Sunday June 10th : gathering wits
Maybe I am growing, learning, exploring my path and starting
to stretch my abilities. Maybe I am running, hiding, doing what I can to cover
the loss of Lee Ann hiding under the veil of a workshop. Today would have been
our twelfth anniversary. I do miss her so.
There is a fellow who is sick as a dog here at IMC. He has
the flu like you would not believe. Actually bedridden (now Thursday) and
hasn’t eaten much. Poor guy. To travel all this way and invest so much just to
have your body be attacked like that, that is very tough to deal with. The
entire IMC group, instructors, Guest lecturers, and attendees all signed a copy
of James Gurney’s book; Color and Light. One of the assistants I guess
delivered it to him. I added a deck of steam punk cards. I just feel for the
fellow.
Sunday was a day of lecture instruction on shooting good
reference and thinking about lighting conditions. Also there was a good lecture
on visual story telling. What elements make or break a good visual story? Tor
Books Illustrator Dan DosSantos and Concept Artist Iain McCaig presented.
Sunday was also a day of getting down to addressing what was salvageable from
the original sketch post critique. I chased my tale most of the day drawing up
alternate solutions that might work but did not feed my drive. Donato Giancola
sat down with me and we chatted for a while and he helped to clear a way some
of the noise surrounding the critique. He had me focus on what was said in a
way that I could now absorb it rather than it run off like water. I decided to
go for a walk and clear my thoughts. It was a perfect afternoon for doing so.
The walk helped to sort some of the cluttered thoughts. I went back and faced
my drawing board and produced 4 more solutions. One of which I believe may be
my key to a fine solution.
Monday June 11th : Like a bolt from the blue
After reworking ideas and thoughts my mind went back to
“Don’t make it hard, just make the picture like you know how”. So I did a quick
doodle, and liked it. It all the points that the faculty wanted to see included
in a good solution, and it looked like my work.
I went straight to the final. No waiting for approval, no hand holding,
just get it done. It felt good. I was excited about what I was about to
explore.
Side note: It appears that the flu bug that attacked the one
fellow on Sunday, (Chris) is starting to tickle my fancy. But, I’ve had worse
and they are going to have to put me in a body bag. I go and get some allergy
meds and a lot of bottled vitamin waters/ v’8s and waters.
Meanwhile back at the studios people are starting to
finalize their drawings. And there are some un-freaking-believable people here.
As one of the faculty stated… “We have sprinkled some ringers throughout the
studios just to keep the stress levels high”. He joked about the stress levels,
but not about the skill levels. There are at least 2 dozen top-notch pros
working, mixed in with the rest of the next generation, and me.
I start to fly on inking in my drawing. I have tunes, pens,
scratchboard, and time. Things flow well. Results start to show. I have a chat
with illustrator/ instructor/ Greg Manchess. We discuss my work and where I am
at on my path. It is a good talk. Through our dialogue, he helped to open a
door that I had closed to myself long ago. It is recognizing that a door called
risk exists. Also that opening it and walking in is ok, it is the only way to
get better, to be honest with myself and push forward. But the enlightenment
doesn’t come from his talk, (entirely) but from the realization that what he
wants from me in this piece are all things that I had considered but in a
fraction of a second dismissed as too hard or too challenging. They are supposed
to be challenging. That is why we do them.
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