Studio Notes

Tonight I spent a few hours making test prints to follow up on my November 1 post Pondering Paper. My last round of tests gave me a lot of information to go on, but under the drawing table lights none of the prints were of satisfactory quality. I had to learn whether this was the fault of the paper, the printer, or the quality of the scan from which I was working.

After careful examination of the test prints, I decided that the most likely culprit was the quality of the scan. The lines were just not as crisp as they should have been; everything looked just slightly blurry or out of focus. So I grabbed the file from which I had another set of prints made to my satisfaction so that I could compare the output from the printer to which I have access and the output from PhotoworksSF's printer.... Go ahead, keep reading

A few months ago I purchased sample packs of printmaking paper for giclée (French for «inkjet») printing, intending to test the papers out with the printer a client of mine has given me permission to use. I have been getting the prints of my pen & ink work done at Photoworks here in San Francisco, and they generally do good work. Nevertheless, I would like more control over the process. A couple of times miscommunications have led to frustrating delays or wasted prints. My thinking is that if I can move the production «in-house» I'll be able at least to scrap and re-run my prints blaming only myself. At best I can save days on pieces being reprinted.... Go ahead, keep reading

Here's something I don't think gets mentioned enough in the discussion of speculative (spec) work. Artists like to say «you get what you pay for» and talk down about the quality of the work you get if you get it for free, but it's not true. It's actually really easy to find people with talent who are desperate enough to work for free. The difference is not so much about the illustrator's artistic talent (though I agree that people that work for money will tend to be of higher quality) but about the illustrator's ability to advise and develop solutions on a business level.

I look at everything I do—including art—as consulting, which means the giving of advice. A business should get their advice from people that understand business. People who are stuck in the belief they need to be beholden to an employer who will take care of their needs if they just comply with the employer's wishes are not business people.

I'll say it again. Employees. Are NOT. Business people.... Go ahead, keep reading

I've gotten behind schedule on the «Pens and Inks» series, so tonight after spending a few hours putting down ink I went back to my schedule and refigured the due dates. I'm keeping the same final date, just reducing the number of days I have to finish each of the drawings in the series to give them an even pace starting now. There's no point in sticking to an unrealistic schedule. The new schedule may not be realistic either, but it is more so than one which has deadlines in the past for a drawing I have yet to begin.... Go ahead, keep reading

Scott Berkun's The Myths of Innovation puts forward the notion that people love a good story and that many celebrated innovators have told stories that oversimplify or even ignore the truth that innovation requires a lot of work. People love the story of a creator observing an odd confluence of events which causes an epiphany, which thereafter leads to an invention no one had thought of previously.

These stories eliminate the uncomfortable idea that a creator or inventor is somehow better than the rest of us. Anyone could have been sitting under a tree to see an apple fall and discover gravity, right? Anyone could want to help his wife trade knick-knacks online and decide to create a website to make that easier, later becoming the wildly successful eBay.... Go ahead, keep reading

I'm halfway done with my spiral.

My best guess is that it's taken about fifty hours (not counting the time it took to develop the 2.5 gigabyte gradated spiral pattern I've been modifying) sitting here in front of the monitor with the Intuos2 stylus in hand, drawing over the line pattern to create this hand-drawn halftone. I've followed one of the arms of the spiral around the center 400 times to get to the very middle. The next step is to start over at the outside and work my way in again using the other arm of the spiral. I'm probably about fifty hours away, then, from finishing this pattern so that I can start creating images from these irregular spiral patterns.... Go ahead, keep reading

An installation of Kevin Burkhalter's Journal Comic from the end of last year provides an interesting twist on the idea that constant practice is more important than any other aspect of creative work:

http://kevinsjournalcomic.com/comic12-4-2008.html

There are a lot of ways to express this which encompass a variety of iterations and corollaries. Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours to mastery, Kevin Burkhalter's raising of the lower bar, and my old art skool instructor who said, «Everyone's got a certain number of bad drawings in them. Your job is to get them out onto paper as fast as you can.» It all comes down to: keep doing it and never be afraid to make bad work.... Go ahead, keep reading

It's been a while, but I need to be doing this—the more work I do in my sketchbook, the more I really see how my eye and hand have fallen out of practice. I do a lot of detail work and texture work, but my gestural drawing skills are really rusty.... Go ahead, keep reading

I'm listening to The Art & Story podcast, Episode 004 «The Big Style». Mark Rudolph and Jerzy Drozd are reaching back into their early comic influences. Comic artists are absolutely the first illustrators that inspired me to copy them and do what they do. It's gotten me thinking about who my early influences were—and when I say «early» I mean certainly before art skool. I'm looking back roughly at ages twelve to seventeen. This is who I copied and who I wished I could be like.... Go ahead, keep reading

Last night I stayed in the studio until after midnight when I realized I was parked in a streetcleaning zone and was risking a $35 ticket.

I worked on a few drafts of the background of this Rotring ArtPen and Visconti ink bottle and didn't come upon a solution, so I went in to the bottle to do the first layer of hatching. That's as far as I got before remembering I was parked on the Monday side of the street. I decided to do the horizontal hatching since it's easiest to do tight hatching on the first layer—afterwards the previous layers get in the way both visually and in the texture of the paper. The first layer is the darkest area, so the lines won't be as visible as the lines that will go into the areas that are now unfilled.... Go ahead, keep reading