Oh, crap, I suck :-D

 Ok - this is what I managed to create as the first day challenge work. You see the model here: Rudolf Koivu's Snow Queen. It's so bad I can't help but laugh. It's just bad. :-D
But it's a good thing :-) The only way from bottom is up ;-)

What I have written on the corner there:
- draw what you are going to paint properly first. Get down all the lines, crisp and pure, in their right places.
- Use more color. A LOT more.
Because, frankly, it's not just bad. There's a lot of potential there. I am able to learn and I will be better.

This is something I'm doing just for the fun of it... a Kitsune calendar... And right now it sucks too. The colors are all wrong, and the background is bad and what's with that white... I have no idea what to do with it. And it's really flat. Just areas of color... not much depth at all. It doesn't even look flat the same way as Japanese woodprints do... it just looks like someone has failed drawing a picture of a kitsune in snow under a pine tree :-D
Well... I suppose it's not done yet, and I need to keep adding layers and layers of color... shadows and light and I need to "embroider" the kimonos and then we'll see what we have, but right now it sucks and I don't know what to do about it, and I'm pretty tired with it. So - I'll let it stand for a while and keep doing my daily exercises, and learning things, and perhaps one day I'll know what to do with it :-)

Art Challenge

I am really bad at DOING things. I have enough skills, talent and eye to make nice works, but I don't DO anything. It really is so that "done is better than perfect"... If you have DONE something, there's IS something, but if you don't DO, because it will not be good enough, or perfect, or just as you want it to be, or all that, there will be NOTHING.

Bah. Enough with big letters.

So - I decided to challenge myself.
I will pick 365 artworks I like, and then I will copy them, one a day.
I won't be able to copy them very well, because - hey, a day is a very short time when it comes to making art - especially illustrations and the art of the quality I like. To reproduce something perfectly is not my aim with this challenge, or exercise. The goal is to
a) learn to see what kind of colors, lines, compositions and subjects I prefer - learn my own style
b) get rid of the "I don't know what to paint" excuses
c) get rid of most of the other excuses. As I don't need to produce anything perfect, a sketch would be enough, I won't be able to excuse not doing it.

You see, the goal is to paint. I have never produced as much as I did when I was in school, and I have never developed as much as then. It's obvious to me - the more I paint, the better painter I am. I won't get better by WISHING I could paint.
Nothing I did in school was meant to be shown to anyone. I did most of it just for the fun of it, because I had an idea, because I wanted to see my idea on paper, and there were no-one else who could do it for me.

Also, if the idea of copying someone's work bothers you - don't.
Firstly, that was the way the artists learned during Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli all learned that way, and what is good for them is good for me.
Secondly, you are not claiming ownership of anything. You copied the composition, theme, subject, colors, lines, everything, from someone else. It's okay to copy.
I mean, this obsession with originality is probably one of the biggest obstacles in the way of wannabe artists. No-one is a master from birth, everyone has to learn, and humans learn by copying. Even the most original artworks are at some level copies of something, if nothing else, then copies of nature. Of course, you are to have some amount of originality when you become an artist, but we are not talking about people who ARE artists, but people who ARE GOING TO BE artists. You are a student, a beginner, a wannabe. Accept that fact, embrace it and use your right to copy :-D
(Besides, just think about Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp. If they are considered not only artists, but some of the greatest modern artists... Geesh. It's okay to copy.)

Besides, I want to be an illustrator, not a "real artist". There is a difference.