Crackbook

[walent]

Hey man,

I gotta tell you something about how I got where I am.
I lost 5 years of my life playing games and hanging out in bars and pubs, playing pool and drinking my parents' money.

I had no idea what the hell I wanted to do and I never had anything that I really liked. I only did things because I thought I was suppose to. That's how I ended up doing architecture.

I then started drawing a bit more, tried to get into artschool and failed 2 years in a row. I needed money, so I started learning web design. I guess I was pretty good at it because I learned fast and got a decent job in 6 months, earning more than my parents. And that put and end to their pressure on me getting a job.

I got sick and tired of doing websites after 6 more months, and started drawing more and more. But, of course, I was failing big time.
And I thought: well, I got so much money from web design, and nothing from art, why should I continue doing art?

So I went back to finding web design jobs and I got to a company where the CEO was a  former schoolmate, I barely recognized him, but to put it short, he saw what I was drawing, he remembered I was constantly drawing at school and I was very talented and that I shouldn't waste it on web design. So I took his advice and pushed harder.

Of course I had ups and downs and I kept going back to web design and kept quitting art.
Until one day, when after two months of no drawing at all, I suddenly felt I missed drawing. I missed how a pencil felt in my hand, and how I could leave traces of graphite on paper, create lines and shapes.

And that's when I knew I would never quit art again.

And I didn't.

But then I got to the next question: what is it that I want to paint? I started doing environments because I went to architecture and it was pretty easy for me. I was afraid of doing portraits and drawing people, because I never actually did it in a serious way.
But I always thought that I should always fight my fears so I started learning anatomy, and drawing heads and stuff. And it felt good. It felt so good that I could draw for hours and not get bored. And I usually get bored very fast.

So if you don't feel that spark when you draw, then it's not the thing for you, I can tell you that.


IF you do, keep going. You'll have good days and bad days, I noticed that when I have a bad day I just have to push through it. If I can't get anything right and all my characters look like shit, I keep drawing and at some point I'll get over that and the day turns into a good one.

But then it's possible that you do feel it, but you're lazy. Just like me. I had days when I would barely convince myself to start drawing but once I did, I couldn't stop. That's lazy.


So my advice to you is ask yourself questions, all the time. Every time you look at something and you like it, find out why.

I'm the kind of guy that needs to do one or two things and be the best at that. So I had to find out exactly what I love drawing, and that took 5 years for me. 5 years of constantly looking around and asking myself questions, being aware of how I feel about certain things.

And here's another cool thing. Once you master something, it's incredibly easy to master anything else, provided you love doing it, because you already know the steps.

My parent bought me LEGO when I was a kid, and I played a lot with it, building a lot of crappy things. Duh, I was a kid. A few months ago, I thought "how about I build an amazing model from LEGO Technic, so amazing that it would blow everyone's mind at LEGO"
So I took a lot of pictures of my favorite vehicle and started working on it. I can't tell you how frustrating it was, because nothing looked good and since I have a design background I know all about shapes and rhythms and curves and I wanted it perfect.
And then one day it hit me "hey, how did I do it in art? I started studying, right? Great! So I'm gonna go ahead and look at the other LEGO models out there, and start building parts that I like." Building your library, right?

Then I started building things I liked, but at some point it got very complicated and I didn't know how to go on. So I though, well, what do I do when my painting becomes too complicated? I go back to the sketches and thumbnails and start doing it again. But this time I have all the things I previously solved, like maybe perspective and composition are great but my values are all over the place.

So I just put the model aside and build a new and better one. It worked like a charm, but unfortunately I'm not that attracted to building LEGO as I am to drawing, so it's gonna be a wip for a long time.

Now the next time you start drawing and get frustrated about something, ask yourself what's the problem, find out, and go fix it.
From what I can see here you're trying to solve too many things at once, and that's hard, even for masters.

So solve them one at a time, don't start calculating perspective and adding textures on a painting where you haven't yet solved composition. You'll lose a lot of time and energy and get a lot of frustration. I know it because I've been there.
Try doing it in easy steps. Solve composition, do thumbnails, 2 values sketches, very very simple. Work with shapes, even go abstract. You can find a ton of beautiful shapes in nature, you just need to know where to look. Find nice contrasts. Study old masters compositions - as in 2 or 3 value study.
Then, when you have a few thumbnails you think are worth developing, you can start a linework, or add more to it, get to the next step, like maybe solve perspective, or add more value range (but keep close to the main values you already established)
Then maybe you wanna study the poses of your characters, or your architecture details, get into details, add colors, but again, don't mess up the values.


Thumbnails are a charm for me, because that's the only way I can generate ideas, through abstract shapes. I can't see anything if my canvas is blank.

Here's a quick example:




Hope this helps, mainly with realizing what exactly you want to pursue.

And don't post in your sketchbook just to get everyone's approval or shit like that, post like you would write in your journal. That's how I do it, and 1 year from now I'll still be able to check my progress, thoughts, and stuff. If what I post in there motivates others, even better.
You gave me the link with van Gogh's story and you're still trying to post stuff just to prove something to someone? No, just have fun doing it.