frustration of knowledge (edit w/ scans)

I love learning... but sometimes its frustrating and difficult. It even at times makes me want to quit.. but its not till i get to that point do i start to learn. Often i actually do give up for a small period of time and come back to it and have a handle on it.

This is whats frustrating me:

My projects are becoming more and more time consuming... and I'm never satisfied with the outcomes. Currently I've been working on this one point perspective graphite drawing, which is on a 18X24inch sheet of bristol board paper. It is a rough drawing of my room, which a super imposition of some of the little creatures I've been drawing lately. The room on paper barely fits the description of my room and and i realized lately that i know nothing about shading.. When i was younger i used to blow off any type of art teacher when they would talk (lesson learned there) and thought i had a good hold on it it... Well, turns out i don't. I found that cross hatching though is a really awesome way to shade. Up close it looks too textured and almost like you don't know how to shade.. but from a distance i'm actually falling in love with the way it looks! This is where the learning has started.. i've gone from hating everything about the shading and the way my room looks to slowly enjoying it.. but this project is still taking several pain staking hours!

Whats the most frustrating is that i lost my Stylus pen! I need it to draw the Reeders and UI... but i haven't been able to find it. I have a spare but i hate the tip; its very smooth and allows the pen to flow to easily across the screen.. BUT from this i've learned that i can use that tip to make very natural lines that aren't over thought. After being frustrated for about an hour of drawing the last reeder "Lessons with that guy Death" i found my extra tips.. i went back to the type i like.. but I'm still not too sure about the spare pen.. its bigger and bulkier. =/ Out of all things to lose did i really have to lose that pen? They cost like 80$'s to replace!

Here are some scans of my first 2D Design project:

When i first started this project i didn't think this was gonna turn out cool. In fact i don't really like the originals as much as these ones. Whats so special about these? We'll once i loaded them on the computer i was trying to enhance the blacks, but along the way i stumbled across the invert function. When i did this it pulled out the texture of the black in and made it look more interesting to me. The Drawing on the top was actually my favorite at first still i did this inversion thing. now i actually enjoy the bottom one a little bit more.


Though i have the originals in black ink, I'm considering making prints of these on higher quality paper and maybe framing them for my room. I'm not sure. The gray tones really seem to make this image more effective and would actually accent some of the crap i have in my room.

project projection

My fear of judgment, my irrational idea that everyone was better then i was, and my unconscious beliefs that people would try to take what created away and make them their own - these are all things that stunted my growth artistically. I recently flipped through my old sketch pads to find that i was way better then i remembered. I was always so hard on myself when I'd draw, i misconstrued the concept of 'room for improvement' as an 'inherent failure'. It makes me said to think that i was really willing to give up a talent i was born with. Today in class when the teacher was talking about cross hatching, something i never did before (cause i thought it was stupid), i realized how rusty i am with drawing.. how if i would have kept it up how far along i could be today. This made me rather sad but i know better then to let such a thing bring me down, rather now i see it as what it is, room for improvement. I'm happier about this situation once i gave it thought and I'm now gonna start to absorb everything I've missed over the years I've been away from art. From here on out I'm dedicated to growth and enjoying what I'm doing on the way.

I've realized more and more that I need projects, i love them. Other then just working on The Noir Project/Reeder Rabbit/Unconscious ink... i decided that its time for me to just fill my days up with activities that keep my mind from wandering. Being idle is dangerous, it allows you to think too much about things that you shouldn't or wouldn't unless the time permitted. I have too many good things in my life to start thinking about the negatives that have come and gone through out the years. So now, on top of my school load I'm also helping two friends out with their projects.

Alek needed a better 'cleaner' website for his Coalition for a Green Glendale so i stepped in to help out. I've set up a basic design that he seems to like already; though i still plan to make some better graphics and clean it up a bit, i think it already looks a ton better already. Also, another friend of mine just approached me with the opportunity to work on something for his company. I've talked it through with him and Marc and it seems like Marc and i are gonna take up this project as well! :D He said this could look good for a resume, and maybe if i change majors i could even use it in my application for grad school. I'm gonna overall just be in charge of the graphic design and Marc with the programming, but still the fact that I'll be doing a project for company like that is pretty awesome!

Right now, i have no complaints about life.

In case you're interested here is the Site i'm working on for Alek: Coalition for a Green Glendale