Whenever I tell people I’m an artist, there is one very common response I (almost) always hear: “Oh that’s so cool! I could never do that, I’m not really the creative type.” In the words of Dorothy Sayers, there’s nothing for me to do except “laugh deprecatingly”, so I do so and move on. At best, I… Read More How to Become the “Creative Type”
I’m taking part in a challenge to try and improve my writing skills but also (and more importantly) my discipline. Please enjoy (or at least tolerate!) In an art history class I took a couple years ago, we discussed whether or not paintings could make people cry. Certainly movies could, and some music. Books (OMG… Read More The First Time a Drawing Made Me Cry
Everybody loves lists! And I’m still working, so don’t think that this is entirely retrospective or anything. Because it isn’t. A lot of people treat work like some kind of inevitable hurdle that we have to get past in order to be happy. Work is treated like an unfortunate by-product of being human, something that… Read More 3 Things I Learned from Working
I’ve been trying to identify and correct bad habits I have as an artist. “And correct” is kind of the important part, and it’s the part I usually forget. I am generally pretty quick to point out (to myself and a few “lucky” others) what I’ve done wrong in a drawing, but I generally “fix” it… Read More Visual Library: A Vocabulary of Pictures
Virtually all of us have a natural instinct for telling stories, and it comes out in day-to-day conversation. When your car breaks down and you’re telling your friends about it, you don’t simply say, “I ran out of gas this morning. But my mom picked me up, and nothing else really happened, so I’m fine.”… Read More The Case for Storytelling
Something I used to hear a lot when I first started as an art student was “Get out of your comfort zone!” We were always told to try something new, experiment, go crazy, etc, etc. I always associated this mindset with being adventurous. If you’re exploring new territory… you’re on an adventure, right? If… Read More Your Comfort Zone and You
I put “fartsy” in a blog title. Ha. In a previous blog post, I talked about asking the right question. I think that’s an easier concept for writers to think about questions. Visual artists have a harder time because they’re answering visual questions. For us, our questions don’t have “?” at the end, they just… Read More Artsy-Fartsy Questions
