Self-Worth and the Artist

Everyone talks about having 'self-worth' or 'self-esteem' but I don't know that I've ever considered what that means to me. If I were to identify myself as something, it's as an artist. That's what I do best. It's natural to then assume that my 'self-worth' is tied to being an artist.

This is a big mistake.

As an artist, I am never satisfied with anything I produce. My end result is always about 60% of what I had envisioned and that is a poor thing to base one's self-worth on. I would constantly be running around life with a low self-esteem. It's pretty common for artists to do this, however. We tie our self-worth so closely into our drawing ability that we end up terminally depressed or we depend too much on the accolades of others. We start producing art that will get us approval because we mistakenly believe that's how to get self-worth. It's a hollow thing indeed to depend on others to provide that and we end up producing art that is popular but by no means genuine to our artistic vision.

The best way to avoid this is to have many different interests and activities in life. Don't hang everything on your art. Do things that don't involve another person's approval. I like to sculpt. I have no ambitions about making it a career and I don't have any pride attached to it. I simply make what I like and let it be what it is. I also have my 9-5 job as a graphic artist and I have a very important job as a Father of two girls. All of these things I do well, mostly, but if I fail at one, I can think about how I did well at the others and my self-worth doesn't take such a big hit. I know that if I fail at a painting, for example, I still did a good job at work that day and did a fantastic job with my daughters. I have success to fall back on when one aspect of my life takes a nose-dive.

We artists have a tendency to fall into a black hole when our art hits a low point. We all need to realize that other areas of life are just as important as our art. When we fail at art we need to look at those other areas and find success there. We just need to remember that our art is still there waiting for us and that the next drawing will likely be a success. Never quit and you'll never fail. We are worth more than the sum of our drawings.

Eowyn and the Nazgul: Final thoughts

This post was originally titled 'Final' and I had posted the final image that I'd submitted to the ArtOrder Challenge 'Eowyn and the Nazgul'. I've decided to remove the picture and post, replacing it with something a bit more constructive...or at least cathartic.

The judging is complete and each illustrator-judge picked a handful of paintings that they liked and wrote a bit about them. Mine wasn't chosen by anyone. And I can't blame them.

It's said that an artist is his/her own worst critic and the implication there is that we're too hard on ourselves. Define 'too hard'. There has to be an inner voice telling us when something sucks. That voice drives us to improve and produce our best work with our current skills. It's a fine line we walk when listening to that inner critic. We can't listen to the critic's suggestions that we suck so much we shouldn't start another drawing. That road leads to a trash can full of art supplies and discarded dreams. But we should listen to that critic when he's saying "Hey bud, that color isn't right. Scrape it off and try it again" even after scraping it off a dozen times. We need that critic to tell us when a thing sucks and needs to be re-done.

I let myself ignore my inner critic. I convinced myself that my painting for this challenge was 'good enough'. I didn't go the extra mile for it and I have reaped the results of it. This all can quickly spin into a discussion of what is considered 'good' and it's all relative. It all depends on what you're comparing the artwork to. But there's another kind of 'good' that matters the most...the kind of 'good' that the inner critic sees. I know what that painting was supposed to look like and I let it leave my computer and go into a contest looking nothing like what I had wanted. The inner critic was right and I ignored him.

Never again.

A picture must please me first and foremost or it never leaves my hands. Indeed, if I'm not pleased with a piece it won't survive the night. The most telling part of of all this is when the entries were all posted, mine among them, my wife and I thought it would be fun to pick our favorites. Neither of us chose mine.

Food for much, much thought.

Eowyn and the Nazgul Challenge: In progress

This is the progress so far. All the elements are here and the background is more or less in place. After I do the figures, if there's time, I'll refine the background to direct focus where I want it. I know right off that the green hills in the background need to be dulled a bit. In light of the deadline, I may just refine it in Photoshop.

This is a process shot showing the underpainting and how I work from background to foreground. Doing it this way helps me to establish the overall lighting of the scene so I know how to paint the important bits: the figures! Trick is to always keep in mind atmospheric perspective. It's so easy to put more detail in the background than you need to.

Eowyn and the Nazgul Challenge: Reference

Okay, here are the last of the reference shots. I first tried posing my wife as Eowyn, but I failed at communicating what pose I wanted. Also, both my wife and I actually know how to fight with a sword and shield and though she posed in the correct stance, it didn't look visually 'right'. So I donned my old Ren Faire gear and struck a pose. Or two. (Please ignore the half-finished state of my house! Chez Mike shall be a mansion one day.....)

Eowyn. I'll need to alter some shadows but this came out almost perfect.

The Nazgul. I'll need to alter this one a lot because he's mounted. The scabbard will be a mace.

The final step is to print these out and piece it all together. Underpainting starts tonight. Wish me luck!

Eowyn and the Nazgul Challenge: Comp Sketch

Now that the maquette is done enough to use, I've moved onto my first comp sketch. This was done in charcoal pencil on tracing paper while looking at the maquette. The general idea here is to get all the elements I want in the picture actually working together. I'm not worried about anything being rendered properly at this stage, I just want an overall view of the final so I know what problems there are before applying any paint. For example, the horse at the bottom and the beast's tail need composition fixes.

The darker bits of the fell beast's neck was intended to be the area the viewer focuses on first, but after looking at the piece, I now want the Witch King to be the initial focus with your eyes running along the beast's neck to Eowyn. A Chiaroscuro effect between the dark beast's head and Eowyn's radiant blonde hair should provide a 'carrot' for your gaze, keeping you interested in Eowyn. Secondary focus will be her shield and the field of grass. A shadow pattern on the ground should lead your eyes down Eowyn and to the fallen Snowmane and back around to the fell beast. Well, that's the idea, anyway!

I feel this is the most important step in a painting because it lets you establish right away your focus. My next step is to photograph my wife with sword and board in Eowyn's pose and draw that on another piece of tracing paper. Then I'll be finding horse reference and doing the same for Snowmane. The Witch King will be another maquette with real cloth to simulate the folds. I'll re-shoot the maquette and project that onto the board with the rest of the elements added in and moved around a bit.

***

Here's the maquette set-up in the final pose. I added yellow construction paper below to give some yellow reflected light from the yellow field of Pelennor and a sheet of blue construction paper for the sky reflection. It's all rudimentary, but all I'm after is an idea of where the light will be reflected.

I decided to stop work on the wings due to time constraints. It was a tough decision, but I think I'll render them in Photoshop. I've been a graphic artist for 20 years now and I've worked with Photoshop since it hit the scene many moons ago. I'm intimately familiar with it and can do the wings in about a half hour.

I *do* plan on finishing this maquette after the ArtOrder/Muddy Colors challenge is done. I've discovered that I quite like sculpting and I'm pretty happy with the way this little maquette is developing!

Eowyn and the Nazgul Challenge: Big Thanks

A huge thanks to James Gurney for his kind words about my maquette. He even took the time to post about bat wings on his blog to give me a bit of help, knowing that the wings are the part I'm currently working on (I hope others who are doing this challenge got the chance to read James' post). I've revised my wing structure to reflect the information in his post.

When I draw anything fantastic or imaginary I try to be as accurate as I can and pull from nature as much as possible. What I fashion needs to be possible . It needs to work, at least in my mind (much thanks to Ed Garcia for teaching me that year and years ago). That germ of physical 'truth' I try to put in my drawings (or sculptures) is what, I feel, connects the piece with the viewer. It's a bit of a 'grounding' element to them. A platform of reality that they can leap from to get to the fantastic. The truth inside of the lie, if you will. This is why I love James Gurney's art...it's well thought out and looks like it could actually work.

Anyway, the deadline looms and I'm getting back to work. Today should finish off the maquette and tonight I sketch some ideas from it. It might seem like I'm wasting an awful lot of time with the maquette when I've got about a week left to finish this, but like Mary Poppins says "Well begun is half done". If I can get the composition and lighting right, the actual painting goes by super fast. All this prelim work is to get composition and lighting.

The strength of any work of art isn't the paint laid down on the canvas, its the composition. No amount of painting prowess can save a badly composed piece while a great composition will be a fantastic painting even half finished.

Eowyn and the Nazgul Challenge: Maquette

So I now have two paintings ongoing. One for my sister-in-law and one for The Art Order Challenge, Eowyn and the Nazgul. No pressure....

As my wife can attest, I went through a panic phase where I couldn't for the life of me think of a good composition for this one. All the heavy-hitters and big names in the illustration business will be looking at this and I wanted something good. In typical fashion, 'something good' never seems to happen when I'm panicked. So I went back to basics and took a page from James Gurney and built a maquette. It's the first time I've done this and I'm a convert. Having something in 3-D right there in front of you that you can always reference and pose and light to your heart's content is a Godsend. I'm not quite done, but I've already got my 'something good' from this. I've got a composition I'm happy with.

Here are the process shots of my 'fell beast' the Nazgul rides. I did quite a lot of research to ensure I got the beast correct. Most people draw it incorrectly as a dragon. It's not. It's actually closer to a Pterosaur crossed with a featherless bird.

A few notes from the text. The beast was small enough to: ‘settle upon the body of Snowmane, digging in its claws, stooping its long naked neck.’  so I made it a bit larger than the average horse, lean enough to fly (large bat-like wings will be added later) but with enough neck to situate the saddle and black rider. Bird comparisons come to mind when the beast attacks Eowyn, just before she cuts it's head off. It is described as ‘...striking with beak and claw.’.

"...striking with beak and claw"

This image shows the scale of the beast. There's a saddle and a part of a leg on top the neck. The Nazgul are depicted many ways visually, but the text only ever specifies a crown, glowing eyes and a robe with a mace for a weapon (I'd wager it's very close to a Knight's mace or Horseman's mace). I'll be sticking to that description and I may put some ornate plate on the legs and arms.

The rider's legs to scale. Not a big beast, but powerful!

A few more shots.

The wattle was an afterthought but a good one.

Wings and tail to be added later.

I fashioned this from Sculpey. I'd like to bake and paint it black to give a more accurate lighting feel, but I don't know if my aluminum armature will crack the piece when heated....so I'll just use my imagination when painting it. Wish me luck.