This post may evolve from my personal opinion and perspective.(as always)
JUST READ QUESTIONS IF INTRO IS TOO LONG
It is not hard to be impressed or inspired by something from artworks as a curious young art school student. we are all very curious of things and we are in a stage of developing our tastes and process of producing artworks. but is it easy to be inspired from Life?
easy example might be the relationship between LIFE DRAWING and ANIMATION. We all know old disney brought in deers and other animals when they were making Bambi. understanding physics, psychological response appears through direction of your body, balance, line of action, intention, structure, form or whatever, Yap they are not hard to figure out and they will be show up in your drawing if you study for decades. and It sure is NECESSARY things to be anything GREAT.
but question appears when a matter of CREATIVITY comes in between the relationship.
one may say, if you know skills or foundation, you can't let raw yourself out freely because of path that is already built by skills. it's just like children's drawing, creative things are coming from pure inspiration and impression. so, LEARNING from life as foundational knowledge may be obstacle? so here is my first question that is little broad
Creativity comes from deep internal study of yourself
OR,
Creative comes from breaking apart from influences and knowledges you've learned from external LIFE?
Another question is evolved out of that question but little narrowed down. Now I am about SIMPLICITY. a lot of you must have heard that CIRCULAR SHAPES are always appealing. for some reason, they are freaking appealing. like shape of baby head, like shapes of boobs, they are just so appealing, you love it. do you think i am too biased? maybe but think about something circle, it's just so universally appealing. So simple and definite shaped CHARACTER DESIGNS are pretty popular and hot stuff these days. Especially, the ease of access of the character, technological reasons, it's easy to produce for indie-film makers and always selling. and it's always harder to make things clean and simple than complicated. Then let's combine some idea.
and question is under premise of 'SIMPLICITY IS SIMPLY GREAT'
how relatable is simplicity to life around us? where, how, what do we learn about simplicity?
If you say life is complicated shit, and does nothing to do with creation which need to be simple,
what cause us to love simplicity and inspire simplicity?
second question may be little be too opinionated question but whatever, I question.
I love to hear your opinions.
sorry for bad English, please just suck it up.
Let's evolve from there.
Great blog!
ReplyDeleteI feel like creativity is expressed when you take the technical knowledge you are already informed of in terms of form and channel an opinion through it. Art is all about caricature based on our previous experiences and memories.
To be completely honest I don't feel it is possible to break away from influences. Our minds are always on, so it's inevitable that the way we feel is constantly being channeled through our drawings. I feel that being creative is the ability to use those influences to create the drawing you want. It's similar to an actor thinking about a sad memory in order to play a character that is extremely emotional. I feel that creativity is best represented when we have the discipline to control our influences to make something that is artistically satisfying.
As for simplicity I feel the reason it's so appealing is that we only need focus on a certain aspect of the character. Caricature is extremely important in art, so I could see why a simple shape that only exaggerates the most important parts would be appealing. I feel like it's a lot easier to see the need for simplicity when one views an overly-complicated character. It's much easier to say, "That character doesn't need that super-powered jet pack fishing net if he's just going roller skating". It's easy to fall in love with a piece of art and start over-working it but it takes a lot of discipline to just draw what's needed.
For someone that likes simple things Eusong, you sure like to ask complicated questions hahaha. I have always been interested in that subject also. The whole "experience from life or from the mind thing" is a question thats baffled me for a long time. To me, they are both very important. But when i draw something (or at least when i try to) I try to draw it with a sense of purpose. Or more simply put, with an idea behind it. If im going to draw a cup, it doesnt matter how beautiful i draw it, if it has no purpose it will never be more than a cup drawing. If its a cup with a broken handle and a drop of blood is beside it, then BAM, an idea may be sparked. I think the idea may be a bit more important than the drawing because it could be a badly drawn cup, but if the idea is great, then it has something more to it. This realm of creativity comes from a place where i believe makes dreams happen when your asleep. You have no control over your dream, and most times dreams are set in some form of your reality. Wether it be something that could actually happen, or something fantastical. Your mind only knows what you have experienced, so it must get its creativity from somewhere. But your dreams do not try to completely mimic life. Again like what Melissa said, its a caricature of life. So i think people should definitely draw more from life than from other artist if they are to study how to jot there i ideas on paper, yes. And I use the term "practice" because i think life drawing should be a means to an end. Then experience life to the fullest, and live in the present moment at all times. This will awaken there senses and see things they were never able to. Thus giving you crazier dreams and more creativity to work with.
ReplyDeleteDont have much to say on simplicity. Simply because the simple things in life are simply simple. To me, simple things in life are the best because they are easy to understand.
Awesome questions man, keep it up.
The first question is a hard one. Almost brings us to study how the brain of human beings actually function..and whether some sort of creativity is lost when we have more things to have to keep in mind such as structure and all those technical. For a person that I believe doesn't have the most creative juices, or had much creativity to begin with..(me..v_v..well in comparison to some)...I am trying to have more in my brain as a library. And as well as hoping one day something will spark.
ReplyDeleteAnyways..what I mean is. Say I am trying to come up with good layouts and be creative with it, I have to learn what people have done and very importantly, to have a library full of resources in my brain to pull out from. Different type of buildings..trees..etc you name it.
I don't know if that is a bit off the subject..but hm...pure idea creativity, it is all coming from our brain, our inner self you are right. But that is inevitably influenced by life itself. With more knowledge of things such as structure, I think there would be a point where you can control whether or not you want structure in a certain drawing or just let go and be free with it. It's hard..some things are going to be lost through the system of things like school..but...just be aware of it I guess? =)
And simplicity =D its just appealing okey? Like you said..life is full of shit..we need a rest with our eye sometimes. Simple things get to the point quick and we like that. At least our society is getting to become like that. And..its harder to animate?lol
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ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Manny. I feel that learning structure and technical tools of trade, or mechanics of how something works should be the means to achieve a creative goal, and not the goal itself.
ReplyDeleteBut, there are some people that genuinely love to learn life's technical complexities and boil it down to something understandable. Simplify it. They can do it forever, and that's fine too!
Simplicity's greatest draw is that it's easily and universally understandable. It's raw, and primitively understood in a gut reaction. The simpler, the more intuitive it becomes to grasp its communication to our senses. And it titillates us universally.
Simplicity can be found anywhere. In food, music, earthly sights, or in the comfort of your bed. It's one thing we can focus on, prioritize at a time. And I think in contrast, complexity is trying to understand (too) many things at once, too much communication everywhere. The sensations become unclear, and we are left confused. Prioritizing elements of complexity can boil something down to simplicity again.
Back to creativity. I think creativity is very similar to simplicity. Creativity comes from our unconscious, raw thoughts, AND from what we experience from simplicity. Children are so creative because they are unfiltered by ways of being, which society teaches. They act out of instinct. When they are sad, they'll cry. When angry, they'll scream. We've gown up learning social rules, filtering our way of thinking to restrict our instincts. Same with art. The more we learn, the more opportunities we have to filter ourselves. But, as Melissa said, we can use the tools we pick up to hone our instincts. We can pick up our experiences from simplicity to grow and channel ourselves in new ways.
In Acting for Animators, we learned how to be aware of our instincts. We shed our filters and learned how to identify how others felt and react to it honestly and truthfully, without filtering ourselves. With that, we can respond truthfully and tap into our raw creativity with what we've learned to hone in our new ways of channeling ourselves creatively.
I hope I make sense!
I think it is true that Creativity comes from deep internal study of yourself and I also think that breaking out of your own influences will support being creative. Both are great thoughts. I just want to mention though about being creative in drawing for either illustration, fine art, or animation, I believe the aesthetics/visual aspects of art is as equally important as a purpose and thoughts behind the art because that aesthetics by itself can be stories and ideas. And they don't have to be narrative all the time. So from the earlier post, I do have to argue that it does matter how beautifully one is drawn and it does matter with what techniques the one is drawn.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to clarify some things. Will, I do not think that we have separate views on this matter. What you are saying is completely my opinion also. What i was trying to say is that a drawing, painting, or anything should have a sense of purpose to it. It does not need to have a literal narrative like a comic strip, and if it did sound like that i believe it was because i was regarding animation. But If the piece's purpose is suppose to be a beautiful drawing in a certain style, than i believe that is the right way to go. I just dont like when people do draw a beautiful drawing with no purpose. I think it takes away the life or energy or whatever you want to call it. To me thats what separates the masters from the artists. The masters always have something to express and a purpose to there work.
ReplyDeletemannyfresh, i do agree with you above especially the part where you said, 'What i was trying to say is that a drawing, painting, or anything should have a sense of purpose to it. It does not need to have a literal narrative '
ReplyDeleteHowever,
How would you define the artist's purpose, stories, and emotion behind a beautiful painting? Also one of the points I was making there was that the idea or purpose behind the drawing doesn't have to be as narrative as 'the broken glass up with bloods' it can be a beautiful drawing with beautiful techniques and of course with the artist's own stories, and emotions behind again they may not be narrative and not recognizable right away.
So my point here is that I don't think it's right to judge someone's art work if it has purposes or no purpose.
Hey Will. I really do like this friendly argument. This is what makes art really interesting to me. And by the way, I have seen your student films and i like them a lot.
ReplyDeleteBut dont you think that your first sentence and your last one are a little contradictory? You agree with me that a drawing should have a sense of purpose, but you dont think it's right to judge someone's art work if it has purpose or not? And again i did say that the narrative does not need to be literal in my eyes. The broken glass with a drop of blood was more from a film maker's point of view i guess. More story based. I am not a fine artist, so I might be wrong about most things haha. But i do think we both see eye to eye on this subject.
Thanks to Will for a thoughtful and sincere comments on this post. also, As always, manny makes a good point beyond answering the questions. thank you! I personally think little differently in terms of purposes and values that narrative or non narrative form of artworks can pursuit. so, I will try to extend it little further and make it into a question. i guess it will be more like reflection, not a questions.
ReplyDeleteBrand-new questions will be updated soon.
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ReplyDeleteHi Manny,thanks for the compliment for the film I try to look at animation from many different perspectives and still need to improve in many aspects. And I love watercolor ;)
ReplyDeleteBack to the friendly argument, yup so I think as an artist from the first person perspective I agree that the artist should have a purpose behind the art work, but that purpose can be shown or not shown to the viewers so in other words, I do think that while you may not see any purposes in the art work, there actually could be a hidden purpose of the artist behind because I think that purpose doesn't have to be visible... And that's why I said it's either wrong or impossible to say someone's art has a purpose or not... Maybe I am thinking too much here... Usually I am not good at thinking too much for a long period of time :)
Eusong thanks for the thoughtful questions and opinions on this blog look forward to more new posts.