Thoughts on this weeks COLORING PAGE

I like to think other people are enjoying my blog, but it's one of those things, it's never a certain thing. And like any creative endeavor, it must first serve the "self". I decided a coloring page is good because there are goals I've worked in. I need to be more comfortable and adept in my drawing as well as produce more work. A coloring page seemed a great way to keep myself accountable. If people liked my stuff and wanted to feed their creativity or weren't comfortable with drawing, it's my way of saying thank you. I hope they like my stuff so well they consider purchasing my images from my stores on various products or books, as it supports what I do. But if not, just seeing what I do in the vast scheme of things, still is deserving of a thank you (especially when you let me know and dialogue). But this is digressing to Monday's post.

I'm taking a FANTABULOUS, GLORIFICATORY, ULTIPRIMABARNONE THE BEST COURSE. A friend had gifted the School of Visual Storytelling's first course. Just as Will Terry's Photoshop course renewed my drawing (I couldn't see well enough to do ANYTHING, and though I had the equipment, didn't really know or understand how to use it. I think I will be learning about this particular piece for the next fifty years, but having a rudimentary knowledge was changing. I'm working again).

(Jake Parker and Will Terry are wonderful teachers. They are wonderful artists/storytellers. It's rare to find people who can do both. And they are a sheer joy to riff off of, and watch. Truthfully Monday and Wednesday nights are the highlights of my week).

It's the same with this course. I know and knew quite a bit. Some of it is embedded in me. But not KNOWING why something is done and kenning it makes my work a hit or miss at best.

I will say this. I don't believe in false modesty. I'd been rutted into not touting my own horn so I either come off as not having confidence or being so full of myself, there's hardly room for anyone else (that's an incorrect thing, I work ALONE a lot and I'm passionate, so it does get overpowering and perhaps intimidating even for me, lol, but put it in context and realize I do want to hear what others are saying, but want to hear something different inside my head. Also don't tell a thing like it's fact without being able to back up your reasoning. Sorry). Anyhow, this is long winded.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can draw. It took a lifetime to get here, don't know if it's a gift or an effort or more like a combination. I say that because it's a "nice" thing, but not everything.

Drawing in Photoshop is only BEGINNING to feel natural, and the programs and Wacom aren't working properly and I can't reseat them. So I don't know if it's ME (don't like the feel/glide of the pen on the Wacom surface) or the computer, the Wacom or a combination.

I suck at perspective. My design skills are less than mediocre, most of the time, and my coloring skills can be wonderful. Or not. Yes I can spend the next ten years muddling through that, but a CLASS with people who know their stuff, is ever so much more quicker. I still have to put in the time, but you know what, pointing me in the best direction is a great saver of all the things that aggravate me.

If you don't know what you're good at, you can't "sell" yourself. If you don't know what you need to improve, you can't do better, very much not really, because it's only a half-hearted stab at the problem(s).

So the coloring pages have become a good way to incorporate what I'm learning in class. I don't know if it's going to change what I do so much or wildly. I will have to go through the process to find this answer. Applying shaping and design concepts, line of action, proportions, leading the eye (something I knew about but didn't understand as fully as I do now, and as I say DOING something isn't the same thing, so it will take a lot of practice). I'd started the pages as a way to up my traffic, and get new people here. Selfish reasons, I need the lucre.

But now there's a real purpose to them. Not only being accountable to the commitment to DRAW, BUTT IN CHAIR. But also to speed up my process, improve it so I can work faster, more visually and show more perception. But now to incorporate all the things I'm learning in this class so it becomes second nature. That embracing your fear thing? That's the shtuff I don't do so well. In order to communicate on the level I'd like to I will have to master it.

One of the tidbits from class the other night that I got, and will become a centerpiece for ALL my work (easier said than done). When you're writing or illustrating, you want your reader to participate with you to that end. If you make it so difficult they have to THINK about it too much, you've not connected. That's not to say you can't be BUSY (think of getting lost in those I Spy books), but you must remain focused on what it is you're trying to convey. So with this long-winded explanation, the first coloring page to this end. Do let me hear about it!