Keeping Tradition Alive

There is always a struggle with adapting technology to fit one’s own work flow and when to adapt and when to move on. As a drafts-person, there is nothing that feels like pen to paper. It’s nostalgic, yes, but it is also tactile and employs more than just memory. I know how the ink will lay on the page, I know how much pressure to apply, I know when I need to start with a rough pencil sketch and work back for the really technical stuff. I have brands and combinations that have been cultivated over years and that doesn’t always translate to a digitized work flow. I also can’t bring my full editing rig with me, I have a fairly powerful laptop that is sorely underused until I make adjustments to my own practices so I am working on it.

But, for now I do have a system that is engaging, that works, that lets me get my work out there and it’s simple, at least to me.

Start with a drawing you love. This little crow kept my eyes peeled awake at work, yes I doodle between med passes, no it doesn’t effect my efficiency except that it makes me more alert and better at my job.

People who treat art or drawing as play instead of expression and engagement have drank the kool-aid. They really believe that a human compulsion to create is somehow different from the desire we have to understand the world around us through other means such as art and science. This crow is part of a series of cryptid spooky type work for the Halloween season, love it.

Any who, the next think I do is use a little program called – Inkscape

This is a wonderfully powerful tool that you can use to make vectors of your drawings and manipulate them to make posters, cards, website designs. Endless stuff really, most of my recent work has utilized it in some way or another. There is a learning curve but it’s not too steep if you’ve grown up in the last fifty years (I know I’ve taught it in several college courses.)

That said, what you end up with is something like this:

and that’s a great little transposition.

I make a bunch of them and put them together. This bird isn’t quite ready for collage just yet but here’s a similar piece that was. Start with a figure, work back from there and add, subtract, puzzle solve just like any drawing.

end up with something like this:

and that’s it.

It’s not the same as making a full scale composition, big ass drawing, and taking a long time figuring out how to work everything. I’m still struggling with digital painting, the colors don’t always transpose right and I’m aware that this is a software and hardware issue but for now this keeps me engaged. I can take these vectors into like Gimp and use my old photoshop brushes there. Or I can print them out on watercolor paper and use my physical tool set. Either way it keeps me thinking and engaging, contributing to a larger body of work.

But for now this is one of two ways that I’ve been working. I’ll talk about the oil painting set up next and my second lane of work. From itty bitty monster designs to little big landscapes and sweet treats galore.