there. All Loomis' books should be available at free online libraries or by searching for him and the term 'pdf' on Google.
2) Mood. Unfortunately, I don't think this can be easily taught. Subtle things like distorting a figure towards the camera to give it a sense of urgency or showing a character small on a large background to convey hopelessness come only when you stop thinking about it. You must detach your analytical self and let your emotions carry your pencil; you'll be surprised at how effective your emotions are at forming a picture!
Certainly there are other things an artist must know, like tone, value, form and light, but those are secondary. Those are the flesh and the clothes you put on your emotional, 'wrong' sketch. Don't be afraid to do what is wrong as long as it looks good.
One exercise is to do a small sketch, not worrying about getting the proportions down correctly. Go for the mood. When you've got that, transfer the sketch directly to your board and only then search out reference that roughly matches the pose and lighting of your sketch. Execute that to completion, letting your colors be dictated by your mood.
One final caveat. I'm no professional. Art should take you and do with you what it will. If my thoughts here run counter to your style or experiences please ignore them and follow your own muse. That's really what it's all about anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment