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Perspective on Patience
18 years ago
General
So I said to my pencil the other day
Heya folks, this going to be one of those longer, somewhat philosophical journals. So if you're a fan of tl;dr, you might just want to skip onwards.
Onwards though,
Recently, in spat of depression, I've been doing a lot of thinking, a lot of studying, a lot of reading. I've been immersing myself without pause, to try and better understand not only myself, but art in and of itself, and what it means to me.
I picked up a book recently, 'Rollback' by Robert J. Sawyer, it appeared as a series in a science magazine last year. While the book is science fiction in the truest sense, approaching a very realistic 'problem', it's not so much the context of the book that grabbed my attention, but some of the content. In the book, one of the main characters visits a museum, and through an inner monologue, remarks that technology, in regards to digitally retouched or completely digital art, is 'supplementing patience for genuine manual skill.'
Now this struck a chord with me, being relatively new and quite frankly still very 'immature' when it comes to being artistically skilled, but having invested five years learning things on my own, I really started to think.
Comparing time and results between art I do traditionally (I do keep quite a few sketchbooks and muck with traditional media) and what I do entirely digitally, I myself can somewhat understand the statement. Personally, on my level, I do spend longer to complete a piece of art that's purely digital, because I know I have the freedom to change things without leaving artifacts and flaws behind.
But that's where things start to get blurry for myself, I still go through the same workflow, I just find that I exercise more freedom with methods (which tools I use) and principles (color theory, perspective, etc etc) when working digitally, because I don't have to worry about eventually ruining the paper by erasing too much.
I honestly think, this is the situation the inner monologue was aimed at, the crux of patience versus a 'higher level of skill'. The arguement is entirely subjective, highly biased, as neither side is fixed or without different interpretation.
Here's what I'd like to ask others: Do you think that the digital technologies have allowed those with a greater level of patience to perform as well or better than 'artists' who via which ever means have 'better skills'?
Please I'd like to know what others think, and if you could point others to the journal, I'd really like to get as many people thinking about this.
Onwards though,
Recently, in spat of depression, I've been doing a lot of thinking, a lot of studying, a lot of reading. I've been immersing myself without pause, to try and better understand not only myself, but art in and of itself, and what it means to me.
I picked up a book recently, 'Rollback' by Robert J. Sawyer, it appeared as a series in a science magazine last year. While the book is science fiction in the truest sense, approaching a very realistic 'problem', it's not so much the context of the book that grabbed my attention, but some of the content. In the book, one of the main characters visits a museum, and through an inner monologue, remarks that technology, in regards to digitally retouched or completely digital art, is 'supplementing patience for genuine manual skill.'
Now this struck a chord with me, being relatively new and quite frankly still very 'immature' when it comes to being artistically skilled, but having invested five years learning things on my own, I really started to think.
Comparing time and results between art I do traditionally (I do keep quite a few sketchbooks and muck with traditional media) and what I do entirely digitally, I myself can somewhat understand the statement. Personally, on my level, I do spend longer to complete a piece of art that's purely digital, because I know I have the freedom to change things without leaving artifacts and flaws behind.
But that's where things start to get blurry for myself, I still go through the same workflow, I just find that I exercise more freedom with methods (which tools I use) and principles (color theory, perspective, etc etc) when working digitally, because I don't have to worry about eventually ruining the paper by erasing too much.
I honestly think, this is the situation the inner monologue was aimed at, the crux of patience versus a 'higher level of skill'. The arguement is entirely subjective, highly biased, as neither side is fixed or without different interpretation.
Here's what I'd like to ask others: Do you think that the digital technologies have allowed those with a greater level of patience to perform as well or better than 'artists' who via which ever means have 'better skills'?
Please I'd like to know what others think, and if you could point others to the journal, I'd really like to get as many people thinking about this.
Need some word candy for your brain? Go read 
Kusanagi's stuff, it's pure awesome.
Kusanagi's stuff, it's pure awesome. 
i think some ppl who can draw well digitally have a hard time putting things down on paper manually :P
I mean, most of us don't grow our own food, make our own clothing, generate our own electricity, etc, etc, for a hundred things; it's laudable if you do, or even try, but it's not a bad thing that you don't. If someone with brilliant ideas who doesn't have the patience to spend five years learning to push a paintbrush and work oil paints instead uses technological means to supplement their skill, are we not better off for the ideas, whatever the means?