The First Mile

As the sun rises, you check off your first two items in preparation for your big race: 1. Appropriate gear: running shoes and a light-weight tank top and short shorts 2. Stretches. Then, you start to mentally prepare for the race ahead. In the 5K race (3.1 miles) which is a typical cross-country course, you begin to think about your tactics for competing in the race. With your art job or assignment you begin to think about the stages it will take to complete your project. What are the tactics of runners that will help you win/finish your art project successfully?

Frame Of Mind.
There are always good ways to run your race and bad ways to run it. You want to consider your options before you put your foot on the start line. I was always a slow runner. I am naturally contemplative. I like to think a lot. I was never the fast one, but I always finished the race running. I won a couple of ribbons in competitions, but mostly I just ran. That was because I could focus on the finish line.



Run In Stretches.
What I recommend is what I learned from those cross country days--consider the race as a whole. You need to keep your legs moving and your mind on the race. You need to consider each mile completed as a separate achievement. Gradually increase your speed as you go. Do not become stagnant in your competition. Eventually push yourself to your top speed at the end.

The Long-Distance Commitment.
What I do not recommend is darting off the start line at 100 yard dash speed. I know runners from my cross country years in high school who completely missed the point of running a race. They completely overlooked the fact that foot races are a long-distance commitment. When the gun goes off they would sprint off the line for the first mile. Often these guys were more fit than me. They were often taller and thinner. In my opinion, better equipped than myself to run these long distances. These "jack rabbits" as we called them may have put a good scare on the competition, initially, but then they burned out quick. What good is that in a long distance race?

Conclusion.
Consider your art project as a long-distance race. Some may in fact be very short term in the scope of your life, but art is a discipline like any other sport. I am recommending that you look at your project in stages or in stretches. Think through and prioritize your process in a plan (a later post). You want to keep your project moving. Consider the pace that you need to keep to be strong in every stretch of the race. There will be times that you can relax your pace, but there will also be times to surge ahead. The best tact that I have learned is to pick short goals and to seek to surpass them quickly. You are in a race, so you can't slow down. Keep this in mind as you figure out how to win your prize for finishing your art project.

Short Shorts

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? 

Run in such a way as to get the prize. -I Corinthians 9:24 (NIV)

Creating art is like running a race. Like all sports running requires practise, practise, practise! You also have to have the right gear (running shoes, shorts, light shirt, etc...), stretch, think tactically, prepare for your competitors and the course, know when to refresh, think about your finish, and fueling your imagination to win.

Skimpies.
In high school cross country we had to wear the most embarrassing uniforms of all the sports teams. They had to be a couple of decades out of date by the time my class got to wear this badge of honor. As a low profile sport, my high school felt little need to invest in any new trendy uniforms. We wore what we called skimpies. You can guess why they got that name.

Flying.
We all hated these uniforms, but you know what? There came a time when I would not trade those shorts in for anything else. After several years of running during the hot hot summers in Indiana, I was grateful for this less restricting apparel. And their came a time that I longed for the school year so that I could once again feel as if I were flying. Any dedicated runner would know what I am talking about.

Dedicated.
Try as you might, without the right gear making visual art can be hard. If you paint in oil, cheap paint may make it difficult create the atmosphere that you long for. If you are a photographer, the wrong lighting in your studio could mess with your photos and your exposure will come out wrong. Or if your a cartoonist like myself, your inking brushes could cause difficulty in creating the sharp yet varied line you want to make.The truth is that dedicated people will do what it takes to become excellent at their skills or profession.

Conclusion.

Do your best work! Don't skimp on the supplies. You may go through a practise period that you can justify cheaper material, but eventually you will want to reach for a higher level and improve your skill.  You're a creative person after all and if you can't justify the extra dollars and cents to prove to yourself and everybody else that you're worth it, then you might want to consider a new profession or hobby. So, consider the gear that will make your art soar and hone your craft with that. I can guarantee that you won't be disappointed.

Anticipation

With every new piece of art created there is anticipation as to whether the piece will turn out as expected. All artists plow through this emotional turmoil from time to time.

For me this is the third time that I have worked through page 1 of The Course. I always anticipate it being better, because I know that over time my skills do improve and I absorb what others do into my routine and make them my own. 

See if you can tell the differences between the image in this post and the one that I posted a couple of weeks ago. There are subtle differences, but I expect them to make the final inked page look stellar compared to the last one.

Also, check out Speckled Forest on my EXPERIMENTAL ART page on this blog. That is where I will posting some of my stress relieving art. Enjoy!

Value Composition

Part of the process of producing a comic page is laying it out. Almost all professional comic book artists use some method of figuring out where all of their dark and light areas go on the page before applying any ink or drawing it up.

After realizing that I had not planned my inking out very well a friend suggested this method of blocking in the dark and light values before going to ink. I have chosen the traditional inking method entailing brush and dip pens, because the blacks are much more potent, permanent, and versatile than using technical pens, ball point pens, and Adobe programs.

My method of blocking in value is to scan in the page in its penciled state, scale it down to the actual page size, print it on gray paper, then use black and white pastel to find the best possible scenario for the values of the page. I have to seriously consider the light source when I do this. Typically when you are working with just lines it is more difficult to consider some of these things ahead of time. Back tracking with this method has helped me think ahead on future pages.