Author: James Chiang

The great Robert Henri, whose words in his magnum opus The Art Spirit ignited my own flames in starting this very website nearly 5 years ago, always spoke honestly and openly to his students. It is the kind of spirit and integrity that I have hoped to hold myself up to in all my years being an artist and a teacher. Here, I present to you a short commentary addressed to a student of his back in the late 1920’s. My hope is that his words inspire you as it did me and, that it reminds you, especially in times like today, of the wondrous path that always lies in front of you as a creative individual should you choose to make the commitment.

I think you can have a wonderful time. It is really a wonderful time I am wishing you. Art is, after all, only a trace-like footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness. Those who live in full play of their faculties become master economists, they understand the relative value of things. Freedom can only be obtained through an understanding of basic order. Basic order is underlying all life. It is not to be found in the institutions men have made. Those who have lived and grown at least to some degree in the spirit of freedom are our creative artists. They have a wonderful time. They keep the world going. They must leave their trace in some way, paint, stone, machinery, whatever. The importance of what they do is greater than anyone estimates at the time. In fact, in a commercial world there are thousands of lives wasted doing things not worth doing. Human spirit is sacrificed. More and more things are produced without a will in the creation, and are consumed or “used” without a will in the consumption or the using. These things are dead. They pass, masquerading as important while they are before us, but they pass utterly. There is nothing so important as art in the world, nothing so constructive, so life-sustaining. I would like you to go to your work with a consciousness that it is more important than any other thing you might do. It may have no great commercial value, but it has an inestimable and lasting life value. People are often so affected by outside opinion that they go to their most important work half-hearted or half-ashamed. “What’s the use of it if you are not making money out of it?” is a too common question. To what distinction an artist’s labors are raised the moment he does happen to make money out of them! Very false values. I say this and I know as well as any the difficulties of making sufficient money and the necessity of making it in order to live and go on. Go to your work because it is the most important living to you. Make great things — as great as you are. — Robert Henri

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” — Alexander Graham Bell, Inventor

We all know that the ability to focus is essential for success. But the idea of being focused is often misunderstood. To many, to be focusing in on something only means to isolate our attention to a singular event or object. This, of course, is very difficult to do. Our minds in general prefer to move, much like our body does; it wants activity. Call it an insatiable desire that is deeply rooted inside our consciousness or whatever, but it’s something we all have to deal almost every waking moment.

Spotlight Focus

By default, we like to place our attention on one thing or another. Like a flashlight in the dark, spotlight focus is when we isolate our attention, bringing in clear and bright focus to whatever we aim at. Modern science, or technology in particular, tends to work in this way. Like a sharp knife, the minds act like a dividing tool, separating and dissecting what’s in front of us. We might concentrate hard or not but this is how most of us think conventionally. It is a good way to bring fine details to light especially when there may be many things vying for our attention. A spotlight approach excels at specialization, specificities and zooming in for a close up view. Whenever we use cameras, a microscope or even our smartphones, we are visually and mentally absorbed in details.

Floodlight Focus

To see or sense the bigger picture, we have to adapt a broader view. A floodlight focus will shine light on the entire breadth of what’s in front of us. Its light is not as bright or sharp as the smaller spotlight but we are able see more. This is very useful and powerful in helping us understand how things — poses, colors, lines or shapes in our graphical work — relate to and impact each other. To be good at composition or choreography or directing, having a flood light focus is mandatory.

Problems

In doing art, it’s always too tempting to use exclusively one kind of approach or the other. If we only look standing back from the situation or challenge, we don’t get to come up close. The catch with using a floodlight approach is that its light isn’t that bright or clear. It’s like very early rough or blocked animation; it can look good in a quick glance but none of the exact timing or details that make the character shine are present.We can’t see and thus might lose out on all the good stuff which may make or break the success of a finished work. We also learn immensely about things through direct and deeply focused attention and effort. Looking from a distance doesn’t provide that. An architect who doesn’t visit the construction site won’t control the final outcome. Furthermore, we build discipline and power of attention when working in details because shielding or filtering out all the noise and distraction is a lot of work since the complexities require it. A good example is an animator who follows closely the elbows or hands of a character so that the arcs, spacing and timing are absolutely perfect while ignoring everything else around it.

Of course, the standard routine (and problem) amongst beginners is usually the opposite; the inexperienced are always too eager and obsessed with the details or specialities. They struggle with seeing the big picture and get obsessed with the juicy individual items that demand their attention. Without constant awareness of the big picture, they don’t realize that the cake they’re building is lop-sided — i.e. the foundation is flawed — because they’re too close to the icing to see the whole cake. The painter who’s obsessed over the eyebrows in a portrait while the composition is problematic or the animator who’s maniacally absorbed with the lip sync while ignoring the serious defects in the body mechanics are prime examples. For sure, this is the worst outcome even if it’s the most common amongst young artists. Details can always be added or perfected, but foundations that are shaky don’t yield favorable outcomes. In other words, screw up here and there’s little hope of salvaging the work that’s been done.

Another problem with being too zoomed-in is that it makes us vulnerable to jumping around in terms of paying attention, usually from one little thing to another little thing. We get stuck in the mode of immediacy and become reactionary and lose all clarity. How so? We suddenly see something that might look unusual and end up going off on a tangent. Before we know it, we’re way off course deviating from the composition or choreography that had been thoughtfully laid out beforehand. Working with spotlights exclusively makes us prone to that.

Balanced Usage

In reality, we always need to bounce between both types of focus. Balance is the best approach; switching back and forth from floodlight to spotlight focus is what top professionals do. Like the athlete that sees the whole court or arena, he can dribble/shoot/kick/hit that ball where he wants in the midst of high speed activity. His eyes might be singularly focused on the ball but he “sees” everything around it. To approach our work (and our life) with a flood light focus helps us to stay orderly and aware, thus preventing the kind of tunnel vision that accompanies a singular approach to looking at things. Then, by flipping over to a spot light focus to turn our attention to specificities — like splining the fine detailed movements of the arms after the body is fairly solid — we can ensure complex details are addressed. Making art is like an adventure into the unknown, like journeying through a wild jungle. If during the entire creative process a constant switching occurs, we can then cut some of the branches in our way as we proceed through the forrest and also stop to climb up the high tree to make sure we’re still heading in the right direction. For animators, it means peripherally sensing the weight, overall pose and choreography of the movements while singularly manipulating a single body part of the character concentrating our primary attention on its arc and spacing. It’s not easy to do this, but its the most intuitive and effective way to operate. It’s like driving; we never take our eyes off the road or what’s in front but we’re always aware of the surrounding traffic and pedestrians.

Summary:

The best work is balanced in approach and execution. Bringing light into a situation means bringing clarity to it. Flipping back and forth between spot light and flood light focus is one way of staying on top of the entire process without sacrificing the overall flow of our work or the intricate details that make it special. The work of great artists throughout history have shown this time and again.

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” — Aristotle, Philosopher