So after a few months of playing in Painter and Photoshop with the Wacom tablet I've come to the following conclusions about digital media:

1) Frustration is directly tied to hardware. If your computer isn't fast enough, you'll sit there as your program slowly loads in the new tool that you just selected, or watch your large brush stroke agonizingly crawl across the screen. If I'm going to really do this seriously, I need a new dedicated machine.

2) Frustration is also tied to relative familiarity with interface. It's hard to maintain the creative process while learning the interface and commands, especially if they're so radically different between programs, like Painter and Photoshop. I'm far more familiar with Photoshop, so some of the things in Painter just seem counter-intuitive. But I got the hang of it eventually.

I am glad that I went through this, and learned what I did. I'm not writing off digital media. It'll probably have its uses moving forward in some way or another. I picked up Painter pretty well and got it to do what I wanted it to do (still can't use large brushes or too complex textures or bristles though, computer just lags to a stop). So the tablet is nearby, accessible when I need it to do certain things.

But lately I've been back in the traditional, with a renewed focus, taking everything I've learned over the years and trying to really get to that level that I've been striving for. I'm not even sure if I want to do it professionally anymore, because of how much I hate the whole self-promotion gristmill. I mean, if the stuff gets noticed, and somebody wants to use it, or use me, then by all means let's get to work... I'm no stranger to the business, from an art director's and a contractor's perspective. But I've found some pretty cool self-fulfilling activities, working for my own projects and also for a few extremely nice and cool clients I happened to trip over along the way.

If I had things my way, in my own little ideal world, the work would speak for itself and I wouldn't have to promote anything. But we all know that's a pipe dream. Nevertheless, that would be ideal.

So I'm back to sketching and drawing and swimming in real paints again, loving the immediacy of full-contact creation, the feel of pencil on paper and brush on panel or canvas. Very satisfying... liberated even, going back to what I'm confident with and attacking it again with renewed focus and vitality. I've got some pretty cool things I'm working on that I hope to share pretty soon.

Right on the heels of my previous journal entry on the digital medium, this week I found myself returning to my sketch book. It was sinking in that I needed to establish, once and for all, a fundamental confidence level with the the most basic groundwork of art: drawing. I've never been a strong drawer, although there a few in my life that I'm proud of. But usually I'm whacking away at something, struggling with it, pushing and pulling it, making mistakes and trying to fix them, and ultimately I wind up with something that has some nice parts to it, but typically the proportions are off. This always sends me into a berzerker rage, and I plod onward accordingly.

Before college, I couldn't draw my way out of a paper bag. It amazes me that I even chose art as some kind of serious endeavor, considering how completely awful I was at it when compared to other kids that I've seen during my travels. Some people make it look so easy, and for them it is easy. In college, I attended as many anatomy courses as I could, so I learned that academic approach to the figure... which is very good, and helped me gain an understanding of the figure that I could never have had beforehand, doing things on my own.

But here I am now in my adult life, and I find myself struggling with drawing like I always have, despite all of my experience. I found myself at some kind of Rubicon point this week, where I must take everything in my head and put it all in perspective. And then I remembered my fundamental belief in art: it's all about the passion, the emotional response you pull from the viewer. It's not about rules, formulas, correctness, it's not even about the established trends and what's considered aesthetically pleasing on any given day. It's about the passion, the emotion, the power contained within your art.

I'm back in my sketch book, sketching and sketching and sketching, learning about what I'm really made of, and figuring out where I want to go with this. This is where it starts. I'm not proud of a lot of the art that I have up here, even a lot of the professional illustrations. I look at it now and so much of it is weak, flat, lifeless, and always the proportions are off somewhere. I think the confusion, the search for identity, is obvious when looking at the total body of work. Insecurity has always been evident. I think it's because I've never really given myself a chance to work, and explore, in the way I am right now. It's like a coming to terms with oneself, facing yourself and making some core decisions, and working to an extent that art is no longer an effort, a struggle, but an extension of yourself. And then it all comes easy, as it should be.

At the turn of 2009 I hit a few realizations and set some goals for this year, one being to get back into health and fitness. But more on the subject of art... I've decided to delve into the digital medium and draw some lines in the sand for myself as an artist.

Clearly the commercial art markets are going digital. The trends have been going this way for the past 10 years but lately it's becoming the norm. Any company relying on traditional media for commercial work, including illustration, is short-sighted, in my opinion, and will soon find itself neck-deep in costs while striding on the wrong end of the efficiency bell curve. The niche is shrinking. Put simply, it's just smart, and good business sense, for a company to do things digitally nowadays, and this is only becoming more true moving forward.

The nostalgia for traditional media is becoming less appreciated on the business side of commercial art, especially since technology is able to emulate traditional media so closely. The argument for traditional artists is usually that there exists an original that retains value versus a digital painting that exists only in pixels. This argument applies less and less to commercial art with each passing day, as the standards of the business (deadlines, flexibility, etc.) adapt to meet the pace of digitally produced media. Traditional art is being phased out of the commercial world, becoming more eccentric, more "fine art" (I hate that term and try to never use it).

I think it's just about seeing the writing on the wall. Ultimately, I'd like to do some more illustration work sometime in my life beyond what I've already done. But the current landscape is very different now than when I was illustrating 10 years ago. Back then I had to bake my oil paintings in the oven in order for them to dry in time to ship, and ship in time to meet the deadline. Sketches were also mailed or faxed back and forth, and any changes to this work meant getting it back and going into it with more paint or making changes with zero room for error. When you compare the process of traditional media illustration with the digital world we now live in, the old ways take forever, and there's all that risk in shipping and storing the art (and baking it in the oven). It's just no contest anymore.

I picked up Painter X and the 9x12 Wacom tablet, and that's why I've been so quiet lately. For the past few months I've been working in the digital medium, trying to learn and adapt and figure out my style and technique. I still have my studio downtown, and I'm keeping that for purely traditional work... studies, figures, landscapes and still lifes, and so forth. It's important to keep the traditional art alive, regardless of whether it'll ever be seen.

But as far as illustration, I've decided to plunge headlong and see what I can do digitally. Lately I've made some strides and I'm looking forward to completing some pieces and putting them up here.

A contemporary legend in his own time that we were blessed to share, and the son of a legend that inspires my art, career, and life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wyeth