“Chorus”
“In the Garden”
“Polyphemus”
All art in this post © Jeffrey Harp. See more from his Victorian Surrealism collection on Flickr.
Category: Art
Moments in Writing: Know When to Give Up
I took on a writing commission months ago. The brief was to write a dozen children’s stories for someone’s niece and nephew, working in details of the kids’ lives to make a keepsake for Christmas. I was given a deposit and let loose.
I can’t do it.
It’s not for lack of trying. I’ve tried, and tried, and tried. But I just can’t wrap my mind around writing for children. C says it would be easier to fake it if I were a fantasy writer…“Kids like that kind of stuff.”
True, but I’m not elves-and-magic-beans. I’m murder-you-and-feed-you-to-pigs. I don’t have kids. I don’t know the first thing about age-appropriate stories. I didn’t even read kids’ books when I was one.
I think part of growing your artistic career is setting limits and knowing yourself. So as much as I’d love for those kids to get my stories under their tree, I’m going to have to refund that deposit.
I thought I would feel guilty. But instead I feel proud. Proud of myself for moving forward with my career the way I want, not the way other people expect. It feels good.
How to Feel Miserable as an Artist
By Keri Smith (you might know her from Wreck This Journal)
(via the Facebook page for Some Guy Who Kills People)
Michael Shapcott’s “Gage and Church: the Undead”
Gage and Church: the Undead (Pet Sematary)
18″ x 24″
Graphite, Acrylic, and Oil on Canvas
I love this, and it turns out I’m not alone: Miko Hughes, the actor who played Gage in Pet Sematary, commented on Shapcott’s blog! (I always wondered what became of little “Gage”. Turns out he ended up hot.)
(via michael-shapcott.com)
Article: Creativity Linked to Mental Health
“New research shows a possible explanation for the link between mental health and creativity. By studying receptors in the brain, researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have managed to show that the dopamine system in healthy, highly creative people is similar in some respects to that seen in people with schizophrenia.”
…
“Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box,” says Dr Ullén about his new findings.
Read the rest of the article here.
I’m not schizophrenic, but I do have my fair share of nutty, and I’m pretty gosh-darned creative. I’ve never thought of the two being associated.
What do you think?
(via my pal Chainsaw, who is presently blogless)
Short Film: Suckablood
One of my favourite things about blogging is finding new content. Most of it is as new to me as (I hope) it is to you, which means I get to discover new things all the time.
Sometimes I find brilliant little gems. Like Suckablood.
I don’t remember the last time I saw a film so flawless. I loved EVERYTHING about this: the casting, the makeup, the set, and of course the story. I wouldn’t change a single thing.
I hope you love it as much as I do.
(note: the film has been entered in the Driven Creativity Competition. If you enjoyed it, please vote; I’d love to see more from these folks! I am not in any way affiliated with this movie, other than being an instant fan.)
Doubting Yourself? Keep Trying.
“We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us. The sooner we get them out the better.”
– Walt Stanchfield
“I think it takes about a million words to make a writer. I mean that you’re going to throw away.”
– Jerry Pournelle
Sometimes it feels like it’s never going to come together. You might be having an off day, or be stuck in the middle of a slump, and you feel like you’ll never get anywhere. It’d be easy to give up. It’d be easy to say that you’ll never get better, never be great.
But look.
Jonathan Hardesty began posting his sketchbook to ConceptArt.org when he was just beginning as a visual artist. His first posting looked like this:
Some people would get discouraged, would say that they’re not cut out for art. They’d look at a sketch like this and compare it to the work of practiced artists and conclude that they’ll never be as good.
But Hardesty kept drawing. And painting. And posting. He told the forums that he filled every spare moment with drawing practice. I seem to recall a story of his wife driving a long leg of a roadtrip so he could keep his hands on his pencils. He developed a singlemindedness that we could all learn from.
Eventually he posted this:
Then this:
What if he’d stopped at the green cylinder? What if you stop every time you get discouraged?
His sketchbook is still growing. You can find it here.
Jonathan Hardesty’s 9 Year Journey From Novice To Master Painter from Mark Erdmann on Vimeo.
Dark Craft: Walking Dead Embroidery
The talented Rebecca Simpson over at Rebecca Simpson Design has blown my mind.
Simpson decided to embroider some of the comic art for The Walking Dead as a gift for her fiance, and the results are incredible. Check it out:
(images copyright Rebecca Simpson Design)
Simpson says she “[u]sed different amounts of black strands to achieve shading.” The precision is what makes this piece so fantastic. Well done!
sniderwriter 