Unpacking, unraveling, and simplifying

Formulating and asking meaty, substantial questions is challenging, and made even more difficult when you have to ask them to yourself. Just thinking to prompt the asking is skill set all its own. The reflex to ask seems like a learned skill also fostering curiosity, aka being hungry for knowledge, aka letting yourself fall down a rabbit hole.

I titled my critical theory paper, "Relational Aesthetics: A Cultural Agency". Man that sounded cool. I had truly no inkling of what I meant by it in retrospect, just a head full of budding ideas. The January residency exposed me to so much more than I expected. 

Pursuing a graduate degree is serious business. My advisor Chris said spelled it out for me today by saying that, "this is a terminal degree. Once you get it, you will be a master of a chosen field. What you say will have weight." Good lord did that strike a cord. I mean, of course a masters program implies that, but how many people have I met that have a masters degree that barely regard it with that amount of gravitas. I totally subscribe to his ideal too, Its just peculiar that I would have thought otherwise in retrospect.

I am very happy to be participating in an active dialogue with my art making. I used to extrude out and hammer into shape a product with very little regard to actively engaging with a piece. I didn't listen to what it needed, whether that meant adjusting the composition, letting myself explore the concept further and think about how it could be better embodied/executed, or even simply letting myself play with the medium and experience it for what it was. There is so much that I have been denying myself in pursuit of an output to give to a client. Its time to respark curiosity and ask better questions, or rather just ask them at all:

What is the difference between painting v.s. digital painting?

Do I have a desire to paint or to render?

What are the implications of a desire to render? And why is that different from painting? (*painting is a can be used for rendering and is only one type)

What are the psychological implications of desiring to render ones world? There is a tradition of rendering going back to the Lascaux Caves. How do you fit into this tradition?

Scale as a variable in art making to be manipulated and why?

Physical object/artifacts and their value as a one of a kind item, and how that relates to painting.

What is art as social practice?

Why is sincerity beautiful?

How is roleplaying different from acting?

What does it really mean to break the 4th wall? (*stop referencing it until you truly understand it)

How is what Mudman does different from roleplaying? How is it similar?

Do you need to sign your work? Should you?

Why would it be good not to finish a piece?

How does my personal relationship to the illustrations of rpgs differ from their intended use of merchandising? This relates to something.... (ask chris).

What does it mean to be preoccupied with validation from others?

Paper Questions:

How does Kant and Duchamp's ideas about beauty relate to my own?

Duchamp challenged people to question if art needed to be beautiful. In your opinion, does it need to be?

Mentor Meeting 5/26

Today I met with Sam and he really helped me compartmentalize my various pursuits.
~ Exploring the medium, techniques, and physicality of painting (large scale painting in progress)
~ Exploring abstraction and collage (character sheet piece)
~ Exploring art as social practice (reading about relational aesthetics)

We touched on so much and I'm going to try to summarize what we discussed:

When we looked at the character sheet, we discussed a lot of options of where it could go.
~ Collage character sheet elements
~ Make multiples of the panel I have already created (going to do at least 2 more)
~ Paint tones on top of the panels that portray the attitude of the character
~ Do paintings or collage as the characters themselves (amazing idea!)

One thing is for sure, I need to gather as many of those character sheets as possible and simply look at them. Set aside time to simply react to what is before me and see what comes forth.

We had a little chat about the business of the fine art world. We discussed whether or not I should be concerned with the marketability of my work, and the consensus is generally no, and that if the work is developed enough, and if you know the right people, you should be fine.

One thing that sparked some excitement was the potential opportunity in the future to create an exhibition. He mentioned how understated the skill set of organizing an exhibition is. How you use the space is very important and should be given the time of day. I really want to generate an exhibition that portrays the way I feel about roleplaying games to a general audience.

One of the themes we discussed was how the experience of roleplaying is always more interesting than the newcomer initially thought. It is important that if I generate an exhibition, that I try not to disguise the roleplaying too much, or else it may loose the joyous impact of the experience. Sam also suggested that I develop some way to have the audience interactions at the exhibitions somehow influence the next exhibition, much like when a DM adjusts the story between each session based on what the players did. Brilliant! Just what the hell am I going to do though lol

We talked about a lot of other things, but these were the real hearty topics we covered. Its always a good time meeting with him and I am very thankful for his help.

New Format

For what it is worth, I think I should describe what my goals of this blog are going to be going forward. I have changed not only the format, but also the overall philosophy of how I plan to write. This blog is going to be a dumping ground of my thoughts going through this masters program. The writing is going to be worse (not that it was any good to begin with). In speaking to my advisor, we discussed that it could be a very positive thing to have a place where I can consolidate my ideas as a sort of journal, but also publish it in a public format. I want to use this to also store the questions that I am asking myself during my practice, and the direction I plan on going with my work. So that is the plan and I am excited to take steps to unravel the jumbled mess that is my brain, and respond to my experiences being involved with this opportunity (aka my MFA). Cheers!

A Months Gone By Already?!?!

 So I'm ashamed to say I haven't posted in a month. I need to get better at this whole blog thing. In the last 4 weeks I have been getting a lot better at managing my time. The reason behind this is a long story, so settle in and get comfy:

I have been working in the admissions department at my old art college. I get to travel all over New England and beyond to visit high schools and meet with prospective students. Two weeks ago, my travels brought me to Long Island. While in my hotel I realized that Donato Giancola's studio was in Brooklyn. For those of you who don't know the name, he is a major figure head in the current Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre illustration realm. He is an oil painter by trade and as such is commissioned frequently for private collectors and fine art galleries. Needless to say he is a busy man and it is reflected in his skill and craft. He is also a super nice guy and was gracious enough to invite me to his studio after I emailed him on a lark.

I sat in his studio for hours watching him work and during that time I realized that what I was watching was someone living the dream, my dream. He works 9-5, monday through friday on artwork with weekends and nights free to spend with his family. I'm sure its probably not as whimsical as it sounds, but it sounds damn good to me. So after leaving his studio, muttering nervously my goodbyes, I drove home in silence processing what I had witnessed and how I could achieve the same career.

Then, like a slap in the face, I realized how stupidly simple the solution was. I need to treat my artwork as a second job. No more beating around the bush with it. I need to commit hours, a specific budget of time to achieve my goal. I currently have to work 8:30 - 5 and sometimes more on my current job to pay bills and survive. To transition to the dream job, I need to work at least part-time and commit the equivalent time on developing my portfolio. Then, once I start getting work, the same amount of time needs to be devoted to doing said work and building a career every step of the way. Then, once I am confident I can support myself on solely commission, lop the other job off like an infected limb. Pardon the grim sentiment, just being overdramatic :)

So to help manage my schedule, I downloaded this program to keep track of my hours. It acts like a punch clock that forces me to manage my time and keep me on the straight and narrow. Its also great to keep track of your time because you can then accurately convey to a client how long a project may take.

All this long-winded, life jargon aside, I am still chiseling away at my D&D campaign website. I decided to start working on the illustration for the Exordium article that details a small historical account of a battle that happened in the history of my game.

I was inspired by Justin Sweet and wanted to emulate the speed and dynamism of his ink drawings. I also was thinking of Kekai Kotaki's conceptual art and how he uses pure black and white to carve into silhouettes. So I started using Photoshop to thumbnail quickly. I must apologize, for I failed to think about saving the works in progress and I ended up loosing some of the thumbnails all together. But here is the evolution of the Exordium piece through a limited scope:

I started off with an idea for how I wanted the two main combatants composed. Sir Eric, a regal knight, battling Nanuk, a large, barbaric tribal leader. Here I was just experimenting with the process.

Then I continued to manipulate the composition in an effort to push the action and dynamism.

Then through it all I realized that there was so much more to the narrative that I wasn't even thinking about. I decided to zoom out to show the scope of the battlefield and it just exploded from there. My roommates came out and posed for me which was a blast. I had them stand shoulder to shoulder and run as fast up a hill as they could. This was to aid me in accurately depict men fleeing from Nanuk's wrath. It was fun and I continued to push it to a point where I felt comfortable enough to draw it out.

So I have been drawing it out over the past couple weeks and it continues to suck up a ton of my time. 20+ figures and a battlefield will do that to you. I'm planning the painting  to around be 6' long which will act as an awesome centerpiece for any exhibitions or showcases I might do in the near future. I hope to get this drawing finished and I shall post it up asap.

As a side note, I heard about this art test that Jon Shindehette over at WOTC was promoting on Art Order. I desperately wanted to finish it, but I found out about it a week before the due date and with all my admissions work I failed to finish it in time. Its a terrible excuse I know and I am really ashamed. I hope to streamline my process so that such deadlines will not daunt me in the slightest. I am just not there yet. I did learn a lot through doing this piece and I'd like to finish it at some point.

Wow! Thats a long posting. Guess I've had a lot on my mind lately. Just wanted to show that I have been working, just not posting as often as I would like. I must improve this!

Face Card #1: Sir Othmar (WIP)

I read on a DM's forum about these handy visual aides called "Face Cards". They are cards that have images on them that represent what a certain character or NPC look like. I love this idea as it helps to unify in everyones minds eye the look and feel of the worlds peoples. I also wanted to take it as an opportunity to try and relearn some digital painting skills, as well as experiment with Corel Painter. This is Sir Othmar and he is unfinished. I'll give him a full breakdown later when I add an NPC section to the Justicator's site.

Map!

Its a map of the "zone" my players are in right now. Got to put my Photoshop abilities to work, and learned a couple things on the way. I'd like to go into detail what resides in each area, but considering most of the people who actually pay attention to this blog are my players, I don't want to spoil it for them. I know, they're lame.....

Reyco and Group Picture (Finally!)

So here we have it. The final member of the Justicators drawn out and compiled with the others. I feel rather accomplished considering I never finished a character drawing series for a D&D campaign with such detail, or at all. Next up, Illustrations for the Adventure Log articles and NPC face cards.