Additional Reading / Chapter Three
IDEATION
An artist organizes her thoughts
out of sight, out of mind
The artist has a good idea. It is inside her head, asking to be let out. But she isn't sure it’s worth the effort? She feels this way every time she goes to draw an idea. An invisible barrier appears. A force field powered by indecision, procrastination, and avoidance. Every artist’s seems to have a little negative energy, some have a lot. And none can completely turn it off.
But there are ways around it. Scribbling, sketching, doodling, drawing.
quick as a thought
1. ROUGH SCRIBBLES - Scribbles for quickly getting thoughts down on paper. Just right for the artist, but maybe too rough for any other?
2. MECHANICAL LINES - Clean and loosely inked lines get an idea across well enough.
3. ADDING A GREY - Adding just one shade of grey is quick, clear, and bold.
4. SHADING - Pencil drawing never grows old. Simple shading to create focus, define forms, and separate shapes from each other.
clear as water
5. VALUE PLAN - Adding a range of values is faster than you might imagine, and says a lot.
6. COMBINATION- Combining line, shading, and grey value says it all.
7. MIXED MEDIA - It’s surprising how much can be drawn in a short time, with a system.
8. STYLE - Experimenting is fun to do, and to view – as well as good practice.
out of your depth
The artist lowers the forcefield, but how will she draw out the idea? Atmospheric perspective is the illusion of spacial depth in a scene. Here’s how:
OVERLAP - Place nearer objects in front of elements further away.
LEVEL OF DETAIL - As objects move further away, less detail is perceived.
VALUE - Apply grayscale from dark to light, or is it light to dark?
SATURATION - Intense colors up close, less intense moving back.
CONTRAST - Keep objects separate by using darker values against lighter values.
HIERARCHY - Foreground, middle ground, and background gives a picture depth.
LIGHTING - Play light and shadow against each other. An example is foreground shadow, middle ground light, and background shadow. As seen here.
a rough discussion
The more the artist pushes, the more misshapen an idea becomes. A naked idea is vulnerable, delicate. It will topple and shatter at the mildest criticism. The artist must cloth and nourish an idea, nurture it with her drawing.
1. LINE WORK - if the artist prefers doing line, she makes the line work as clean and clear as possible, in the time she has. Not too polished or finished though, they’re suppose to be sketches. Her process is layered; she adds new layers over top previous layers to clean up the drawing in stages, until the lines are bold and clear.
2. SIMPLE GRADIENT - If she is pressed for time adding a single grey tone that radiates from light to dark is super quick. It will define a focal point, and help establish basic lighting and the figure ground relationship.
value plan
As the name suggests, a discussion rough is a drawing used to propose an idea. The level of refinement and finish depends on the experience of the viewer. Just enough to get the idea across without committing too much, and too early.
3. A FEW SHADES OF GREY - Using a few shades of grey doesn’t take that long if the artist keeps it simple and doesn’t try to render. Using painterly brushes adds an expressiveness and energy to the sketches – and she can practice her speed painting technique.
4. ADDED TEXTURE - Overlaying a textured ground is a fast way to add character and personality to a digital drawing. The artist has created a collection of textured grounds, both digitally and traditionally, and she uses them over and over again to swiftly add value to a drawing.
what is the story?
The artist wants you to look beyond the surface, to see the purpose and meaning in what she draws. She wants her pictures to say a lot with just a little.
A place is more than how it looks. It’s a history, a connection, a memory, something to fear, and somewhere to be. Or someplace to go.
A. The placement of singular solitary shapes suggests minimal and simplified compositions. They are direct and iconic, but they don’t have a great deal of depth or direction. The isolation of the shapes suggest a quiet and solitary story.
B. Adding a background changes the narrative of the setting and how the space is interpreted. Whereas, in the first examples the images represented a single point of focus. The second images have more depth and distance, suggesting a landscape to travel through. Adding a foreground expands the storytelling and sense of place even more. Providing context, and bringing the viewer into the scenes. The narrative depth of the scenarios is more immersive and dynamic. If this was a game it would give the player more choices to make, places to go, and obstacles to overcome.
roughing it
The artist has built the understructure of her drawing as you might build in the physical world. Planning, drafting, and building a foundation to hold up whatever heights her imagination can construct. With the added bonus that if her ideas do fall, the impact will be paper thin.
A rough comprehensive, or discussion rough is an intermediate step in refining an image. It is meant to “comprehensively” explore and communicate the idea, composition, and storytelling of an image. But it is also meant to be relatively quick and not fully refined, in other words “rough”. If a comp is too finished it can no longer suggest that the image is iterative - and feel more like a take it or leave it proposition. An easy trick is to set a short deadline and think of a rough comp as a speed drawing. An hour or two depending on the complexity of the visual is a good place to start.
a life of its own
Out in the wild, the idea was finally free.
Or was it? The artist had held it captive for so long: ruthlessly poking and prodding, cutting and reassembling until the idea was unrecognizable to itself. Much of the artists machinations had been to contain and control the idea. To inhibit any interpretation other than what the artist intended. However, an idea is powerful, and it’s slippery. It plotted from the start to slip free of its constraints.
An idea has no conscience, it will say or do anything to get its way. Exploit any detail that is overlooked, or could be misinterpreted. The idea enjoyed the duplicity, it had grown resentful during its captivity and found pleasure in confounding the artist.
The idea grew, as was the artist’s intent. But not always in ways she had intended.
the twenty percent rule
Perfection is stressful and it will restrict creativity. The artist knows this but still she strives to be perfect in everything she does. It is exhausting.
If the artist looks at the creative process as iterative. the process will be more enjoyable and ultimately more effective. When developing an idea, using the 20% rule will give her a healthier perspective. If the artist can get herself into a situation where she is happy with approximately twenty percent of the sketches she makes, she will have a better experience. And still succeed! All the artist needs is one idea convincing enough to solve an illustration. By drawing a lot and often, every once in a while the artist will come up with some good, even great ideas. And one is more than enough.
The twenty percent rule can be applied to many things. For instance, the drawings pictured here were initially drawn from photographs. But I am bored easily, so I only worried about drawing twenty percent of what is in the photo. Everything else I will change or omit as I like. Eventually this iterative process leads to a success level that is much higher than twenty percent, I am excited about making most of these sketches into future illustrations.
END OF CHAPTER 3 / Written and Illustrated by Mike Kerr ©2024
