2.17.2009

squidsperiments



**** AAAUGH LONG POST ****

My goal is to keep these posts image heavy and word light. I enjoy image heavy blogs and, really, I'm a painter not a politician so it makes sense. Having said that, I've been working through a bunch of stuff the past several months/years with my art and felt the need to expound: 

So here's a couple of experiments. Searching for "voice" and trying to find my common thread/medium/technique etc. After art school I was creating VERY different looking pieces (A google search of my name (nthnart or Nathan Brutzman) brings up a couple illos. if you're super curious.) I always felt like I was cheating my skills and not living up to my potential with that "style", so I left the illo game to work through this. Recently I've been beefing up my life drawing. Thanks in no small part to James McMullan's book and great blogs by fantastic illustrators, I'm finally feeling more comfortable with my drawing and pencil work. 

While I feel my drawing in general is on the right track I'm lost on how to finalize these concepts. I've loved mixed media and am admittedly a technique and materials junky. Searching for that magic bullet medium or combination. The one thing I'm fairly adamant about is creating as much as I can analog. No program can replace good draftsmanship and understanding of fundamentals. Period. 

Ok. Rant over. I'm going to be slogging through this and aiming to post regularly (at least every couple days.) Please feel free to use the comments. See something you like/don't? Let me know. Just wanna say hi? Why hello there! 

Thanks for looking. .nthn

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the bottom one.

But I have to disagree with you: Adobe Illustrator can totally replace "good draftsmanship and understanding of fundamentals". That's what it's for!

(I'm kidding. But, while I can't draw for shit, I've seen enough crappy Photoshop and Illustrator work that I think some people attempt to replace ability to draw with ability to use software.)

nthn said...

Ok, I can agree in part. Illustrator, like collage, can enable people with an understanding of composition and drama to realize their concepts despite lack of traditional draftsmanship skills. Hell, I'd rather have the pen tool do a sweeping curve for a logo than me tearing my hair out while I cut it out of black paper.

Maybe I'm taking a fossilized view because of my early experience with people using the lens flare filter on EVERYTHING (concrete isn't that shiny.) Or the preponderance of "everything is in sharp focus no depth of field" 3D work. Just because you can render every pore doesn't mean you should.

Sigh. Or maybe I'm imposing rules that don't really exist.