Month: May 2024

Just Do It (Make Your Art)

The ever-resilient Frida Kahlo. From love lost, alcoholism and numerous incapacitating surgeries, she had every justifiable excuse to stop making her art.

“Righteousness of behaviour is not something to be gained, to be arrived at, but it must be understood from moment to moment in the actuality of daily living.” — J. Krishnamurti

To work right is to balance action with analysis, to join passion and perception. It means turning our attention towards learning and to raise our skills. This requires time and work (energy). It means living day to day, making one drawing, one brush stroke or one movement at a time. When we’re doing our art, it’s not the time to think about the past or future, or about external issues. We have no agency over those things. They’re just distractions from creative living and act as resistant forces against taking creative action. In art, we create, we design and we do.

“Make good art.” — Neil Gaimen

Yes, we all know it’s hard. We’re always too busy, too tired, too “whatever” these days. Just the other day, I, too, fell upon the spell of resistance; I felt lazy, dumbfounded and lethargic. And there was a laundry list of “other things” to do too. Heck, I even had a bit of cold along with some back pain. But they were all excuses and I knew it. Such a moment is always a test of the will. It’s the universe saying once again “is this all you got? is that your level of commitment? Perhaps you’re not the artist you think you are! (how rude I say!)

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Bruce Lee was the perfect embodiment of such spirit.

“Do rather than don’t.” — Irwin Greenberg

Then, I remember that where I put my attention defines my state of being. So I drag my ass into the studio and begin. I go through my rituals that get me going. I say no to everything else. I prioritize. I organize. I get my hands dirty and take the bull by the horns. It needn’t be a complicated thing; just start. Almost immediately I felt better. Why? Because I’ve already won the battle by making the first move, a move that says a decision has been made; I’m gonna do my art and I know that I’ll be rewarded for it.

“The first step is the hardest.” — Marie De Vichy

And how do I know this? Well, because it might be the only thing in life that’s fair. In art, you get what you put in. The rest of human life can be so remarkably cruel and confusingly random. But in art, the feedback loop is immediate. If you look hard and listen carefully it tells you everything you need. When you’re off, you’ll get the alarm bells. When you’re into the flow of it, you’ll soar like an eagle. But no matter what, whether we’re conscious of it or not during the effort, making art brings meaningfulness. It teaches you to love, which is giving of one’s attention to something. And in that, we find joy. Not pleasure — which can be fleeting — but joy. You always feel good that you put in the time and energy, and this is regardless of outcome. And since the karma of art works out this way, we can confirm the process without fear — for fear is the great destroyer of art — and endure the hardship. This is not “the way” for most (non-creative) people; a life devoted to art requires taking the less travelled path, a path towards truth.

If you work just hard enough to understand it — well, then it makes your life so much easier. That seems like an obvious truth, but you’d be surprised how many people won’t take that route.” — Milt Kahl

The Line

The lines of Egon Schiele are both enigmatic and erotic. This makes his work both direct and immensely interesting.

“A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.” — Paul Klee

Lines. They don’t exist in physical reality but they’re almost always the first thing we see.

The line marks the beginning of things. It forms meaning and translates ideas. Enclosed, it makes a shape. The earliest markings made and interpreted by our caveman ancestors were lines. It’s likely the very first symbol ever created, beginning as image and then later, as written language. The importance of line to an artist is gargantuan and its value and influence over mankind has been equally immeasurable.

8000 year old origins of the Chinese language, from pictograms to words.

Let’s look at what lines do and what they can mean more specifically:

Line as a Demarcation:

A line marks the edge of things. It’s the outline which separates foreground from background. It aids the sillouette. It says this is over here, the other thing is over there. In that sense, it defines a spatial relationship between that which lies on either side of the line.

Separating sea from sky, heaven and earth, the timeless quality of Hiroshi Sugimoto‘s photography is almost entirely dependent on the power of the line.

Line is Movement:

Lines indicate action. The flow of the line is something remarkably active and interesting. Our eyes naturally travel along a line, whether it be a painted stripe on a roadway or the body of a snake, we can’t help but be led along from one end to the other.

Gustav Klimt was a master of line. His work uses line to create flowing movement, texture and form — all to the delight or our eyes.

Lines give Direction:

The movement of the line can also indicate an aimed direction or thrust. The line of action in the spine of a body or the turn of forces in the torso or limbs — like those seen in a Michelangelo fresco — dictate where our eyes go. Lines indicate the direction(s) of force(s) felt but unseen. The poses made by the very best animators always demonstrate this phenomena.

Rough blocking by animation legend Bill Tytla. Here lies sophisticated action descibed soley thru the use of line. Changes of direction, strong lines of action and descriptive animated form are all evident here in this beautiful exploration of forces.

Line can describe Texture:

The use or absence of line can indicate the qualities of a surface. It can also be used to distinguish spatial distance. A line in open space gives a very different feeling compared to a confluence of organized (or disorganized) collection of lines. Smooth lines magnify the feeling of flow while erractic lines suggest disruption and more tactility. Lines can describe and decorate; used in open or closed form, they design a composition.

The magificant art of Illustrator Sergio Toppi is always a masterclass in design. Here, line is texture, form, unity and visual decoration. His use of open space versus concentrated detail is second to none.

Lines can Unify:

When used in conjunction with other lines, the line may unify. Whenever we look at circular forms or any forms that are repeated, they give a sense of unity by tying things together. Like the muscles in body, they work together like a rubber band system simultaneously pushing and pulling. It’s one of the reasons why 2D animation drawings often have so much appeal because unity and repetition brings about harmony, both in movement and form.

There’s perhaps no living animator whose work so defines movement, weight and power more than Glen Keane. His drawings signal a unifed collection of forces, both gravitational and emotional.

Lines have Weight:

Altering the quality of the line can give weight to it. The illusion of gravity and substance begins to form whenever there’s a change in the thickness of the line. Thus a line can feel, or give the feeling of, heaviness or delicateness, power or elegance. The line itself can have character or be its own character and carry its own uniquely defining message.

A beam of light or a connection to the higher universe? Barnet Newman‘s famous use of line indicates so much in its sublime simplicity.

Lines are Personal:

Yes, lines can possess or present the personal qualities of the artist. Composed in the right way, a single line (or a group of lines) can deliver feelings of strength, grace, sensuality and even spirit. There’s a reason why handwritten signatures have been used for centuries as a means to authenticate works of art or legal commitments. The way we use line can be, and often is, a very personal statement.

In my own work, I’ll often let the line guide me so as to arrive at somewhere unexpected and maybe, if I’m lucky, express what cannot be easily described by words alone.  (Art by James W. Chiang)

Ultimately, making a line is akin to drawing a line in the sand. It says this is how far I will go and this where I say yes and where I say no. For the artist, to express himself in line is to make a decision — that is, it’s proof of his action and evidence of his existence — and there is nothing more important than that. So, it is this reason why the visual artist must draw; it’s simply the most direct and practical way to learn how to see the line and how to use it.