Inktober, Inkdulgence, Inksanity

So Debbie posted about one of those monthly artistic challenges, you know, like NaNoWriMo and such. Only this one was for doing a drawing a day for the month of October, in ink only, called #inktober. I never do these things because I never have enough time and energy to commit to something like that for a whole week, let alone a whole month. Except this time I just sort of slid into it without a whole lot of thought as if it were a comfortable pair of handknit socks.

I've always enjoyed doing ink sketches; my sketchbooks are filled with lots of ballpoint pen drawings, fountain pen sketches, that sort of thing.

Pen has the advantage that it's more permanent and doesn't get as smeared over time as pencil. The big disadvantage, of course, is that you have to be honest; you can't erase. So you need either a lot of confidence, to be bold and just make the strokes and to heck with it, or a way to draw the initial lines lightly, and then go over them later with more confidence once you have your basic shapes laid in. Both ways are valid to me, it's more a matter of your mood and the particular tool you're using; a decent ballpoint pen is pretty forgiving and lets you do light lines and subtle shading, where the fountain pens and flowing ink pens are very decisive.

A big part of this challenge is that you have to post the results online to keep yourself accountable. So in the process of getting the drawings into the computer I had to photograph them and take them into Photoshop to convert them into a reasonable format to post them online. And once in PS, a side effect of my process resulted in a nice grey background which looks oh-so-temptingly like tinted Canson paper. I love using Canson paper with colored pencils, and there's a wonderful push-pull of lights and darks you can do with tinted paper. So I went ahead and added lighter highlights to the drawing as if it were tinted paper, just using the burn tool to lighten a few areas. Now it's not strictly an ink drawing anymore, but I don't really want to get constricted by rules for this whole challenge; my purpose is to get myself to draw and keep drawing.

I love drawing people, but they have a lot of built-in drawbacks; we are so hyper-attuned to faces, searching for every nuance of meaning and mood, that we are hyper critical of drawings of people, especially realistic ones that aren't obviously caricatures or cartoons. The slightest imperfections of proportion or anatomy in a realistic drawing pulls the entire drawing down into a downward spiral of criticism. Drawing people and then putting the drawings up for anybody to see takes a thick skin or a fool. I decided to opt for the latter and just go ahead and enjoy drawing some interesting people. There are tons of amazing historical photos on the Library of Congress' Flickr site, so I went and found people I liked there to draw from. I like to use the drawings to look at, as a point of reference for faces and body proportions and details, but the drawing always seems to have a mind of its own and comes out quite different from the original photo it was based on.

It's harder when you're trying to draw someone you know because then you have more expectations and preconceptions about what the person looks like. With this drawing of Casey, I turned my reference photo upside down to try to just draw the actual shapes of the face. It's a common lesson used in drawing classes, to try to trick yourself into letting go of what you think your subject looks like and just drawing what the shapes really are. It's always an interesting exercise to see what comes out. 

At least in this case, I found that I still was too connected to Casey as the subject matter and it really constrained how I handled it all. Even drawing upside down wasn't enough to remove me from the attachment to the subject matter, and I could feel myself getting tight. There's a frustration and pressure with doing drawings that are 'supposed to be good', and the end results always show it. 

I think that unpleasant sensation of realizing that your lines aren't behaving the way you want, the pressure to 'get it right' is what makes a lot of people just give up and say they can't draw. Little kids don't feel that sort of pressure, but develop it as they get older, with a few rare exceptions. At some point we go from being happy just making crazy pictures to expecting ourselves to render things perfectly. And nobody is perfect. Most of us have to learn to let go and just allow ourselves to do a 'bad' drawing. So yeah, I'm still struggling with those pressures and expectations. That inner critic is really harsh. That's when a stream of consciousness drawing is good, just sort of letting things out. An idea can just sort of develop and I can let myself just enjoy shapes and textures more.

Money Tree

Deadline

So here it is the middle of the month already and I'm finding it harder to find time for the challenge, harder not to tighten up in the face of my own expectations, so I think I need to find some ways to loosen up more. I don't know if other people have such a harsh inner critic, but mine is pretty daunting. It can be a voice that spurs me to work to get better, try harder, but it can be a really destructive voice that paralyzes me and makes me just give up completely. 

 I figure I'll switch things up a bit, do some color ink stuff, more doodles where I can just let go. The challenge of posting the drawings online is facing what people might think; it adds another dimension to that inner critic. I fortunately have a lot of very supportive friends, so it becomes a source of external support, but it does make it harder to go ahead and post the drawings that didn't come out as well. ;) 

Ah well, onward.

Instadoodles - by Debbie Ridpath Ohi

What I'm finding: the more I draw for work, the more important it is to carve regular time to doodle purely for the fun of it. When I don't, my work stagnates and I don't experiment nearly as much.

Sometimes I doodle on my own, but I also love community doodling. Today, I posted the following:

 

 I'm taking a break right now from work to check what people have posted, and I LOVE the doodles so far! You can see what people have doodled today by checking #inkydare on Twitter and #inkydare on Facebook (for the latter, you'll only be able to see public posts or posts by people on your FB Friends list).

I love the different interpretations of the prompt, wide range of illustration styles and especially love the found object art doodles. :-)

 I'll be posting more Inkydare doodle challenges in the future via @inkyelbows on Twitter.

 And here's my "Morning" doodle:

 

Encouraging Young Artists (Blog Post Series): An Introduction, and Drawing For The Joy Of It

I've recently become more interested in resources for young artists, so will be posting more in Sketcharound on this topic. I've been having more conversations with other adults about artistic talent and creativity, and whether grown-ups who claim not to be able to draw can learn to draw for fun again.

My mom

But this got me thinking: when we are very young children, we draw with joy and without self-consciousness. Then...we grow up.

We all start out drawing random (random to adult eyes, anyway) scribbles. Some of us get better at it while others give up. While so-called innate talent may exist, I am convinced that a major factor is encouragement or discouragement from grown-ups at home and at school.

My mom liked to draw, and was my earliest artistic influence. She was a housewife and devoted to her children, but I'm positive that she could have been a successful illustrator in another life. She used to spend hours drawing with Ruth, Jim and me.

In the beginning, I remember mostly wanting her to draw princesses: anime-eyed beautiful creatures with sumptuous dresses and fancy shoes. Later on, she would draw part of the princess and ask me to finish the dress.

She'd also do a lot of sketching while we drew our own pictures: mostly sketches of us, which fascinated us. I drew more and more. I NEVER remember her pointing out any inaccuracy, or advising me to fix anything. I just remember the joy of drawing.

Comic I did when I was 16

Fast-forward years later: my sister Ruth went to art school and has now illustrated over 50 books (some of which she has also written). Over the years, I did comics and webcomics for fun as well as posting my doodles online. Then came the summer of 2010, when my friend Beckett (the same Beckett who co-writes this blog!) convinced me to enter the SCBWI Illustration Showcase in LA…and I ended up with a book contract.

There are many who think I just stumbled into children's book illustration out of nowhere. I have no formal art training, after all, and have been focusing on writing. But the fact is that I've been drawing all my life, and mostly just for the fun of it.

From now on, my Sketcharound posts are going to focus on drawing for joy as well as advice and resources for adults who want to encourage young artists. And if you're a grown-up who thinks they can't draw but want to draw: STOP WITH THE NEGATIVITY. Start drawing. You don't have to show anyone. Get a sketchbook and start doodling as often as you can, just for your own enjoyment. I'll write more on this in a future post.

-- Debbie

Creativity and Deadlines

My friend Rob found this video and it so perfectly expresses the problems we have as creative people with externally imposed, arbitrary deadlines. Tight, pressure filled deadlines produce mediocre work because there's no room for creativity.

It's true that many jobs really aren't concerned with getting really creative answers; they frequently just want the job done on time and within budget. Our culture makes it really hard to be creative, honestly; there's a very strong tendency to try to make kids fit their ideas within small pre-defined parameters that fit a standard imposed from some outside source. There's a lot of pressure to conform, to not be weird and unusual and odd. But really, creativity usually involves thinking outside the box, outside the cultural norms, outside the accepted set of answers.

It's really hard to make a living in this culture if you're stubbornly creative, stubbornly original and weird and don't fit into the norms. And that's really sad. Just think of all that we're missing out on. Clocks in your hand. Clocks within a cat. Time caught in a flower. Draw a clock. What does it look like to you?

Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite! | Video on TED.com

This is for Debbie and me and everyone else who shakes their head when someone asks to see what you're drawing and dismisses it with a 'it's just a doodle'. Heh. Turns out it's an innate way of thinking and an important way to process information. Well worth watching. :) And maybe we can all just have more fun with our doodles. Thanks to Karen McVey for pointing this one out to me.

A Non-Digital Sketch

Inspired by the Illustrator Intensive at the SCBWI Summer Conference in LA, I've been experimenting with non-digital (*gasp*) sketching. Paints are a very small/portable Windsor & Newton travel watercolor paint kit that Jeff bought me. The line work was done with a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, which was recommended by David Small during the Intensive.

Apologies for the slightly blurry photo -- I was experimenting with the Squarespace app on my iPhone, and I think I jiggled the phone a bit when taking the picture. The monster water container in the back is a handmade pottery piece created by my friend Luisa and painted by me. I have a bunch more one-of-a-kind pottery pieces that we made to put on Etsy; it's just a matter of finding the time.

Anyway, I had fun with this quickie sketch! I'm still way more comfortable with digital but figure it's good to always be learning new skills.

- Debbie

Everything On It

There's a new book coming out of poems by Shel Silverstein, for anyone who hasn't heard about it yet. NPR books has an article about how it came about.

His family gathered together once a month for quite a while and read poems out loud to each other to winnow the 1500+ poems down to a manageable number to put into this new book. It's being lovingly designed to follow in the look and feel of previous books.

And it will include gems like this one, which you need to read out loud to get the best effect, just like all of his poems:

Italian Food
Oh, how I love Italian food.
I eat it all the time,
Not just 'cause how good it tastes
But 'cause how good it rhymes.
Minestrone, cannelloni,
Macaroni, rigatoni,
Spaghettini, scallopini,
Escarole, braciole,
Insalata, cremolata, manicotti,
Marinara, carbonara,
Shrimp francese, Bolognese,
Ravioli, mostaccioli,
Mozzarella, tagliatelle,
Fried zucchini, rollatini,
Fettuccine, green linguine,
Tortellini, Tetrazzini,
Oops—I think I split my jeani.

 My guys have grown up on Shel Silverstein, so they're going to love this one. But they still think Shel was a little scary-looking in his pictures. I told them I saw a picture of him laughing once and he had a great grin.
You are missed, Mr. Silverstein. I'm glad we get to have another book of your poems.

Creativity - a Ted talk by Ken Robinson

So this Ted Talk is moving, funny and really very important. Sir Ken Robinson talks about schools and what we value and how we teach our children to be afraid to make mistakes and how we kill their creativity. It's moving and powerful and even if you don't have kids I'm betting we all can relate to what he's talking about. Have a look, it's really worth it.

How do you encourage creativity?
Listening to kids and encouraging their interests, of course. Counteracting at least some of the messages they carry home about what's cool and what's a success and failure from school is also important, I think. Parents now were kids who went through the same system of squashing original, troublesome thought, though, and it's hard to break out of one's own programming to encourage wild creativity in your kids, especially when it gets you calls from the principal's office because your kid just has to get up and dance around the room when she's thinking, or draws wickedly rude, funny caricatures of his teacher or corrects the teacher's bad spelling in front of the class or yells at a mean kid who won't stop bullying a friend or bursts spontaneously into a loud song about Mr. Data's cat Spot during quiet time or writes a story about pioneers and kills off the main character at the end and makes the teacher and principal worried about why he didn't write a happy ending and he tells them it just had to end that way because the characters demanded it or...
ahem.

So what is a solution for kids?

Well, I had a long rant about the school system here and the horrible budget cuts and the under-appreciated teachers and how parents are expected to make up the budget shortfall and what about the promise of free quality public education in this country of opportunity and all that. It's a fact that kids from lower economic levels get fewer opportunities than rich kids. It'd be so great if their schools could have the resources to encourage them, even if their parents don't have the means to pay for music or dance lessons and sports and all that. It's really crazy-making for a parent with limited resources, and when it comes right down to it, there are more and more of us in that boat than before.

But. Ranting here won't change it, won't fix it. Listening to the kids, encouraging them in whatever excites them and grabs their interest, that helps no matter what their circumstances may be. And it may not be much, it may not be enough, but it's better than nothing.

Doodle Questions

I've been thinking a lot lately about happiness, enjoyment of life, what is fun for me. I started thinking up questions to ask myself and doodling naturally took over. It's amazing what sorts of questions come out when you tell yourself you're just going to draw them for fun and stop worrying about whether you have to answer them or not. ;)

 I've been drawing silly and serious questions and letting them carry the same weight and the big questions keep sneaking in there.

Uncomfortable questions, things that we don't usually say to other people, secret stuff. I think maybe these belong in a private journal, I'm just not sure if it's a private journal of questions that anyone else might want to doodle around and write in and work on answering honestly or not, or whether it's just me in my own little run-around world who finds them interesting.

Why do you love that particular food? Why do you eat too much at one time? Why do you eat when you're feeling depressed? How do you change all of those things? Being uncomfortable isn't a bad thing, really, if you can look at those things honestly and let your inner observer and questioner speak up. It tends to be that quiet little inner voice that we often are so well-trained to squelch. What happens when you listen for it and let it speak clearly?

I think maybe if the questions are put in a fun, non-threatening way maybe they could become a real path for self-discovery. Of course it could be argued that its just another navel-gazing exercise in self-absorption, but I'm going to choose to believe that view is just that harsh inner critic trying to squelch the fun-loving, self loving voice.

We follow all sorts of rules all the time. We do things we hate because it's expected of us. We work jobs that suck because we need to make the money to buy the stuff and make our way through the materialistic world we live in. We teach our kids to behave, control themselves, eat properly and do their boring, rote homework and sit still and color within the lines.

What would happen to the world if we all colored outside the lines?

So I'm doodling more questions. If you think of any you want to add, just add in a comment here and I'll draw them up. :)

Doodlepost from Debbie

Still learning Photoshop CS5. I've gradually been switching over from Corel Painter. Though I've been a longtime Painter user, I've gotten frustrated by the crash-y updates. In PS, I need to get better acquainted with the process of creating custom brushes. For this daily doodle (originally posted on DebbieOhi.com), I was experimenting with PS's brush presets.

Hicklebees

Hicklebees is an independent children's bookstore in San Jose. I had heard of it from friends, since it's here in the San Francisco Bay Area down in San Jose, but somehow I'd never managed to get there before now.

up by the main counter

So, anyone who was at this year's SCBWI conference and heard illustrator David Small's keynote talk would know about Hicklebees; he talked about his fairly depressing experiences giving talks and signings at the big box bookstores, and then compared it with his happy experience at Hicklebees. He illustrated it with drawings and cartoons that made everyone laugh and applaud, and honestly it made all of us wish we could go to Hicklebees.

tucked away in a corner

I've mentioned before that all of the bookstores in our area have closed. Riley and I especially miss being able to go to our local bookstore and hang out and read. We usually went to Border's since it was friendly enough and we could get a hot chocolate and sit and read easily and the selection of books was decent, even if based mostly on sales status.

At the SCBWI summer conference there was quite a lot of talk about Borders going out of business and why and what that meant for the publishing industry, along with the whole e-book revolution and how we all had to adapt. Some of the publishers and agents who talked were saying that with the loss of the big box bookstores, probably the big stores like WalMart and Target and Costco would step up and start selling more books. The impression I got from them was that they had little concern about what this meant for regular people; they seemed more focused on sales numbers and market shares. Perhaps their jobs are too many steps removed from the end consumers, but it revealed a shocking blind spot on their part.

And I'll be honest here: their apparent unconcern for the people who actually buy their end products (people like me and my family) made my heart sink; it felt like a slap to those of us who aren't in the upper economic brackets who nevertheless love bookstores, books, reading and the whole experience of browsing books. E-books aren't something my family uses; we have no e-readers, no devices to make it easy and we're not likely to spend a chunk of the limited money we have on something like that. My boys are avid readers; they say that those stores like Costco and Target only have the more boring grown up books or baby activity type books and nothing much inbetween, which is sadly true.

There's a huge difference between coming to a place like Hicklebees, shown here, and standing in a noisy crowded Costco aisle looking at a chaotic, disorganized pile of scattered books offered on 2 big flat tables. It doesn't make for a pleasant experience, let me tell you. This crisis for the bricks and mortar bookstores really does affect people, and kids most of all. Our local library has had to cut their hours and what books they can acquire, which really impacts middle and lower income kids. The school libraries are affected even more severely by budget cuts. The lack of an accessible, interesting library and no available bookstores means kids don't get to use, see, feel or read books, unless they have determined parents who can take the time and money to drive long distances to go to cool places like Hicklebees. All of these things make it a whole lot harder for middle and lower income parents to expose their kids to reading, much less help them learn to love reading. Reading is not fun at Costco or Walmart. At Hicklebees it's like heaven for kids. That's what my kids said when we went there.

So the boys and I made a trek down to San Jose. Well, actually 2 treks, since Riley and I went the first time as a one-on-one outing and we loved it, and we ordered some books that are hard to get, so when those books came in we all went back. The second time I took some pictures. :)

There are books everywhere, of course. It's not a huge place by any means and the outside looks like a little hole-in-the-wall store in downtown San Jose, but it's charming both inside and out.

There are a lot of special little nooks and crannies to hang out in and read or play with the toys.

knights and horses

pop-eye dinosaurs to squeeze

over in the crow's nest area

conversation with a dinosaur

There's framed art, letters and other goodies on every spare bit of wall space between bookstacks.

wall of cool things from famous artists and writers

in the back corner with the train table

 And there are autographs and drawings in marker everywhere, especially on the back walls and doorways and bathrooms.

David Diaz- for Debbie!

Jules Feiffer

In a corner in the men's room

 The names you can find tucked away are famous and legendary and amazing and.funny. A sense of humor is everywhere you turn and it makes you wonder why the rest of the world doesn't seem to be this way. Are childrens' book people the keepers of most of the playfulness and humor in the world?

Santa in the men's

look for the mouse...

by the back room exit

Otter!

I'm not sure what the solution is to the changing market for books, and I know we all need to adapt.

 But I know with certainty that we need to keep the rare places like Hicklebees alive.