Category: Art

The other day, we have been talking to a graphic designer about our magazine, and she mentioned the two basic approaches to putting an issue together – content first and design first. The former is about writing stories, the latter is about art.

I realized that it is a useful framework for other creative projects as well. For example, with blogging, I’ve been thinking that a neat productivity hack would be focus the posts around photographs. Simply letting the images speak for themselves and, at the extreme, allowing the viewers create their own narrative about them if they want. That would be analogous to the ‘design first’ approach.

Yet I personally prefer reading stories illustrated by images to watching slideshows with extended captions. Besides, every image has a story behind it, even if it is not necessarily a profound one. For example, this sketch could stand on its own, just as my doodling impression of a sunny day at the beach. But what makes it meaningful for me is that I made it trying out my birthday present – a set of design pens markers.

My daughter’s art teacher said that one of the problems she sees with the kids using digital media (tablets, computers) for drawing is the use of the Undo function. When they click Undo, the last brushstroke disappears not only from the screen, but somehow from their memory as well, as if whatever had been drawn before never existed. She suggested using the Eraser tool instead, because when you take time to move your hand over the drawing to erase the lines, you are still committing them to memory. That way, you have a chance to learn from your mistakes as you correct them.

Personally, I noticed another potential problem with the Undo function (and with digital art in general, for that matter) a while ago – it is the possibility of endless corrections. I know that with a digital file, there is always an opportunity to revisit a drawing, so I tend to linger over it while it would be more productive to declare it completed and to move on to a new one.

This is why I like sketching on physical paper every now and then, even though I am really enjoying ProCreate on my iPad these days. For my last couple of sketches, I decided to take the practice to the next level by using non-erasable brush-pens only. So effectively, no corrections are allowed – what you get the first time around is what you see.

My daughter’s art teacher suggested a way of developing observation skills: setting up little still lives everywhere (at home using toys, at restaurants, at the playground) and drawing them either right on the spot or later, from memory. I thought it would be a neat exercise to try for myself, and yesterday I did it for the first time. I was sitting at my favourite cafe in the morning when I noticed that the direction of the shadow from a water glass on the table accidentally lined up with the milk pattern on the surface of my latte.

I cheated bit in terms of memory training – instead of sketching the scene right there and then or tying to remember it in detail, I snapped a picture on my phone and used it later as a reference for sketching.