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Hiphopapotamus his [CHAT]ing is bottomless
Tam
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so good
Clients from Hell makes me facepalm like nothing else.
You should post the video in the OP tam.
Well.
Where can i sign up to invest?
youtube.com/watch?v=MiGGwy4cLeo#t=5m58s
imma gonna go to bed. Wake up and fail me french exam. YEAH
Also my nose has stepped things up a notch. I doubt I'll be able to sleep. Good thing I don't have work for the next two days! wahoooooo
but this is seriously hella ridiculous now. I am a sneezing coughing nosedrippy mess of a human right now. I should go smack my friend for getting me sick. In the FACE.
I -did- laugh when I watched it with Tam's avatar in the background, though.
Today is "Ugly Shirt Day" for my company. We all get free pizza for lunch, during which we take photos of our ugliest shirts and send them in to corporate, with the winner getting some sort of gift card or something. Fun concept, but the problem is that it's not exactly fair to us guys. I'm not saying it's sexist or anything, but women inherently have the upper hand with this one simply because the "ugly shirt" in question still has to be work-appropriate. For guys, this means a shirt and tie. Ladies, on the other hand, get any number of possible choices for tops; blouses, dresses, sweaters, you name it.
Problem is I don't own any ugly shirts that are business attire. All my possible winning entries are either t-shirts or flannel. So instead, I raided an old suitcase my parents left in storage at my house and found a cache of my dad's old ties from the 1970's. Purple, brown and green tie-dye floral pattern. Hideous.
At the very least, I get pizza. So that's something to look forward to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbbxA8a_M_s
On another note, I apparently have a meeting in the office at my school over God knows what. I'm hoping I won't get lectured or (even worse) threatened to leave the school.
edit: related:
And Godfather - Why are you worried they could kick you out if you have no idea what they're calling you in for?
This might be the first thing we've agreed upon in over a year
Not sure what happens now. :?
My buddy Dorian got kicked out for no good reason this year, so it could be anyone's guess!
Anything more you can tell us? What kind of school is this anyways?
anyway
streaming now. actually going to draw this time.
http://www.livestream.com/mulldacity
My buddy got kicked out because one of the teachers didn't think he would make it through his second year, despite the fact that he passed all his classes with high honors. He's basically been at this school for three years in the first year program:
1st year there he had to drop out because he ran out of money. 2nd year he jumped in half-way and had too many absences in a couple of his classes. 3rd year he wrapped all of those lagging classes up and tidy without any qualms, but I guess based on his track record she didn't feel he was going to make it. Which is stupid. The past few times it was mainly finances holding him back, but since that's gone he shouldn't have any worries.
Since it's a private institution not recognized by the Canadian government, they can play by their own rules I guess. So whenever one of the teachers in a position of power say you can't move on, you can't move on.
And regarding the whole meeting dilemma: Apparently the faculty thinks I "bullied" a student during one of the days for the orientation week I never even attended, calling him derogatory names and telling him he should quit. Yes, this is a real thing that happened.
What is this, middle school? Who the hell does that in a fucking college environment?
I don't even know who this guy is, let alone who he thinks I am. Also, i'm not the only one who's been accused of this, and they've been holding meeting with random people all week. Either way I should have cleared my name, so hopefully this isn't an issue anymore.
Whats a redundancy?
I wish I could livestream, but...the idea that people are watching me draw is just waaaaaay too distracting.
Also:
yay for forum return!
I swear to god my unconscious self is so much more creative than my conscious self and it makes me want to punch myself in the conscious face. Fucking dreams all like, "LOL CHECK THIS SHIT OUT" and I'm all "omg yes" and then I wake up and my waking-brain is all "CHECK OUT THIS EMPTY BOX-SHAPED ROOM IT'S PRETTY COOL M I RITE" and I'm all "omg no wtf" and then it's like "HERE I ADDED A WINDOW" and I'm all *facepalm*
That might either stir the creative juices or allow you to just stumble upon a general eye catching layout.
I honestly don't know if I could do that for anything. Telling myself to "draw a space" would end up in complete Boredom Disaster.
I need to constantly think about what I'm doing and why I'm drawing a particular part, and why it's going there, and how to make it cohesive with the rest of the space, and then to remember scale throughout all of this (another thing I consistently fail at, even though I completely understand it and how to achieve it in theory, and with words, but actually making a space look huge by drawing it always ends up horrifically unimpressive at best) and etc. etc.
I need to do more architectural stuff. I'm comfortable doing pieces that are mostly organic (oh, shocker, those are the only pieces on my site) but doing architectural stuff (and quickly!? How the hell are you supposed to make super-precise drawings quickly?) I'm an ultrafail.
I think I may've picked up a few new things recently though, and with a handful of my latest attempts over the past year (none of which I think I've posted)...I think my next attempt will be a good amount better...
but aaaugh it's such a damn painful struggle. It's also extremely unpleasant feeling lots of confidence in multiple artistic subjects/themes but feeling like a complete dunce, at square 1, over and over and over again in one particular area. Especially one that I really enjoy - environments. Specifically, architectural.
At least now I can look back and point out specific, overall problems that made the pieces "blugh"...and spotting overall issues is always SO much more beneficial than spotting tiny ones. So woo on that, I guess? Now I just have to fix them effectively.
I'll tell you a little secret in that simply drawing something I think is a "failure" scares the shit out of me, even if nobody else sees it, because it still means to me "guess what you suck and couldn't do this correctly or effectively". That's not to say I don't make "fail drawings", but I don't do a heck of a lot of "sketching for the sake of sketching" (which I guess in my mind means "more room for failure"). I'd probably be a better artist if I did sketch like that, but...if I'm drawing something, yes, I might make a few preliminary sketches, as many as I feel I may need...but I usually am aiming for something that's a little more finished-looking, just because I love finishing pieces (or getting to a point where I can at least lay some values down) and because it offers me enough time to fix mistakes.
I've always enjoyed looking at other peoples' sketchbooks that are just filled with layers and layers of quick sketches , tightly-packed, really fascinating to look through...but you know what 80% of my sketchbook is filled with? Pages that have one thing on them, or a couple of things on them, but all in their own, secluded little space, away from the other drawings. Rarely, if I'm trying to figure something out, I'll just draw and draw and end up layering sketches...and it usually (at least, I imagine so) results in something that's only partially decipherable to anybody else looking at it.
Even more rarely, I'll tear a page out if I think it's such a failure, it embarrasses me and makes me feel bad every time I look at it. I've only done that a couple of times (1-3) in each sketchbook I've had since high school...but it's a definite, solid fear of mine to make bad sketches. I think I feel like "if it's fixable, you should fix it, and what's the point of having a page full of crap if you can go back and tweak things and make them look at least mediocre".
P.S. Oh goodness you've gotten me writing my novels again. But let's be real here - I probably would've written a novel anyway. LOVE THAT ELABORATION! Sorry guys :P
Its one of the reasons I've always kept around sketchbooks of my old middle school drawings, because now I'm so detached from them time wise I can barely believe they came from me. Like garfield doodled in gel pens, or "dragons" that were crazy pokemon wolves. Amazingly, though? It wasn't all bad. Just as blind you can be to the mistake you feel your hand making over and over but cant seem to correct, you can be to the good thing you didn't see initially. Sometimes it takes a few years, there are things I was doing in highschool with texture that I just recently thought "huh, why aren't I doing that anymore?" My skills being weak didn't mean I had all bad ideas.
Im not saying I never crumple up a paper out of "what the fuck, that was dog shit." or "I can literally feel myself right now drawing this wrong as my pencil- oh goddamn it." But, sometimes you need to let it happen. No one learns guitar by only playing the few songs they know, they have to keep playing, and just brace themselves for the fact that they will strum the wrong note a few times. You dont have to sketch crowded pages, but you cant perpetually produce gold, and honestly, you shouldn't. Sometimes good things are born from mistakes. Sometimes the problem you think you have, you'll look back later and realize it was something else. Destroying the evidence, or never producing it, wont help. You cant always work through it either, and I have pages in from highschool that are smushes of eraser marks. I've recently started doodling in marker and now have pages and pages of stupid looking faces, strait up failures. But I know if I put my mind to it I can draw a face, so who cares. And they do get better, and faster, and I have the time line of evidence. I've never set out to do something bad, or something I didn't think would help me, but I don't blame myself for making stupid things, I have yet to encounter an artist that never did.
Thats the importance of margin doodles, or the failure book. I do computer paper, three hole punch it and use those little brass things to keep it together. Simple, non committal. That part of you saying you cant make crappy drawings, You are literally being an asshole, to yourself and your art.
How would you describe the furniture. Is it modern, old-fashioned? Comfy/ expensive?
compare the rooms/ settings to actual real-life counterparts. How come the bedroom i drew is so much more boring than the one i actually have. What's missing?
I think some little details like these could be what you're looking for.
For example: i can imagine that if you draw one kitchen, you'd always use the exact same setup stereotyped in your head. Now think of the kitchens of your best friends and relatives. You know these rooms and they are all kitchens, yet not similar at all. What sets them apart from each other? Why would you describe one as warm and one as cold.
i don't know if this line of thought is helpfull to others, but it helps me in stepping away from blandsville. I had a huge issue with clothing. I was riding the bus and suddenly realised that, while everyone was wearing a t-shirt, none of the tshirts looked alike (while i always drew a vanilla tshirt, looking more or less the same shape/ collar/ cut on everyone...)
Wall of text time
If it's a mistake, I will learn by fixing it. If I spot a mistake, that means I at least have the eye to spot that something is wrong. If I make 50 faces that all have mistakes in them, and I can't fix any of these mistakes, I don't know what I'm learning...because fixing a mistake can be extremely difficult, especially if you're not sure how to make it right (and in making the mistake in the first place, and over and over again, are you not proving to yourself that this is something you lack skill in? That you need to improve upon?...and by fixing the mistake, are you not figuring out what went wrong and and how to solve the issue, so in the future you do not repeat it?)
I think I've gotten faster at doing things simply because in going back and fixing the errors, I'm learning not to make them in the first place. I guess in your case, if you're drawing faces over and over again, that's just another way of learning from your mistakes, right? Only with your method, there's a lot more evidence of the process of your improvement...and rather than going back and reworking something, you're just starting fresh each time, with a new face.
Which I think just gave me an epiphany as to why my sketchbooks show improvement, even though they're not as filled with drawings as most other peoples' sketchbooks I've seen.
But yeah, anyhow - maybe this is just our two different takes on drawing-for-improvement?
I think my method works fine for me for the most part, as I've improved in terms of skill and speed over the years...I mean, I do margin-sketches and the occasional crap-doodle that I won't expect anything from, even before I start it...I just do it for fun...but if I'm in "drawing to learn mode" or "time to draw something awesome" mode, it's a completely different mentality. I still have issues with associating each piece with my self-worth as an artist - pieces I consider "bad" being marks against me, threatening my chances at my dream career because they're solid evidence of my lack of skill in [whathaveyou]. But I've recently adopted the mentality that "it's okay if that sucks, because eventually you'll be awesome at it, because after 10 years of doing this, you will have improved, and greatly so".
I beat myself up in all areas of my life if I don't grasp something extremely quickly, though. I'm really good at absorbing and understanding information, and being able to put it to use very quickly...and so in areas that I feel I am continually mediocre or straight-up bad, it's horrifying to me, like this brick wall I can't break through, even though I've been able to break through dozens of others. It's like I can't figure out why I'm bad at this, so very bad compared to my other skills...and not knowing is the worst part of it, because it means I lack the solid understanding of how to go from "this is shit, what the hell" to "what the hell, this is awesome"...or even how to start in that direction.
As I mentioned earlier, I think I'm finally getting some clues after analyzing my mistakes in previous attempts...and I'm excited about creating new pieces to test out these new bits of information. Looking back on my last attempts - like you looking back on your old drawings - I'm gleaning the good stuff from the bad stuff, and I think I'll make some progress.
Again, though, most of what this all boils down to is that I need to stop associating "bad art" with failure...I won't do that with pieces I think are "meh"...but if I think I totally missed the boat, I'll totally beat myself up over it. It's so ingrained in me to do this (because in my mind "I should know better" and "why don't I know better by now") that it's been an incredibly slow process in rectifying this mentality and making it a healthier one. The "eventually" mentality is a huge step for me in the right direction, but obviously it needs a lot more work.
[End Parts 2 through 18 of ND's Reply]
While that way of thinking is certainly helpful in the ways you described, and similar, it doesn't work for me in what I feel is my main issue in environment concepting - the space itself. Not even talking about the extras that are added into the space (furniture, etc.) or architectural details (corinthian columns, engravings, floor tile designs, etc.) but how the space itself is constructed...and constructing an interesting space that can be interestingly framed in a 2D picture. Of course, added elements to the structural "base" can absolutely change the way the space is perceived, but I can't rely on add-ons like that to make a boring space "interesting", simply because it won't be enough.
Cool Street
Boring Street
Even though there are a lot of add-on things in the "Cool Street" example, the layout is also much, much more interesting, and has many more complex shapes. The street is unique and memorable, in comparison with the 2nd street...even if you removed all the "extras", the layout alone would still win. And that's one of a handful things that I need to learn how to utilize in my own pieces.
I see your point. I probably misinterpreted your post a bit since i was reading it at work. My bad.
The stuff you're describing is, indeed, some tricky stuff i've also struggled with a lot.
I keep all of my old sketches, but I also am guilty of crumpling up things that I think suck or am embarresed about having drawn...
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