I’m trying to write this blog post from work, and Sundays are just awful, it just gets way too crowded. It’s just insanity! Insanity, I say! Aaaahhhhh!!
Upcoming music album and such things…
Anyway, my manufacturers should, by their own estimation, finish creating my album sometime this week. Then it will probably take another week or so to ship. So we’re getting closer…
I finished reading an excellent book called Music 3.0: A Survival Guide for Making Music in the Internet Age
What I would like to do is to create a “guide” for the album. A free PDF with the complete scores to all the pieces, as well as a page or two about my process of composing each piece, kind of like a short episode of The Compose Pile, but written out.
I also need to figure out how to take orders right from hannifinrecords.com, so people don’t have to wait for CD Baby and Amazon to process the thing. I think I can slap on a PayPal button easily enough, right? I just have to figure out how to charge sales tax for people who buy from Virginia, as I’m guessing I’m supposed to do that, right?
Right? RIGHT? Don’t you know?
Can I learn to draw?
Also, I’m once again interested in learning to draw. A year or so ago I went through this guy’s YouTube tutorials, which are very good, and drew some of these things (I think that old man Gerri came out the best). However, his method seems to be based mostly on looking at stuff and redrawing it, trying to get the spacing and constrasts right. I could continue to practice this method, since I’m obviously not that good, but… that’s not exactly what I want to be able to do with an ability to draw. I want to draw dragons and castles and knights, oh my. I want to draw from my imagination, without using references. I have a few ambitions:
1) To be able to create something as awesome as this stuff just for the joy of it.
2) To illustrate my short stories and/or create some graphic novels.
3) To create some animated shorts.
4) To become a billionaire.
One thing I’ve noticed with artists who draw from the imagination is that they tend to work more from the inside out, starting with a bone structure in the position they want and putting flesh on it.
So… how long will that take to learn? Too many years? Guess we’ll find out. Long have I wanted to be able to draw, but only now and then do I feel like practicing.
I joined DeviantArt at wizardwalk.deviantart.com … I’ll see if I can upload my sketches there so that you can see my bad sketching morph (hopefully) into good sketching. I guess I’m way behind on my skills, but if I can get to be OK by the time I’m 30 years old, it will have been worth it, yes?
2 Comments
LanthonyS · March 29, 2010 at 7:59 AM
As for “can you learn to draw,” it sounds like it’s time for another educational wonder, Joseph Jacotot and the fellow who made his observations into a theory (and book), Jacques Rancière!
In short, Jacotot was a French teacher who was exiled and went to the Netherlands. He didn’t speak their language, but a school that hired him had students who wanted to learn French. At a loss, he ordered copies of a large, modern book recently published in a bilingual French-Flemish edition, and told them to read and compare what they read. At the end of the term, he, with no high hopes, asked them to tell him in French what they thought of the book. They were extremely articulate and had picked up French fluently, without his teaching at all.. He thought, “How can I maximize this potential in a student? Surely it can’t be only language that people teach themselves,” and sat down to retire. Rancière is a French philosopher who, in an intelligent and beautifully-written (translated?) book, took his ideas to a new and fascinating theory on the human mind and what it can and can’t learn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ranciere
http://www.amazon.com/Ignorant-Schoolmaster-Lessons-Intellectual-Emancipation/dp/0804719691
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Nice sketches, by the by, particularly, as you say, the old man. Most likely better than what I could do even following instructions. I am a visual arts failure 🙁
S P Hannifin · April 6, 2010 at 1:56 AM
Thanks for the comment! It seems like a very interesting book, I will have to add it to my “want-to-read” list! Jacotot also seems like a very interesting fellow; his educational philosophies seem quite attractive!