The Problem with Passion

Being passionate about something usually isn't a problem. On the contrary, it's a great thing. Passion fuels you, causing you to jump out of bed early and tackle your day. It overcomes excuses. If you love being outside, maybe going for a hike, a little rain isn't going to stop you. It'll have to be a full-force storm to ground you, and even then you know the second the weather lets up you'll be back out there.

Passion is a great thing, assuming it's directed at something worthwhile. Unfortunately, I don't have a passion for art.

Let's this not be confused with saying 'I have lost my passion.' This wouldn't be true. I never had a passion for art. Intellectually, I like art, and I would like to be good at it. That's what my brain says. Emotionally, though, it's not there. I like art, but I don't love it. Drawing is fun, but this thought doesn't dominate my day.

My true passion is fitness, specifically martial arts. I day rarely goes by where I don't do something fitness related. I wake up early and do some stretches. I often do two workouts a day. I eat healthy because I know it gives me better results. Even my rest days feature more activity than some people get in a week. I love being fit, and I love being healthy. Drawing is nice, but physical activity I find essential.

And herein lies my problem. I've set my October goal, as usual, of getting in even better shape. I'm trying to push the bar even more, set new standards, to finish off 2012 with a bang. My thoughts are dominated by this idea. I can think of little else. By itself, this isn't a bad thing, of course, but this passion completely overshadows drawing time. I'm too passionate for my own good, perhaps.

So, with a somewhat heavy heart, I'm giving up my draw everyday challenge. At least for now.

I shouldn't be sad. I should be thrilled. I've progressed in six months more than I thought I would get in a year. I've shown that someone with limited skill practising everyday can become fairly competent. Hard work pays off. I'm not trying to brag; I'm trying to say that if I can do it, anyone can. Put in enough hours practicing and doors will start opening.

I still have a long way to go. I need to learn how to draw from imagination, not just from reference. My proportions could still improve. My knowledge of basic concepts like anatomy or perspective are virtually non-existent. But that journey will have to wait. For now, I focus on improving my body, and when I'm done I'll focus on improving my art.

Wish me luck, and I'll hopefully be back sooner rather than later, with more cats. Lots and lots of cats.

Month 6 Complete

September started great and then fizzled, due to a number of factors.  I'm not here to make excuses, though: I'm here to celebrate achievements.  It's now been half a year since I took up drawing.  Incredible.  It feels like nothing.  I'm halfway to my goal.  Well, my original goal was to draw everyday for a year, and I've slipped up several times.  Still, one year.  Almost there.  Let's look at my favourites from the last month:

I'm somewhat saddened when I realize I drew two of these images in one week, and the last one took two weeks.  I get less sad when I realize how awesome these three are.  Master Tigress looks great, I can barely believe I made this Auron, and Wolf-Link shows what patience, hardwork and a new 2B pencil can achieve.

The coming two months will test my resolve, as I get very busy from here on in ... though I think I say that every month.  My quest to be an artist will not stop, though.  I will keep going, I will persevere, and I will strive to make even greater improvements over the next six months.

Week 26: The Wolf's Done At Least...

For three weeks now I've been stuck on one image, trying to get 'er done.  Slowly but surely, it's coming along.  I blame ... myself for the lack of progress.  Sometimes it's perfectionism, going over the same spot 20 times when just once was enough.  Sometimes it's only putting in a few minutes because I waste time doing other trivial things instead.  Oh well.  I promised I would finish the wolf, and that I did.  Have a look.

Wow.  It actually looks really good!  Again, ignore the wavy lines.  The new darks achieved with my 2B pencil really add a whole new layer to my drawing.  If nothing else, it allows for awesome contrast.  The eye is the only white on the whole page: everything else is a shade of grey, and I used my erasure to make sure the white was as white as possible.  I think it makes a marvellous effect.

The image looks better on the page.  For one thing, there's more contrast between the top of the head and the background.  For another, the fur stands out more as fur.  The black oval section just SW of the eye looks odd here, but on the page it clearly looks like a fur pattern, not a cavity or recess in the face as it does here.

Here's the pic from last week, so we can compare the progress.

Making promises here seems to work, so I'll do it again: I promise I'll get the full picture done for next week.  Then we can move on not only from this, but soon from the perils of bad drawing paper.  

Weeks 24 & 25: Two Weeks, One Half-Finished Piece

During these two weeks I had computer problems, a huge work load and sickness to deal with.  Seriously, I had so much mucus that it dripped down my face whenever I looked down.  This made drawing an unappealing activity.  Essentially, during these two weeks I only drew this, but it's not nothing, either.  Let's take a look.

This is a Zelda: Twilight Princess wallpaper, found here.  This is a fairly ambitious project, as it should be.  I have maybe two pages left in my notebook, and I want those pages to be awesome.  I'm not going to mail it in.  True, the paper is horrible, as we can again see here: the return of the wavy lines of doom.  You'll have to take my word that it's fully black there.

I spent about one hour just shading and blending the background.  I figured to just get that out of the way, and I can erase things for white highlights as needed.  That's proved smart so far.  I then sketched the basic outline of the wolf head.  From there, I've focused on the darkest darks and am slowly filling them in with my brand new 2B mechanical pencil.  I've been looking for one forever, and I found it at a Dollarama of all places.  Considering the usual quality of Dollarama products, it's amazing.

I'd wager the wolf is more than half done.  Shade in the rest of the dark, then add the lighter sections, plus the eyes and the ear.  That should easily be done for next week.  The real question will be whether I can finish Link on the opposite side.  That will be harder, but I'll certainly try.

No, I Didn't Die, But My Computer Did

My computer decided to explode on me, and then my modem spontaneously combusted, and then everyone I knew caught the bubonic plague.  If I'm exaggerating, it's only by a little.

But really, my Internet stopped working literally the day I planned on uploading my week's content.  I can now upload that retroactively.  Since then, I've spent the better part of my free time decoding my computer's issues, covering for sick colleagues at work or being sick myself.  That's a fancy way of saying I didn't draw much the past ten days, and even when I did, I didn't have Internet access to upload it.  Everything is more or less okay now, so my art journey resumes now.

Thanks for the patience.  On the plus side, with so much going wrong in such a short time, it should be clear sailing here on, right?  Based on probabilities, it's unlikely to be worse.

Week 23: I'm Back!

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.  It also evidently makes it more productive.  After taking a few artistic days off, coupled with a less intensive work schedule, I exploded artistic juices virtually every day.  If that metaphor wasn't graphic enough for you, take a look at these:

To start with, I finished off my Tigress from last time.  The shading turned out real well, and I fixed the nose/mouth area as best as I could.  Her body ended up looking a little stocky, though, which kinda irks me. Tigress shouldn't be wide.  Anyway, kudos to my shirt shading: getting the flowery images to turn out took a lot of patience.

THAT'S BETTER!  Not so wide anymore!  Okay, so I happened to watch Kung Fu Panda 2, and this scene has always stuck with me for some reason.  Actually, it was really hard to draw because, as a night scene, all the colours are muted, making it hard to separate them with just shades of grey.  I think I did alright in that regard.

Proportions are great, shading is fairly consistent, I made some attempts at shadows, heck, even the paper cooperated.  More than anything, I feel I captured the feel of this scene.  Tigress perhaps looks a little calmer, a little happier than normal, but that's okay.  When it comes to foreshortening, this is the standard I'll now have to hold myself to.  One of my new top five favourite drawings.  (Other people seem to think so too: it's currently my most favourited and commented section on DA.)

This is Auron, perhaps my favourite character from one of my favourite games, Final Fantasy X.  I don't play games much anymore, but I still play FFX every year or so.  I won't lie, this is my second favourite drawing, just missing out on Mr Lion.  Maybe if I did the hair better.  I don't like anime-style hair, but I wanted to keep his hairstyle, so I did a mixture of realism and anime.  Didn't turn out too bad, but I'll need more practice to really make it work.

This is the first realistic cat I've tried to draw in a long time, depending if you want to count Mr Lion or not. It didn't turn out super-great, but it still has potential. The problem I had was the very long fur, which disguises the contours of the face. It was hard to tell where the face ended, or even where the mouth begins and ends. In fact, that mouth took ages to get, and I never fully got it. If I want to draw cats, and I do, I'll have to study that mouth region more.

I know I said I would take a break from trying realistic images, but, well, it's too much fun.

Now here's a pair of simple images. The one is sort of a tattoo, while the other is pure cartoon. Both got cut off by my incredible page-planning skills. The sleeping-cat like thing I'm not terribly happy with. I figured after all the difficult images I drew this week, this should be easy. It wasn't. I've noticed I have a hard time with curved lines, particularly S-curves. That is, I can free-hand a straight line fairly accurately compared to my reference, but curves end up going way off track, and I need to redo them over and over. This is interesting, because in high school mathematics I was very good at eye-balling angles without a protractor. Then again, most angles are formed from straight lines ...

Anyway, the other image turned out much better. She has an almost saucy expression, the quintessential spoiled feline princess. I didn't have room to finish the body, but the head was always the main draw. I drew it and I'm happy. Proof that I can draw simple pictures!

Finally, over at DA, Naftalina25 drew a picture for me. For me! How incredibly sweet. HERE it is. I mentioned that Espeon and Articuno were among my favourite Pokemon. Yes, I liked Pokemon. We all did as children. Still think it was one of the greatest concepts for a game ever; too bad Nintendo has dropped the ball on MMORPG.

Anyway, after receiving this gift, I thought I'd draw my own version. First we have Cuno in my favourite pose (which took an eternity to find online; the standard poses seem far less dynamic to me). I remember, years ago, tracing this exact picture back in Grade 7. It would be neat to find that old drawing and compare it to what I have now. I had a rough time with this because I switched reference images halfway through, since I found a clearer image. Though the proportions aren't exact, the front talon looks kinda foreshortened, which I'll gladly take.

Espeon I'm less happy with, as again a relatively simple image has let me down. I couldn't draw its back for the life of me (you can see the many erasure marks). Oh well. The overall pose, to me at least, resembles a cat, especially when you factor in the eyes. Most people assume the whole Eevee group to be canines, but I'm not so sure, at least with Espy.

Someday I should draw my original six team, all in battle poses. I'll save that for later, though.

So, I'd wager those few days off last week really helped. I drew more pictures, and with much better quality, that I did through most of the summer. Actually, I may have put in more time in these seven days than the whole summer. That tells you something ... well, mostly that I had time off from work, but I choose to spend that time drawing as opposed to, say, sleeping, or watching TV.

I almost certainly won't be able to keep this pace up [editor's note: I didn't], but I will try. Onwards and upwards.

There Will Be No Week 22

I'm making an executive decision here.  I'm going to stop drawing this week.

There's lots of reasons.  One, I'm really tired and cranky.  That's not conducive to creativity.  Next week summer is over and my schedule goes back to not being completely ridiculous.  That will help.  Two, insomnia has bitten me real bad ... making me tired and cranky.  I guess this is just an extension of the first point.  Three, I just have no motivation.  I come home and I want to lie down.  My body is starting to run down.  Heck, I'm even skipping some of my fitness workouts.  That's the surest sign I'm burning the candle on both ends a bit too much.  You have to listen to your body, because you're the only one who can.

So I'm taking a break, from everything.  Good timing, I think.  It's a long weekend coming up, and then it's a new month and everything starts fresh.  I'll be raring to go, and maybe I'll put an hour in each day to make up for some of this lost time.

See you next week.