Frustrated
There are days I feel good enough about my art that I start sending out samples, trying to get work. On those days, my skin is so thick, rejections don’t phaze me; I just send my samples elsewhere and hope to catch someone off guard.
This is not one of those days.
I’ve been looking at other artists’ work, since I’ve been mostly unproductive. It’s akin to a writer reading other authors when the typewriter sits silent. But the more I look at other people’s work, the more dissatisfied I am with my own, and I’ve discovered that in my lazy shortcut ways, I’ve fallen behind in actual painting skills. I can’t, for the life of me, paint.
Every time I draw a figure, it comes out cartoonish—features all exaggerated, colors crayon bright. I have a hard time with subtle shifts in hues and tones, and I can’t seem to get body proportions just right without some kind of reference.
And umber. I have no idea what umber is. Or burnt sienna. Undertones are lost on me, and I see skin as one color, whether in shadow or in light. Instead of seeing hints of red or blue, I see dodge or burn. It makes me feel like an imposter.
So I practiced some painting this weekend. I set out to “paint” something without using the dodge and burn tools, a Poser figure, or a reference photo.
Then I realized why I stopped trying to “paint” my art. My lack of processing speed and RAM makes it too slow and time-consuming. My tempermental and jittery old Wacom Graphire pen—which I need to replace as soon as I can afford to—makes it too difficult and frustrating to control. My ignorance of the most basic painting techniques makes my attempt little more than a shot in the dark.
And my lack of patience, heck. It makes me give up before I’ve even finished—just so I can go play around with making quick and easy Celtic knots or whimsy toons.
I guess I don’t deal with frustration very well.
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7 thoughts on “Frustrated”
April, I think that we all struggle with what we consider to be shortcomings in our chosen craft or medium. The one thing that I would like to suggest to you is that you have a particular style that at least "I" come to expect from you, and you do it incredibly well. I understand about you wanting to branch out into other areas, I feel the same tinge all of the time. When it comes time for my head to hit the pillow though, I know that I do what I do VERY well, and that I should be proud of that.
Well said Broch.
April, I know exactly where you’re coming from.
But don’t forget that while you are looking at other people’s work and wishing you could do what they do, there’s a group of people looking at your work wishing they could only have the talent to do what you do.
Think about it this way. Nobody can capture an alien barbecue quite the way you can. And if paintings of alien barbeques become the next big thing, you’ll have the market cornered!
As an after thought.
You can never have too many Celtic knots.
(You should start a tattoo design service!)
Thank you, Broch and Brendan! 🙂
My insecure moments are rarer these days than when I was growing up, but once in a blue moon I still find myself having one. Thank you so much for pulling me out of it.
Broch and Brendan took the words out of my mouth. You, April, like most of the greats in art, have accomplished something difficult to achieve – a style, readily recognizable and distinctive. So many others do not have that – I have known a lot of illustrators and cartoonists in my 28 years of graphics – if I saw your work in any other forum, or printed out and hanging somewhere, I would know it immediately. And, I do see the undertones in the above illustration – they are lovely. You are damn good. You are.
nice thing really i’m trying to do like it,
nothing to say just you have sometimes to give it a shoot with another style ,, so try
cheers:)
Pam, thank you and hugs! I needed that. 🙂
Pan Cake, I know what you mean; every now and then I try something different.
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