Most of my friends consider me to be artistic or even” an artist,” but, I say: “You have to make art to be an artist.”
Smart aleck response, but I mean it. You use it or lose it. Don’t get buried with your ideas. Don’t let life get in the way of your interests. And your dreams don’t come true because of miracles, they happen because of effort…. Mmm hmm, so, why have I put away all the paper pads and the art supplies? I dunno. There’s a lot of competition of ideas these days, and they make the most amazing images these days, don’t they? Super slick and stylized, or wildly beautiful and perfectly proportioned…. It is intimidating, but why should an artist care to compare?
I don’t have any particular idea I’d like to work on right now, and that’s the real “problem.” Waiting for a spark of inspiration. To be honest, I get them every day. But rarely do I sit to commit the work to bring forth the visions I have. And then, when I do, they aren’t perfect, and it’s a lot of effort to do over paint on canvas or pencil and pen on paper. I end up just throwing it all away.
And then I bought an iPad and iPencil, and the app Procreate.
Really, these are amazing tools for creativity. Often, I get stuck just exploring all of the options and controls in these kinds of programs. And I’ve had drawing pads and programs in the past, and did some interesting personal projects. But it was awkward and laborious and time consuming. I don’t really want the perfection of “graphic design.” I prefer a more organic look. And Procreate does a fantastic job of providing almost all of that.
My art pal, LuAnn Zubak, has been doing a series of cloud photos over Baltimore City. And, I thought it’d be fun to see what comes out of them. Here’s a few of the doodles I’ve done to get into practice of using the old imagination circuits, and also using my hand ✍️ to loosen up, instead of a stiff and staid mouse and a keyboard to be productive. I think it is progressing in an interesting direction.
Photos by LuAnn Zubak.
Illustrations by JDUy.
(Alll images © jduy.com 2020. Must have written permission from the original creators to reproduce.)
