Life Drawing at Mighty Good Coffee: Round 2 (Are you really sucking more than usual today?)

Have you ever had one of those days where everything you draw just isn't that good? It doesn't necessarily suck, but it's just not up to snuff. Maybe it happens at the best possible time. Like when you're drawing in front of you friends, or even better, in front of a bunch of curious strangers. It's so tempting to say "I swear I'm good! Or at least, better than this!"

I had a day like that yesterday. It got me thinking about something I had heard in Chris Oatley's ArtCast ( http://chrisoatley.com/category/podcasts/ ). Chris Mentioned that students and new budding artists seem to be more afraid of or even paralyzed by failure. 

I admit that I'm guilty of this. It took me a year to get around to drawing a 3 page teaser for my comic idea. All because I knew that if I started right then it wouldn't be good. There is so much to learn right?! I have at least 10 great books about the best way to layout your panels, and another 3 about proper story telling. Oh yeah, then there's that great podcast about character development. Wouldn't it be hasty, or even irresponsible of me to start before I learn all I can about it first?

I think this mindset is a product of two things.

First- There are two types of artistic growth that are necessary to "level up." The first is an increase in skill....duh. Ok, that's a little obvious, but the second is the ability to discern when something is right or wrong. This is analogous to a chef refining his/her palette to detect when flavor of their meal isn't quite there yet. Maybe the soup needs some more salt and a bay-leaf. Or, a musician's ability to detect when they're flat or sharp, or slightly out of time. Artists go through the exact same process. I think the ability to dissect your work is necessary to consistently improve and deliver. The feeling I was having was do to growth in the second type of learning that exceeded my skill in the first.

Second- The internet. Yes, let's blame everything on the internet. My dog sheds everywhere. That's the internet's fault too.

I think that the fear that Chris mentions is a vicious cycle between these two things. The internet is so accessible and chalk full of tutorials that we can research art forever without putting pencil to page. This, in turn, increases our ability to discern good art way above our ability to make it. We'll start a piece and immediately think that it's terrible. So what do we do? Go straight back to the internet, because we haven't learned enough yet to attempt the piece that we started. 

Around and around we go.

So, what should I do to beat this thing? Well, I went to the internet. (Irony noted). Everything I found told me to just do the damn thing no matter what it is. Turn my internal editor off. (He's an ass hole anyway). Looking at art on the internet only increases that second type or skill. Putting pen to paper will increase the first one.

So, here are my life drawings from yesterday. Not perfect, but at least they're done. 

I also have the first page of pencils finished for my comic. I'll throw those up later today and prove that I'm not a total hypocrite. At least, not all of the time.