Kids These Days

THE WRONG TROUSERS

Do you guys have OCs you've never been able to let go of?

Like most art kids I spent most of my time living in a different world than the one I was in. Much of that time too was in worlds I created with friends; that's what started my love of collaboration. None of the worlds I had were just mine, which led to learning how to communicate and share ideas with other people.

As I got older and make-believe became 'childish' I kept these stories and built upon them. Still with the same friends (I've been lucky to have friends I've known since childhood), but our stories became secret. Texting about them, using online messaging to keep an ongoing RP, or even notebooks that we'd pass back and forth in between classes.

Sharing my OCs was scary. I loved them, but was afraid of the societal perception of still having 'imaginary friends.' Then I pursued art, more specifically animation. Animation is FULL of artists who have OCs that turn into incredible shows, and even looking back on characters like Superman, or Spiderman, or the Looney Toons, those are all characters that someone 'made up' and had a connection with.

However, that didn't mean I was comfortable. For one, what if my characters were 'bad?' and two, all of my characters have been attached to stories with friends who are not in art. I'd be taking credit for something they created. It has always been difficult to let that side of the conversation fade.

My decision doesn't have to be to stop though. There is nothing wrong with giving credit and moving forward. It's just the same as getting commissioned to draw someone's DND character or getting hired to work as a vis dev artist and saying what the project is for!

Plus I've always been touched when someone remembers my OCs or shows interest in them. I also believe that if I am thinking about these worlds and how much they mean to me, how can I possibly believe that my friends don't feel the same sometimes? Just as we miss being able to run around and play princesses, or treasure hunters, I think my friends feel the nostalgia of worlds we build with complex political systems, magic, love, friendship, and ultimately play. As adults though, we find ourselves pressured to forget trivial things like that.

The older I get, the more I take pride in my stories, that I never gave up on them. That even though my friends aren't in art, they can see that they too can be creative.

With DND and the rise of things like Dimension 20 and Critical Role, I think it's becoming less stigmatized to have OCs again. I wonder how many people will go back to childhood memories and dust off a box to open it up and lend a hand in pulling out an old friend or two they thought was lost forever as soon as they filled out their taxes the first time.

As for me and this drawing: this is @queenofthetemplars OC and mine, with their daughter (also mine) playing what I assume to be a game of Rummy.

The thought of the three of them playing, Kaori (the child) and her dad (Shikaku) being the two actual players while her mother (Luna) initially sits out, only to look over her daughter's shoulders to help Kaori beat her calm, collective dad was heart warming to me. I initially drew 3-4 versions of this sketch at various angles because the perspective wasn't working. Finally deciding that instead of Luna looking fondly at the two of them playing I could have more narrative with her backseat playing.

You don’t have to say who is expecting you, or where you’re expected to be. They don’t need to know that, they just need to know you’re leaving. You don’t need other plans already, because other people don’t have any way of knowing if you’re telling the truth or not and social convention prohibits them from asking. They can’t argue that you shouldn’t have made plans for immediately after their event because that’s just their own fault for not telling you the correct timing. 

And if you’re like me and are autistic and incapable of lying, there’s still a way to make it work. Who says you can’t expect yourself to be somewhere? Who says you can’t be expected to be at home doing nothing? After all, the entire purpose of having a schedule in the first place is so that you have a time when you can expect whatever event to be finished. If you were ever given an end time, then at that time you can truthfully say that your past self expected you to be somewhere else afterwards, and then you can leave. 

The thing is, other people EXPECT you to manage your own time. That’s why they feel comfortable running over—because they think you’ll tell them when you have to leave, and then just leave.

She was basically scheduling one person meetings with herself where she could get work done and no one would bother her because they all had to check people's schedules before contacting them. So when they saw 'project meeting' on her schedule they wouldn't email or call her until after that time was up.

It was great for her to get work done that she would be interrupted for otherwise! And I love that. It really helped me plan schedules for myself where I would literally put a project time in my calendar and I wasn't allowed to take calls or answer texts during that time because I was 'in a meeting.' it also meant that if I was on the phone with someone I could say 'I have a meeting' and leave.

Let's talk about notes!

I write A LOT of notes in my sketchbook, but I didn't used to be that way.

When I was in school I believe I was told once to not draw in my notebook (typical art kid story). It was 7th grade prealgebra and after the one time I didn't use my notebook for drawing (very untypical art kid, but typical teacher's pet). It probably made my teachers pretty happy, but for me? It really separated 'note taking' from drawing. It wasn't until recently that I started taking notes consistently again. These in particular are from my studying of Richard Shmid's "Alla Prima II- Everything I know About Painting-and More"

I am a very careful note-taker, in school I would feverishly write down notes in class, then rewrite them (if I rewrote them) to look nicer. I am constantly writing things down as I hear them and then rewording them so that they make sense to me. This isn't a technique I learned from a teacher, or educational book, or even my mother who is an educator! It was actually from a show called "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide" a show that while cheesy, honestly still holds up so long as you remind yourself that it's a campy kids show.

In it Ned is failing a science class and so he steals a 'golden notebook' (I did say it was cheesy) that the teacher keeps on display as an "A+ Notebook written by a former student." The notebook is so informative and fun that Ned ends up acing his test and the teacher reveals that he wrote the notebook to engage his students. One of the issues in the episode is also that when Ned takes notes it's difficult for him to read back, so he rewrites them neater in a second notebook.

As a careful note-taker I would miss a lot of points during lecture if I spent too much time writing perfectly, so I adopted this methodology of rewriting things in order to have them be pretty, but the benefit was that I was forced to go back over my notes and reword them in a way that made sense to me, almost like I was having a conversation about the lecture with myself.

I STILL DO THIS. These notes that I wrote for these pages were on a separate sheet of paper that I then reorganized to fit my needs for the concept at hand. I often find myself unable to find a good time to write a note because I might really like a phrase or sentence in the middle of a paragraph but it doesn't fit with what my previous note is about. So then I have two simultaneous ideas I am switching between in my notes. If I can rewrite them it doesn't matter as much because I can organize them later!

You'll notice as well that I evaluate my own work in my sketchbook, often right after I finish as sometimes I will look back on a sketch and the note describes what I felt in the moment, how I approached the sketch, or something that can't be seen by going back and looking at it. I love being able to remind myself the trials of my sketches, the work I put into them, that they didn't appear out of thin air. It makes challenging myself more accessible.

These are my notes, and to tell you the truth, I am probably more compartmentalized in my notes than most artists, but it works for me! Some artists take notes through artist studies on each page, some take them in a separate notebook, some have a continuous thought wherever they have space. It's up to you to decide how best to take notes for yourself, and some day maybe you'll find yourself using a different method! I know some habits in note-taking have worked for me at different points in my life (flash cards, practice tests, research papers). So long as you know you have a bunch of tools to play with, you'll be able to problem solve your way into a solution for yourself.

As a final note: these are scattered throughout my sketchbook. Only two of these pages live side by side. Taking notes doesn't have to be consistent! I realized I was better off taking notes sporadically than 'saving' my next page for my notes. And carrying another sketchbook only for notes? That didn't work either. I got comfortable having a less aesthetically consistent sketchbook, which was surprisingly freeing!

Did you guys know you can actually put other paper in your sketchbook?

Crazy, right? I was always envious of artists I would see that would put post-it notes into their sketchbooks to change a drawing if they didn't like it. I thought it looked so 'artsy' and professional.

This is not a new idea, plenty of artists do this, and there is even a trend with having a 'thick' sketchbook with so many things pasted in it that it's hard to close (and if you look for those sketchbooks on YouTube you will find LOADS of tutorials on how to make one while also finding people regretting their thick sketchbooks?) Some of my favorite artist paste things from their trips (ticket stubs, leaves, packaging of things they note they like) drawing next to it as a way to commemorate the memory. Or they paste in notes they want to keep safe. I love that as a way to look back on those things fondly, and I've always been someone who remembers drawings by year, which I have a hard time doing with trips for some reason? Something like this can really help keep a timeline of those moments.

The mediums I use in my everyday sketchbook generally tend to be things like colored pencils, pens, and 'bible' highlighters (called that because they are not strong enough to bleed even on bible pages). More recently I've gotten back into practice with a lot of mediums that bleed or don't work well with normal sketchbook paper like alcohol markers, gouache, watercolor, and liquid highlighters (much more prone to bleeding).

Like many artists I have all sorts of weird things laying around, and lots of different supplies, but I've generally been tied to a sketchbook because I can always build off my previous ideas, plus I don't need filing cabinets with loose paper and folders I have to keep track of. That means my sketchbook I use regularly has to work with the medium I use most: colored pencil. For me, I love a sketchbook with smooth paper, almost no tooth so that my colors can really blend together, and my colored pencils look like pen, but I can still get tapered lines. Therefore I don't normally work with other mediums; the papers wrinkle, I have bleeding through multiple pages unless I remember to put a paper protecting the next page, and I can't draw on the backside of every page. A solution to using these mediums that don't work well in the same sketchbook? Any other paper!

I can do a watercolor study somewhere, flatten out the page, then paste it into my sketchbook. If I don't have my sketchbook on me I can draw on another piece of paper and I can always glue it in later. And if I am having trouble coming up with ideas? I like taking a fun patterned scrapbook page and gluing it in, then drawing on top.

This also gives me a great opportunity to cover up pages I don't like, or maybe I was just testing a few pens I had lying around to make sure they still worked, or maybe I needed to write down a grocery list and I don't need that in my sketchbook forever. I don't cover every page in my sketchbook I don't like (that's not showing my growth), but if I am feeling like I can take the page in a new direction I like, then why not?

It's important we find solutions for ourselves that we don't always know about. And it's also important to try new things! For some people this makes them MORE anxious to sketch because they feel like every page has to be filled to the brim and be perfect. So, if it takes the fun out of sketching, don't continue it, but still try it to see if it helps.

These are from my sketchbook from the week I assigned my students to use 3 different mediums on each page, which could include post-its, scrapbook paper, stickers, they just had to have 3 separate mediums they played with.

The first image I used scrapbook paper, alcohol markers, ink, and gouache.

The second used scrapbook paper, ink, liquid highlighters, sharpie, ink, stickers, a post-it, and a gold paint pen.

The third used 'bible' highlighters, ink, and post-its.

There is surprisingly zero colored pencil on these pages despite my love for it. I must have felt more inclined to experiment with the mediums I don't normally use instead!

Sketchbook tours have always made me a little queasy; when I was younger I has the worst sketchbook out of all my friends (though they might say otherwise).

To be honest, I think I let it happen, because I felt really self conscious when anyone asked to look at someone's sketchbook other than mine. It didn't matter that 9/10 times they would also ask about mine, the fact that I wasn't asked first, or that one time that someone didn't ask to look at mine, really got to me. Which lead to me being less confidant, and believing that if my sketchbook only 'looked better' people would be interested in my art.

This lead to a couple things: 1) when I got better because I went to art school I was shocked that people wanted to look at my work. 2) I live with a constant idea that my sketchbook pages will never be good enough.

I'm not sure if the acceptance of imperfection is what challenged me to redefine my sketchbooks or if I simply was an artist long enough to mature into a stable mentality about perfectionism. But either way, I have since challenged my approach of sketching. I now look at my sketchbook as a place to explore ideas and take notes about whatever am focused on.

Suddenly my sketchbook became a sketchbook people wanted to look at; I spent so much time trying to have that kind of sketchbook, asking the questions of what would make a perfect sketchbook page that I completely flew over the idea that the reason my other friends were being asked about their sketchbooks was because they were exploring. Having fun, drawing what they wanted to was part of the process and other people felt that when looking through their work. Even my 'fun' sketches were riddled with the idea that I thought they were meant for someone else; I'd agonize over poses and stick to generic ideas because doing something I didn't know how to do, and it not turning out good? No one wants to look at that.

It's like that friend that tries a little TOO hard to be liked by everyone versus the friend who doesn't care what people think at all. Most people gravitate towards authenticity rather than a try-hard (and this comes from a serial try-hard). I think a balance of both is good, obviously if I didn't care what others thought of my art it would be hard to be an artist who works to make others' ideas into visual narratives, but to get better we must listen to the critiques of those around us. However, if we are so obsessed with others opinions we never explore beyond what will make others happy.

I still have pages in my sketchbook that I don't let people look at, but it's not the pages full of misaligned drawings, or various notes, it's only the sketches that are too personal for others to see (mostly my OC's or thoughts on my own personal mental health). The fear of imperfection isn't gone, a sketchbook is after all an intimate journey into an artist's mind, and I am by no means perfect. But once I sketched cradling that fear, like a little kid who scraped their knee badly on gravel, I acknowledged the fear, but then I said "I know it's scary, but getting back up to run and jump and play is better than never making anything at all."

Over time it got easier. And now I sketch whatever is on my mind.

These few pages are not next to each other though they may seem like it, and it feels misleading to only say that this far into the post. It's a necessary truth I have to point out because as students we see pages like these and believe that our sketchbooks MUST look like this, page after page after page after, well.... you get it.

These pages are all demos that I did for students, several are on separate paper I then pasted into my sketchbook (something I never even THOUGHT to do as a student), and these span about 2 months worth of demos (minus the ones my students keep or I misplace) with pages in between of my other sketches.

Some of those in between pages are my OC's, plans for paintings, notes (which will be a whole other post), and fun things I get asked to draw by students. While this is a collection of demos, it is NOT the full picture.

My most recent month of exploration has been in sketchbooks. After talking with a lot of artists about their sketchbooks I have seen some hesitation on all sides (minus one, that being my artist dad who has always had a magically saccharine relationship with his sketchbooks).

And the one common trait I found was: fear.

This could be fear of perfection, fear of comparison, fear of not drawing enough, fear of drawing too much, fear of notes, fear of boredom, fear of personality, fear of intimacy.

You get my point.

But we should enjoy the things we create, right? We should cherish them! I use 'should' specifically because I came up with a list of 'shoulds' surrounding the advice of sketchbooks to show that everyone has an opinion about what you 'should' do with your sketchbook, how you 'should' treat your sketchbook, what your sketchbook 'should' mean to you.

And I'm here to tell you its baloney! It's not about someone else's opinion on your sketches, your drawings, or your version of creation.

You should brush your teeth. It's good sense and something that is proven to provide lasting health benefits in the long run.

But you 'should' put perspective in your sketchbooks? You 'should' treat your sketchbook as a visual diary? You 'should' work traditionally? I don't know that any of those things are good advice for EVERYONE. (And I suppose even brushing your teeth isn't great advice for people who don't have teeth. But if you have fake ones they still recommend cleaning those).

So do what you want with your sketchbook! I found that of all the advice I got, of all the 'shoulds' I have been told, there are times it worked and times that they didn't. I have advice I would never use, but for some of my students it's been AMAZING advice. And there are parts of my sketchbooks that I love and parts I don't love as much (I love the terms 'best' and 'least best'), but all of it helped me get to where I am. And if my goal is to create more, isn't everything I create worth it?

“It didn’t take me ten seconds, it took me forty years.”

I had a friend in college who was an absolutely amazing artist. I loved seeing his work! One time I said something to the effect of "I could never do that."

Talent is THE RATE at which you learn things, not whether or not you can learn certain skills at all.

The difference between the two is one is a regulated term. Anyone can call themselves “couture”, all that typically (not always) means is that their pieces are hand-made and one-of-a-kind, though many brands just stick it at the end of their name to sound fancy. It’s a glorified marketing buzzword.

Haute couture, on the other hand, is determined by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (formerly the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture), which is a part of the French Ministry of Industry. They have somewhere around 100 members last time I checked, and only these brands can present at Paris couture week, though they don’t have to have a live show.  These are some of the criteria for selection:

Additionally, I’ve seen a lot of confusion about the point of couture, which is somewhat understandable. I think sometimes the fact that certain brands couture collections are worn on red carpets leads people to think that couture just means “extravagant, expensive evening wear collection”, but as I’ve stated above, that’s not at all what it means.

Plenty of couture is never really meant to be worn outside of exhibiting it at the runway show, which is why they only make one. I’ve seen a lot of comments either not understanding why anyone would design something that’s unwearable or saying there should be a separate “fashion as art” category. That’s what couture is. 

Specifically looking at this season’s Viktor & Rolf collection as an extreme example, it’s truly a walking art exhibit. Not only is the craftsmanship needed to make the dresses stand like that absolutely insane, they’re also using it as a critique of how the internet has warped our perception of reality. If this was framed in a museum, people would be all over it. And yet, because it’s labelled as “fashion”, about 75% percent of the comments on that post are “stupid fashion people have gone too far who the hell would ever wear this what’s the point” (almost a direct quote FYI) Most people still see fashion as something that needs to be pretty, functional, and wearable, not something that could just be for the sake of artistic value.