Jemma said...

I remember what it was. It was that I need to try drawing bigger -that is, images with more bits in them, more people, more objects, whatever.
Possibly I forgot that bit because it unnerves me somewhat.

She's right though. I can't explain exactly what it is about the idea of big images that still makes me nervous but I think maybe this is my last hurdle. I was doing big things, well big Thing, in semester 1, and it failed. I guess there's still some bad emotions attached to that thing (I've not watched it since, I know I wasn't happy with it) and it wasn't the fault of the project for *being* big, but it certainly didn't make anything any easier for me on top of everything else.
Even with those connotations aside, a big thing requires an investment of time so there's more pressure for it to work, and I still have that little niggle that says 'Yeah you can draw 1 original character, yeah you can draw 2, but can you draw 3? 3's pushing it a bit, your proportions are getting sloppy and one of them isn't as good. 4? We're running out of poses on 4, and this has all taken a while, are you sure this idea is going to hold water? 5... and so on. The idea of doing 20 people in one drawing does scare me a bit, but this is the level my class are on, so I need to push up. Fred (I think it was Fred... no it wasn't, who was it? Stephen! It was Stephen) Stephen did this one project that was a map of about a dozen major landmarks in London. That kind of thing, on that scale, doesn't give me a full scale freak-out any more but it does still make me feel quite insecure. But then I see Paul Duffield go do this:

and I wish I had the guts to do something with that many people, and I proper background. I'm getting there. I'm a lot closer than I was before, but it's a risk. It's not certain, it's not 'safe', and I need to stop being safe.

Maybe it's all in the planning. Do a neater plan than I usually like to do, so I know exactly what is going where (a way of working I like less since I had repeating myself, but maybe it's a necessary evil) and then break it down into sections. Do one bit at a time, and build it up in small and maneagable chunks.
That's doable. It'll take longer but I can do that.
Aaaaand breathe.....
And proceed.


Also Jemma says play with inks and other media (I still dislike collage). I've not really painted anything since Alastair critiqued something of mine a bit strongly near the end of Part B, and it kind of blew my confidence with that too, but I did like painting things before -I was quite a scruffy painter, neat lines but rough areas of colour. I've not done that since either but that was a while ago. I think I was so worried about doing 'a good drawing' back then that I let it tighten me up too much. Maybe I should try that again too...
Maybe I should stop waffling about it and just do it!
Maybe I will.
...