Punching out the demons in my mind.
I needed some motivation to really pull me into drawing today.
It is a strange problem I have and something I have discovered a pattern in within myself. I don my best work when I stay open minded about being myself and just let it flow out of me.
It is more like god has his hand on the pencil pushing it around more so than me. I say this cause when I really try to force things to be what they want they never turn out as I think they will.
Good example, the recent wonder woman drawing I did was actually a crappy quick sketch in my mind. I didn’t think about it to much. I pulled up some reference and kind of worked with no real idea in mind of anatomy or how it should look technically.
I thought it was a bad drawing honestly and people enjoyed it.
The same thing happened with a project I am doing with a friend.
The harder I thought about it and the more frustrating I found it to actually start drawing. Not only that I kept having this thought in my head this is going to be the best drawing I have ever done and honestly it was killing the art work.
I sent him some sketches a few days ago and he said his wife loved them and I think I suddenly realized they just want something that I could create not the most amazing beautiful crazy good thing I could do but I think what I interpreted was just art work in my style, what ever came out on the theme at hand.
So I put on some Sidebar http://www.sidebarnation.com/my_weblog/ because it is a great motivation for me. I love listening to the artists talk about there work and experience in the industry. I adjusted my attitude and I actually prayed a bit over this artwork that t would just come out of me. I sat quietly and asked God to take the burden away and just let me create and I have to say I actually liked 3 out of the 5 illustrations. I think it is the best stuff I have created in a very long while.
I am not saying it was effortless by any means. I worked some long hours today. But I actually had to come to terms with the art and let it be what it was. It was slow getting started but it slowly eased out. And I thought man I wish I felt like this when I created all my art.
I wished I felt like myself.
Sometimes I just so tied up with wanting the end product to look got that honestly it looks nothing like I would have wanted and I wish I could do better. Or do it all again. I even find myself just not having fun.
I compare it to other people’s work I want it to look like theirs. You want to know the biggest hang up of working on my own comic; it is not knowing what it will look like. Will it be great, beautiful, and professional enough? I talk myself out of even beginning to write it.
So while I was listening to side bar I come upon the interview with Rudy Gutierrez. http://www.sidebarnation.com/my_weblog/2009/08/rudy-gutierrez.html
I never felt so uplifted artistically. He talked a lot about how when you stay true to yourself I your work you never ever find yourself walking down the wrong path. In fact you find things happening to you that may have otherwise never happened. If seems following his own artistic path had never steered him wrong. When he worked for other people though and did what they wanted and expected he found himself in odd circumstances. You just have to listen to it honestly. It was inspirational. I learned amazing lessons this evening.
Then they started talking about John Coltrane and they mentioned love supreme. I have not listened to much jazz though I like it. I am thinking Love Supreme; this must be some ode to sex or something. God was I wrong!! I had a spiritual experience I am not kidding you. It was indescribable. I can’t put it into words.
I got up I tunes to see if I could find maybe a few podcasts with his songs on it and I found one where they talked about Love supreme and the psalms that were included in it how his music had lyrics and the saxophone played the words. And man my whole body shook. I felt vibrations run up my spine. It was like seeing into something infinite. He sang all Praises to God with his saxophone. I can’t even describe it with out it sounding weird.
Many people think I am crazy as it is. I will have to do some posts on some of my other past spiritual experiences. I often wonder if other people have experienced things like this. Everything from seeing demons to …. I will just have to touch on that later.
I feel like I knocked down a wall today, or at least chipped away at it a bit. I hope to chip away at it more.
~Arie
