Hello CG and 2017!
#1
Rainbow 
Hello, my name is Danielle and I am 30, I live in Wantagh, New York, in the USA. I am a fine artist/illustrator who works in all kinds of media, but primarily I use acrylic paint, collage, pen and ink, colored pencils, watercolor, and marker. I work digitally too, but not as keen on it...nor the best at focusing for long periods of time on a screen when the temptation to check email or play around on Facebook lingers over me. I also enjoy the feel of the organic process of making a mess/managing natural errors and surprise mistakes (...sometimes I will combine aspects of traditional and digital painting together to create something new, fix a composition problem, things like that... ) I am not anti-digital, it just doesn't make me comfortable. I actually want to improve on that, and develop a better habit of not being distracted while sketching on the computer- (another problem is using a computer for long periods of time makes me sometimes develop very bad headaches!) I find Photoshop a beautiful medium if you know what you are doing and your heart is in it.

My favorite topics are bizarre fantasy, surrealism and horror, along with psychedelic/abstract, and stylized portraits of people and animals. Some of my big influences are Gris Grimly, Gerald Scarfe, Ralph Steadman, Camille Pisarro, Max Ernst, Magritte, and Sam Keith.   I would describe my work most of the time being more 'stylized' than hyper-realistic, and although that genre of art is honestly not my big cup of tea, I still want to push myself to be more into realism, not only because of it's focus in the industry, but also because I know a solid realism skill will help strengthen my more loose and whimsical work regardless. ...My art education did often the best they could, but due to a combination of having a large amount of flawed, or very old very senile instructors- (I'm not kidding, one of them gave out only 3 assignments in a whole YEAR and she argued once to my face if I was really 'present' in class...her first introductory speech to us was a 2 hour rant about how dogs are her spirit animal, and all the evils of tofu. No I really shit you not!!) As well also...lazy foolish youthful rebellion on my own part, (which I mostly now regret). I don't think I gained all that much out of it as I ought to have pushed for. So that's why I am here, for 2017 to begin the process of repairing my art. I have been stuck in various 9 to 5s and all in all I don't feel right.

My ability to draw/paint has been around since I was a toddler. I went to study for 2 years in an Art major at State University of Albany and then got my Bachelors of Fine Art in Illustration at the Fashion Institute of Technology...But I lack confidence a lot of the time and really am unsure of myself and my work, and don't quite know along the spectrum of Quality where my work stands. I like to think my work stands deeply in need of improvement, but it's not 'bad' either. My problem I think is a lack of constant focus and very easy physical fatigue, in all aspects of my life. I at times suffer mild depression/art blocks, as well as not having a very big personal living space to use at hand, nor a very supportive/art enthusiastic family environment back home to nurture my development...every time i ask for feedback, it's either clueless "I DUNNO DONT ASK ME! :D" or unhelpful but well-meaning"YOU'RE BETTER THAN PICASSO"s or most frequently, from my dad, my original artistic influence in first place: "Noone should pay money for this work/You are a good artist but make terrible artwork, you are a waste..." I don't mean to vent my personal BS down here, but yeah, it's difficult to feel confident in myself or motivated to practice without my art school community to support me like it used to. I come upon other artistic professional's work online, and as inspiring as looking at others' work is, the more it makes me also feel dejected and hopeless and never capable of being THAT guy or finding my art niche in life as a career...My intent is to end that mindset and force feeding me some well-earned tough love and push my body and mind to suck it up and produce more streams of work. My anatomy, light and perspective all can stand to be developed stronger, and while I have endless streams of original character and story world ideas, I have drawn them very rarely because I often give up too easily.

My big main intents being here/with my art is this: 1. To cultivate new good friends with talent to teach me more. 2. To bring out my personal stories/visions into reality...I have a lot of stories/desire to build small concepts to big engrossing ones maybe into comics, graphic novels, or just painting series inside me, and I want to not have them just caged and disappear into nothing inside me when I am gone. I want to inspire or move people, or at least amuse and entertain them with my ideas if I can. 3. To help my sister's own personal creative wonderful stories and ideas achieve reality too. 4. I want to bring income into my life with my creative skills. I wish I knew a less vague definition than that but I don't. Dunno yet how or what specifically I want to do, I just wanna figure out what makes me satisfied and helps pays the bills by this point. I don't really believe in 'life destiny', that ultimately if you stick with only only doing 1 and only one kind of thing all your life, you're not living it well enough. I want to explore all kinds of fields of art, and meet all kinds of people. I wanna play and experiment with different mediums, genres, and styles. I wanna broaden my imagination and skill set in all sorts of directions while figuring out what my personal signature' is, if I have one. 4. And finally, I wanna improve my productivity and mood, I think communicating with others just period and other artists looking to improve from so many backgrounds may really make me feel less alone and challenged in a positive healthy way to make other people see my work/help other people out too.

Sorry for all the words, I hope that wasn't too painful.
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#2
Welcome again Danielle to Crimson Daggers :).

I haven't been brave enough to try traditional painting yet so I'm always interested in seeing traditional work and I'm looking forward to seeing more of yours.

Sounds like you've been quite isolated in your artistic journey for a while now so I hope you'll find this community to be a great source of companionship and motivation from here on in.  There are artists from all ends of the spectrum here who are willing to be generous with their time and knowledge so don't be afraid to start up a sketchbook thread and share your progress with us.

I also recommend having a browse around the different areas of the forum - it's a goldmine of art information - I was browsing the Art Related sub forum last night and found all kinds of interesting discussions from ages back.

Good luck!

“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” -- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

CD Sketchbook



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#3
Hello Inagada.

Quote:I work digitally too, but not as keen on it...nor the best at focusing for long periods of time on a screen when the temptation to check email or play around on Facebook lingers over me.

Totally understand that. I have no discipline when it comes to social media. The platform is almost a catch-22. Good tool to promote your stuff, but also a thing that could hinder you to make the stuff in the first place.

If I can provide some advice, just make a conscious decision to discipline yourself. If it's really that bad and truly detrimental, then just quit. I don't think FB would allow you to quit for real anyway.

Quote:every time i ask for feedback

Got you covered. Try this thread: http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/forum-36.html

Quote:it's difficult to feel confident in myself or motivated to practice without my art school community to support me like it used to.

It's true and it's a valid thing that support plays a role in getting you where you want to be. I mean, who does not want cheerleaders, coaches, and trainers on their side? Then again, I am of the opinion that you already know that most of the leg work will be coming from you. Maybe that's why you're here. In all honesty, all we can do is hold you accountable for what you've said you're gonna do and try our best to point you to the direction we think is right. Other than that, it's all you.

Quote: My anatomy, light and perspective all can stand to be developed stronger, and while I have endless streams of original character and story world ideas, I have drawn them very rarely because I often give up too easily.

Well. Don't. If you really want to be better, remove "give up" from your dictionary.

Quote:I think communicating with others just period and other artists looking to improve from so many backgrounds may really make me feel less alone and challenged in a positive healthy way to make other people see my work/help other people out too.

You got it. Most members are on Discord too (https://discord.gg/azX8fwT). A lot of fine friendly people over there.

Well, you know what to do. Loader got that advice down. Welcome to the Crimson Daggers. Good luck and let's get to it.

If you are reading this, I most likely just gave you a crappy crit! What I'm basically trying to say is, don't give up!  
----
IG: @thatpuddinhead
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#4
Hey, welcome to CD! I like your username, it gave me a chuckle, haha. :D

If you want to work digitally but are unable to resist the temptations of the internet (I've been there, it's rough), I'd recommend downloading a website blocking plug in. I don't use it much anymore, but I used to use Leechblock, which is a firefox plug-in that specifically blocks any time-sucking websites for a certain amount of time. It's helpful for when you want to work on a computer!

Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

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#5
(01-04-2017, 01:06 AM)ZombieChinchilla Wrote: I used to use Leechblock, which is a firefox plug-in that specifically blocks any time-sucking websites for a certain amount of time. It's helpful for when you want to work on a computer!

Thanks for the suggestion! I downloaded an app called 'Cold Turkey' which has been useful in keeping me on a leash from a multitude of websites I would visit habitually instead of facing reality or my work. Let me know of any other good blocker apps or tricks you may think of on how to build discipline. I think I have always heard from every great artist 'draw first thing every morning' but thats tricky when I have trouble waking up quickly, no earlier than 7-8am, and have to start rising imeadietly to be ready for work about 20 mins later. I don't like to get in 'the zone' when I have to be elsewhere doing other things right off the bat. I find trouble with needing to draw always when I CANT draw atm, because I am work or at family dinner or something, and then when I have loads of time on my hands, I suddenly lose ALL my ideas and focus. How does one develop a plan to create babysteps for themself to incorporate drawing more and more into their daily routine? What is your experience?
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#6






I just realized, I forgot I was supposed to put sketchbook images here! Here are some samples of my work, both tight and loose stuff-
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#7
Hi Danielle, I find that it helps to plan ahead and have an idea of what I'm going to draw when I next sit down to do art. For example I am currently working through Amit's EDR course and a project for a friend - so I know that next time I sit down, I will be doing Notan sketches for Amit's course and some 3D modelling for my friend's project. That way if I ever find myself with loads of art time on my hands, I don't have to waste my time deciding what to draw - I already have a game plan.

If you're hoping to improve perspective say, just build up a backlog of perspective exercises that you can pick from next time you get the opportunity.

Just some thoughts for you - hope they help - keep it going anyway :).

Nice sketches by the way - are they watercolour?

“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” -- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

CD Sketchbook



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#8
(01-21-2017, 02:34 AM)Artloader Wrote: Hi Danielle, I find that it helps to plan ahead and have an idea of what I'm going to draw when I next sit down to do art.  For example I am currently working through Amit's EDR course and a project for a friend - so I know that next time I sit down, I will be doing Notan sketches for Amit's course and some 3D modelling for my friend's project.  That way if I ever find myself with loads of art time on my hands, I don't have to waste my time deciding what to draw - I already have a game plan.

That is good advice Artloader. I will check out that course. I actually came up with a similar kind of thing on my own earlier, I just got a new toned paper sketchbook, and I am very excited to experiment with this new thing for me. And on the inside cover, i made a tall list of drawing subjects who just instantly make me itch with inspiration to draw. THese specific topics I know i could see myself wanting to be in a mindset for any moment in time; and could apply learning fundamental art skills such as lighting, color theory etc. around them. This way whenever I flounder about not knowing what I'd like to draw, I can glance at this list of my imagination's interests, and I suddenly feel invested to see it in reality- "Skeletons driving a wagon carriage", "stained glass windows", "Vishnu", all sorts of highly specific themes i just find 'cool', I don't need to achieve every single item on the list, but the idea is to cross off as much of this 'bucket list' as possible. It should feel less like 'work' or 'school' if i take my time to learn things for projects I really find enjoyable as an idea anyway, and makes me recall what specific types of reference should i keep on the look out and hunt for. What do u think about this plan?

If you're hoping to improve perspective say, just build up a backlog of perspective exercises that you can pick from next time you get the opportunity.


'The Draw A Box' website is in shoutout to the above comments been an excellent starting point for just that!
I went right to step 1, and intend to go from there up.


Nice sketches by the way - are they watercolour? 

Most of my studies are brush marker, or watercolor. That one with the sunglasses is fine tip marker. These pages were from notebooks crammed with various on-the-run studies of people either in the city of Manhattan or Florence Italy when I studied art abroad there, or models doing 30sec pose sessions in class! Here's more examples of a few other pieces I have done!


Attached Files Image(s)





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#9
Quote:And on the inside cover, i made a tall list of drawing subjects who just instantly make me itch with inspiration to draw. THese specific topics I know i could see myself wanting to be in a mindset for any moment in time; and could apply learning fundamental art skills such as lighting, color theory etc. around them. This way whenever I flounder about not knowing what I'd like to draw, I can glance at this list of my imagination's interests, and I suddenly feel invested to see it in reality- "Skeletons driving a wagon carriage", "stained glass windows", "Vishnu", all sorts of highly specific themes i just find 'cool', I don't need to achieve every single item on the list, but the idea is to cross off as much of this 'bucket list' as possible. It should feel less like 'work' or 'school' if i take my time to learn things for projects I really find enjoyable as an idea anyway, and makes me recall what specific types of reference should i keep on the look out and hunt for. What do u think about this plan?

Sounds like an excellent plan to me Danielle :).  I especially like the bit about gathering references in your own time.  Also - choosing subjects that interest you I think is a very smart move since it will help with motivation which is key.

Looking forward to seeing more from you :).

“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” -- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

CD Sketchbook



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