~~art rambles, etc.

[reenka]

i was saying something about how my state of mind right about now resembled very hyper mice running around in a circle and biting each other's butts, but that's neither here nor there. i doodled draco from LuW again, and he still doesn't look right, but i might be getting better, or i might not. regardless, it only took 5 minutes to do, so i shouldn't expect much. still sort of happy with harry, though.
    when i only compare myself to myself, i feel fine, optimistic even. when i realize there are a gazillion people better than me by about a gazillion times, i want to cry and crawl into a hole and never come out. the only thing i feel confident in is my ability to appreciate it when i am outdrawn, outwritten, and outgunned in general, heh. ah, what a sweet world it would be if powers of perception equalled powers of execution. on the other hand, i would then be semi-omnipotent (well, you know, close enough), so maybe this is all a good safeguard...

i think people who say art now is sucky, people are sucky, talent is rare (now, in the past, things are different, according to those people, usually), and santa claus is a lie made up by evil corporations bent on raping small children's minds (ok i made up that last part), are kooky. wrong. stupid. they've got their heads where the sun don't shine, that much is obvious.

now, i'm not indiscriminate. i can tell the difference between technical ability and actual gift for capturing the ineffable, the mysterious, the beautiful, the painful, the ancient and the real. it is a very clear thing, in art at least. i see a lot of fan-art that is bogged down by lack of spirit, lack of insight. people can draw, but they can't see. i don't cry in horror at my inferior skillz, or in awe at the thunderously gorgeous imagery, when i see those pictures. you've got it or you don't-- same with writing. a bit harder to tell, between technical prowess and actual grasp of Meaning and beauty and such, but still possible. difficult because you're using the very medium your readers are using, when they think. the words are often transparent (unless they're particularly beautiful or stupid, or you're particularly sensitive), and usually, the meaning is either obviously there or obviously not. though yes, a lot of writing is empty too, and you get the feeling the people are only using this medium to clear their minds of junk, much like a good earwax removal. i will refrain from speculating on whether their minds are actually stuffed with earwax, because as we all know, Reena Is Nice (bwahahaha). erm. also, it's entirely possible i have some weird prejudice against over-cutesified-anime!harry-- ok i know i do. minimalism is hard to do well. innocent smiles and huge guileless eyes have to be done really well to be on the other side of the barrier that separates "cute" and "annoying".

pylite's link to an old gundam wing fan-art site (that now has hp, of course), is what made me think of all this, as well as the digital art site, which has more amazing talent concentrated in one spot than all of hollywood put together (but i am just being bitter). i've noticed that a lot of hp fanart (and fanart in general) is beautifully done, but missing that certain something. that reflection of spirit-- that bit of identity, that tells you this is a character you know and love, come to life. it pings that certain section of your brain that has "draco malfoy", or "love", or "harry", or "painful, torn, angry tenderness" (ha!) stamped across it, for example. rings the doorbell, so to speak. it's funny, the way some pieces just don't have a punch to them, and some, just flail miserably, trying to pretend stating the obvious is a grand, beautiful thing.

    on a different note, you'll need to copy and paste this, but this "missing scene" from PoA is just too funny. i am easily amused.

i've never been a self-conscious artist, in terms of, i never -meant- to express anything, and it just kind of came out anyway. but looking at a lot of art, i find that while it is beautiful, it expresses very little, or not enough, or if it does, it has not that much to do with the work it is referencing, if it is fan-art. same with fic. but nevermind that. a lot of things -are- successful, and -are- glorious and i'm all about eliminating the negative and accentuating the positive, as everyone knows.

and anyway, it's much more fun talking about original art anyway, since i don't sound like such a grinch and instead gush and cry and say how i'm a lowly worm, not worthy to live because obviously i can't have anything to contribute now that all this has been created. ahem~:)

~~
- everything by possumtoy makes me drool, but the mermaid and lady in white in particular;
- the females section;
- everything by jezebel ~ the goddess and the unicorn are amazingly lifelike and beautiful;
- renonevada's inks are too sexy, and this undersea guard is beautiful;
- naomi's abandoned city is gothic and strange and like something out of my dreams;
- because i'm a sucker for red-haired elves;
- stardust fairy by mongi reminds me of some killer urban fantasy books;
- butterflies & stars girl, harry's other self and headphone girl, as well as most other things by jasinski.

~~
oh, and btw, this reply to rosenho's post on our common adulation for evil characters and her own reasons for it, made me question myself (yes, again)--

It's faulty logic "I am a good person. I like Spike. Therefore Spike must be a good person."
    

too true. on the other hand, i've never tried to make any "bad" character "good", and in fact that's always annoyed me. but then, i think these labels are a bit boring. first of all, you can't go around saying spike is the same as a run-of-the-mill killer, because (newsflash!) he's a vampire. draco isn't a death-eater (yet, i guess), so really he hasn't been all that "evil", and is only nasty, and evil by association with a) House; b) parentage. truly evil characters don't exist-- unless they're cardboard cut-outs. shades of grey, blah, blah. but you can like even the most black-hearted of villains, it's true (personally i wouldn't -love- them, but that's just so far). this isn't only fiction-based, for me. in real life, i may very well like you even if you're a jerk. oh well. this is probably because, jerk or saint, you're unlikely to direct it towards me, because in actuality most people don't bother with me. it's all very theoretical, heh.

people are either interesting or-- not, to me. some of them are annoying, a lot of them are beautiful, loads of them are stupid. but meanness/evilness is, to me, a sort of cancer upon the soul. it's not so much that i excuse it, i just consider it a disability. their hearts are frozen, malformed, shriveled. they are, largely, sociopaths to one degree or another. they're still human, and can be taken, and liked even, as long as you don't try to pretend they are something they're not, and take them on their own terms. especially characters who aren't -old- yet, developmentally stunted, in the process of growth, etc. i can't just say, "they've done bad things, if this was real life, i'd want them to suffer". that's just inhumane. of course, just because i like draco/spike/genghis khan, doesn't mean i admire them. bleh.


~~
guh...! guh..! adorableness straight ahead...!
i found nasubionna's fanart way back in june, but i don't remember this...! *dances with glee* oh and btw. she's one of those people who do it right. emotion, spirit, execution, humor, everything..! yeay!

    so. this is from her GoF illustrations (she has pics for all the 4 books), draco & pansy at the ball. oh..my...gahd..! that is pansy...! wah. not all her work is so spot-on, but a lot of it is. like this pic of poor harry cowering next to snape, peering at a veritaserum bottle. harried!harry, heh. adorable. also, she does the best sirius i've seen yet. really.

Comments

*sweatdrop*

[metro99.livejournal.com]

This is probably all just babble you don't want to read. I wish I could post something intelligent in reply to your posts, but instead I'll do this:

I realize that this probably wasn't the point of this post, but you really depressed me. It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing, actually. After all, I think everything happens for a reason, and you were the thing that was supposed to stop me from getting a big head. Thank you!

But anyway, I agree with you on a lot of that. It's weird, but I realized that a lot of writing is empty before I ever realized that a lot of art is empty. I always brood about the fact that my writing has no special meaning and that it doesn't hold any particular talent. I believe in that "you have it or you don't" philosophy when it comes to art forms. That's always depressed me, because I'm one of those people that learns to write by reading about it. I learn grammar and punctuation and I memorize lists of stylistic devices and figures of speech. Writing expressively is not something you can learn in a book, unfortunately.

You make a good point about some people trying to come across being profound and just not succeeding. It makes me think of people who aren't in it for creating something, but rather for recognition instead.

In short: I've learned that not just any old yutz can become an artist.

[unstasis.livejournal.com]

Well not my journal so I guess I don't really ve a right to respond.. but. I've been freezing out and not getting to really making a start on my journal too much, hoping to have the next entry really hopefully maybe actually be... a"serious post that "means" something. .but anyway..

I guess I'm not necessarily in the have it or you don't school. I guess I think that everyone except some small portion (like criminals:) of the populace that has a deficiency of basic humanity can do something.. And I guess by that, they can at least use it as an outlet. Art shouldn't necessarily be about recognition.. It should be about expression. And even if no one but you can see it, at least it helps you communicate with some hidden part of yourself. But As far as the devices.. and even techniques... I guess they help create "Universal Beauty" or might even help you in your commmunication with yourself by helping your hand/eye/creativity/linguistic/rhyming/rhythm coordination and all.. but I guess I'd say try lettinyourself go and see what comes out (at least sometimes) and even if it isn't as "good" in comparison with Them at least you are maybe learning to coordinate your spiritual/limbic/emotional self with your outputing (execution as our master of ceremony said).

Anyway.. If you want to see sort of stuff I have dementedly outputted you casn look at
this (http://hopeisus.fateback.com/story.html).. and to unclutter her Majestic of Wind and Plain's Journal I'll copy this little snippet as an entry in my little journal and you can post there if you want.. here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/unstasis);).

[deche.livejournal.com]

i do agree with what you said. art is nothing without spirit.

that said. i completely suck.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

wah..! put me in a tight spot, you have. be honest, i must, for you to believe me. but let me say, suck you do not, young jedi ~>:o
*giggles*

erm. you do have a minimalistic/comic-art style, but it definitely has personality, a life to it. i can sort of tell your take on your characters from the way you draw them-- they come alive to me, they tell a story. i was just being snarky, thinking of people who just have their characters smile mindlessly, and blink with their wide innocent eyes (like some of pylite's work), or are pretty and empty-- sort of having nothing to do with their subjects, like most of zamber's stuff (even though she has my adulation for her draco's hotness, he's really um...not very close to being draco. or a guy).

my only area of quibble with any of your fanart is that you're kind of careless with the lower half of their faces, ie the mouth, usually just sort of -there-, y'know? it's a weird sort of manly-jaw thing (since pansy is definitely different), and just an element of style which you probably intended. your pieces always have emotion-- like this one (http://personal.www.umich.edu/~dcheng/od/graphics/dracblue.jpg) for example, and this one (http://personal.www.umich.edu/~dcheng/od/graphics/lucius.jpg) and so on and so forth~:)

it's not like it's some sort of high bar of excellence or anything. i just want to see things that breathe-- that -remind- me of something. it doesn't have to be a very linear thing (otherwise i wouldn't go for nasubionna's stuff), and it's hard to analyze precisely, but, yeah. you definitely don't seem to be just producing things automatically, purely expressing technique ^^;;

erm, but that's just my opinion, like the rest of it ~:)

~reena

Re: *sweatdrop*

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

well, An Artist is really a bit of an intimidating concept. must separate Artist from Art.
even if you produce bad art, you're still an artist-- not an amazingly good one, but still.

as far as learning from books--
all it takes is a sort of epiphany, a conjunction between something you want/need to express and possessing the means to express it. while it's easy for me to write expressively, most of the time i have no clue what i want to say, and um, that really slows me down ^^;;

writing style itself is only important for some things, for some styles. transparent-- ie, "normal" writing-- is fine, if you're just telling a straight story. it's only in poetry where the writing itself is important. what you want is a -point-. what is it that you're writing to say? if you say as clearly as you know how, and if it comes from the deepest part of you, then it would have a hard time being bad~:) and would probably be beautiful.

bad writers aren't so much ungifted in the art of putting words together (though that happens), as unwilling to think. they regurgitate others' thoughts and emotions mindlessly, not putting anything of themselves into it (although with some of them, i wonder how much of them there really is, in the first place).

erm. but anyway. yes. a lot of people are Much Better but so could you be-- Much Better Than You Used To Be ^^

~reena

[deche.livejournal.com]

hmmm. i feel bad. didn't mean to put you in a spot. i just tend to look at my art and feel it's very flat lifeless. i can't help but think everyone sees it that way. so when i read your piece it reminded me and i sulked. i sulk tons.