Christian Comic Arts Society
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Art Think 5: Make your art a "Visual Philosophy"
One way to get out of the doldrums of being locked into the technical aspects of art is to make your entire approach a "Visual Philosophy" - or a persistent representation of a thought.
What does this mean? This means instead of being stuck on "is this a hand?" or "is this a foot?" and "does this go here or there", can you make your visuals always represent a consistent concept.
So can you make your drawings, lines, shapes and forms always be "joyful". Or how about always "miserable"? You can make your "joyful" visual philosophy have sad characters, or your "miserable" visual philosophy have happy characters - but using a persistent "Visual Philosophy", the core emotion or idea will exude through your lines, shapes and forms, informing the reader of the emotional impact you are attempting to convey.
This can allow you to come up with some very creative visuals. The "Visual Philosophy" doesn't have to be relegated to emotions or feelings alone. It can also be used to inform just the shapes you create.
So some ideas: What if you were to draw all your characters and backgrounds with (and you are only allowed to choose one):
- Joy
- Misery
- Fluidity
- Concreteness
- Gentle-like
- Whisper-like
- Brash
- Noisy
- Sedate
- Psychotic
- Wiry
- Plastic
- Rubbery
- Marshmallow-y
- Glassy
- metallic
- Like calligraphy
- Anything else you can come up with
If you take an idea like this, and then apply it consistently across the board to your visuals, you can then create alternative styles and approaches to your art and it will definitely look different than what everyone else is producing.
Give it a thought. If you have trouble drawing hands...then maybe making everything rubbery might be the way to go...what do rubber hands look like? Or how do you draw whispers? And what does a whispers feet look like? Or a dresser or a car, or a house, or a person drawn as a whisper? Get it...? :)
Think about it - try it. See what happens. And if you do - and you get results, post them here, I'd love to see what you come up with.
Comment
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Comment by Martin Murtonen on January 15, 2012 at 12:33am -
Hey Gerard, I think you encapsulated the idea even better than I said it.
That would be exactly it. Now this is only "an approach". But the reason I came up with this notion is I've seen very successful artists - and they don't seem to have "classical" art training - but they can think - and convey the message.
My next post might be some thoughts on: The message might be more important - but the flipside is...what is the message that your art sends?
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Comment by Gerard Lee on January 14, 2012 at 8:41pm -
Hi Martin, actually I do think you did a good job of conveying the idea. Unfortunately I had a hard time expressing how I understood it. I thought you meant that keeping the concept in mind, one would automatically make choices in how to illustrate with that as a priority. So it wouldn't be like a conscious 'check list' of 'to dos' in the drawing, but everything would fall into place because you maintained the mindset first and foremost.
Uhm...well, I failed to word that right again... but really, I think I did learn something about mindset and art, thank you!
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Comment by Martin Murtonen on January 11, 2012 at 6:51pm
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I may have been spouting off - it's not necessarily just line quality - but the essence of the idea...but let the essence of it touch everything.
I'll post some samples to get the idea across.
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Comment by Gerard Lee on January 11, 2012 at 6:45pm
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I -think- I understand Martin...keep the emotion or quality you want in mind and let it happen through the line quality and shading and such? I'm going to try this for a couple of days and see if I can get the hang of it...
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The 'Spirituality in Comics' Panel from San Diego Comic-Con 2011
In comics, movies, and even Broadway musicals like “The Book Of Mormon”, spiritual themed work seems to be unexpectedly coming from the least religious of sources.
Panelists including SERGIO CARIELLO (The Action Bible), RUSSELL DALTON (Marvelous Myths: Marvel Superheroes and Everyday Faith), BUZZ DIXON (Serenity/Hits & Misses), and MIKE SHIELDS (Blue Blazes) discuss how a new generation of comics and pop culture are exploring timeless truths and also address the question “Is Mass Media Our New Church?”
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