Original art!
Jan. 30th, 2011 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI've been on a small original art kick recently, spurred in part by making a series of Tumblr posts about my artistic influences.
From a great height at Tumblr
Couldn't find the key at Tumblr
I showed Cam this pencil sketch of a photo and he was way more enthusiastic than he normally is about my at, especially since I wasn't all that proud of it. He pointed out that he prefers more abstract, sketchy art, eg his favourite painter is Jackson Pollock. We went through my gallery and his favourite picture was this Nikita fanart (it helps that he's a huge Nikita fanboy), at one point he was poking through by himself and went "Where's that page with all the pictures I liked?" to which I replied "That was my scraps, with all the pictures I hate" :D
Which then prompted me to do the influences posts to poke at what I like in art, and I've realised I'm pretty much the opposite of Cam: I like clean, slightly stylised art which tells a story, tending towards illustrations and comics. Abstract art, and that which is simply pretty (or otherwise aesthetically pleasing) has to really hit my buttons for me to like it. Which is why I like fanart so much (as well as comics): you have a backstory to tap in to that makes it very easy to imply or illustrate a fairly complex narrative.
But the problem with fanart is that it limits which stories you can tell(*). After two years of doing almost entirely fanart, and not feeling very inspired by any of the fandoms I've been drawing for recently (ug, Homsetuck. Really not feeling enthused right now) I think my art has gotten to a point where I can get across a story without relying on a shared canon context with the viewer. Alas that telling a story in original comics takes so much effort or I might try that again.
Which isn't to say I'm going to stop drawing fanart (yes, at 31 I have outgrown the childish obsessions of thirty...), but it has to some extent been an emotional crutch while I get used to being stuck at home so much without anything emotionally purpose when I'm not feeling up to more practical stuff like working on my health, and I can see me doing a bit less of it. That or I'm just in a brief lull before my next obsession :D
(*)one of the limitations of fanart is that I don't like doing horrible things to canon characters. And I have much fewer qualms about original characters :D
From a great height at Tumblr
Couldn't find the key at Tumblr
I showed Cam this pencil sketch of a photo and he was way more enthusiastic than he normally is about my at, especially since I wasn't all that proud of it. He pointed out that he prefers more abstract, sketchy art, eg his favourite painter is Jackson Pollock. We went through my gallery and his favourite picture was this Nikita fanart (it helps that he's a huge Nikita fanboy), at one point he was poking through by himself and went "Where's that page with all the pictures I liked?" to which I replied "That was my scraps, with all the pictures I hate" :D
Which then prompted me to do the influences posts to poke at what I like in art, and I've realised I'm pretty much the opposite of Cam: I like clean, slightly stylised art which tells a story, tending towards illustrations and comics. Abstract art, and that which is simply pretty (or otherwise aesthetically pleasing) has to really hit my buttons for me to like it. Which is why I like fanart so much (as well as comics): you have a backstory to tap in to that makes it very easy to imply or illustrate a fairly complex narrative.
But the problem with fanart is that it limits which stories you can tell(*). After two years of doing almost entirely fanart, and not feeling very inspired by any of the fandoms I've been drawing for recently (ug, Homsetuck. Really not feeling enthused right now) I think my art has gotten to a point where I can get across a story without relying on a shared canon context with the viewer. Alas that telling a story in original comics takes so much effort or I might try that again.
Which isn't to say I'm going to stop drawing fanart (yes, at 31 I have outgrown the childish obsessions of thirty...), but it has to some extent been an emotional crutch while I get used to being stuck at home so much without anything emotionally purpose when I'm not feeling up to more practical stuff like working on my health, and I can see me doing a bit less of it. That or I'm just in a brief lull before my next obsession :D
(*)one of the limitations of fanart is that I don't like doing horrible things to canon characters. And I have much fewer qualms about original characters :D
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Date: 2011-01-30 04:51 am (UTC)Also, totally random, but your original with the two women is very very similar (in ambiance, I guess? Feeling?) Of a scene I've outlined and am trying to write for an original short story. O_O Very spooky. Also, I love it.
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Date: 2011-01-30 10:31 am (UTC)Also a little spooky: I'm pretty sure that the last time I posted an original piece with two femslashy women a friend commented that they'd just written a story along the same lines :D
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Date: 2011-02-03 10:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-30 10:57 am (UTC)Story-wise I found the missing shoe in "great height" to be very evocative... perhaps because it wasn't something I noticed right away. It felt like one of those little details that just made it for me.
Stupid DA wouldn't let me view the key one, unfortunately. It kept asking me to log in :(
I totally understand Cam about the pencil sketch - you'll grok this if you take a look at some of my abstract art I think. Here's "Pencil Sketches", "Paint On Floor", and "Earth 2", or you can see all my artwork if you follow all the "next" links (I think the category takes 6 pages). I think that sketch totally looks like something I might have drawn!
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Date: 2011-01-30 11:30 am (UTC)Thanks! And I'm glad someone noticed the shoe. I originally had them both barefoot, then decided giving one of them a single shoe more strongly brings up the question "Where did their shoes go?"
You can see the lost key picture at Tumblr.
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Date: 2011-01-31 10:52 am (UTC)Thanks for the link to the other picture, I found the gore level a bit beyond my comfort threshold though so I didn't linger on it. Funny how some things tip that threshold so much more than others - I was fine with that fanfic story and have watched Gunther von Hargens' documentaries without being bothered by them (although in that case I knew in advance what the topic was). Emotions are such odd and illogical things at times!
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Date: 2011-02-01 09:43 am (UTC)Emotional responses are indeed very odd, I can be incredibly squeamish sometimes myself, and I can't always predict what my reaction will be. Sorry I didn't specifically mention it was gory.
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Date: 2011-01-30 12:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-01 09:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-30 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-01 10:54 am (UTC)