This is for all the creative types whether you paint or quilt. When you start a project, do you have a specific picture in your head? Then, does it come out that way?
One of my favorite teachers in art school told us that the hand is just a lump at the end of the log attached to your shoulder. The hard part is to teach that log and lump to work together to perform the idea your brain has. For years I thought I understood that tale. All you gotta do is tune and connect the two and away you go.
Lately I’ve begun to think I had it wrong. I do more illustration work now and I’m not getting the end product I had in mind. After so many decades I thought I had trained my lump and log well enough but now I’m wondering if it’s a question of ‘style’. I wonder if the final product is more my style than the idea in my head. Hmmm, let’s try that again - I am thinking that artistic style is less a learned or contrived result and more the way something naturally comes out in one’s work. My final result is not what I had in my head - how’s that? Is this because I haven’t really trained my club as well as I thought or is this just how I do things? Or could it be that I need to rework things more to achieve what I had conceived? Or do I need to consider going back to pen and paper and do less on computer? Is this a computer driven limit to my ideas? Or, as a commercial designer am I doing what need to be done in the quickest way and not taking the hours it might take to do it ‘right’ in a more ‘painterly’ way? Or, do I need to think better ideas that I can produce?
As a semi-related aspect, do any of you go into creative ‘fugues’? I’ve done it a few times and it’s a rush. It happened once at work airbrushing a cover. I know people came in and asked me things, I know the phone rang and I know I must have gone to the rest room but I don’t remember anything beyond that. When I came ‘to’ the cover was done exactly as I had imagined and I was completely exhausted in that good bone-deep way AND I knew I was now ‘awake’. It might have been the inspiration of the project but I’ve not been able to reproduce an experience like it.
Any input? Too many questions not related? Too much artistic angst?
i go into ‘creative fugues’ all the time when I am working on a project. It is the driving force that get’s me though to the end. Or as it were, it’s the driving force that connects my mind to my log, and lump as you say. I’ve done some very creative work that has required work, meaning there were times in the process that I didn’t want to continue but I knew I had to as a means to and end. A few years back I wanted to make a replica of an exact Hobbit Hole, I was going to rent a large digger and make a mound, plant grass over it, fashion circular doors the whole thing. Sufficed to say I didn’t do it, my laziness took over. I will one day continue and do something like that, but not today.
I say this to illustrate the idea that you do what you can and let the creative juices flow as best you can when you can. Don’t push it.
I do a lot of woodworking, and at work I create audio commercials for a radio station. Rarely does the end result match what I envisioned.
With the woodworking, if I design a piece, I use a primitive CAD program to draw old-fashioned technical drawings of a piece before I build it. This results in stilted, unrealistic images with no perspective; the finished piece is always a little less elegant than what the drawing depicts, even when the construction phase goes perfectly. I think this is because I almost never view the finished piece from exactly straight-on, which is how it’s depicted in the drawing.
With the audio, the finished ad almost never sounds exactly the way it sounded in my mind before I produced it. My sound editing skills are pretty top-notch, but the ads always turn out a little less crisp than I want. Part of the problem is that I don’t have access to the music, sound effects and voices that a major studio has (we’re a small-town radio station in rural Colorado) and part of it is that I’ve never studied under a real master of the art. I’m self-taught, aided mostly by industry publications and on-line tips and helps. My work is always very good, of course, and the clients always love it; it just isn’t what I heard in my head before I went into the studio.
Sunrazor, I think that’s the creativity killer in any kind of commercial work - time, money, resources and client compromise. The end result is usually unrecognizable from the initial idea but we keep trying don’t we?
How many times have I pulled a rabbit out of my hat only to have the client say,“I love it! It’s really want I wanted! Now, could you just add this and move that and make bacon come out your elbow?”
I wanna see it when you’re done!! I read once that Dick Clark has a lifesize Flintstones house in his backyard but I think I’d prefer a Hobbit Hole or a Swiss Family Robinson treehouse.
[hijack]
Back when I lived in Oklahoma somebody had a hobbit hole for a home. Though at the time I had no knowledge of Tolkein’s world.
My dad was a roofer and during the summers my brother and I went to work with him. One day as we were leaving a job-site to go home he said he wanted to show us something. So we drove out into the country a bit and then he showed us the hobbit hole. The cool thing was we got to see it up close. The owner of it was the manager of the lumber/roofing supplies yard that my dad always went to to get supplies so he knew the manager guy pretty well. So we got to see the inside of the house, it looked like a normal house, and we got to walk up onto the “roof” it was really cool.
[end hijack]
To answer the first question – it depends. Sometimes creating a work is a process of discovery, where I don’t know quite what’s going to come out the other end, but I’m usually pleasantly surprised. Other times I have a stong vision of what I want and I can just bring it out. And yet other times, of course, I’m just beating my head against the wall and wasting time and materials. Usually not, as I seem to have a talent for salvaging crap. In those cases, what I end up with is often not at all what I intended.
As for the fugue state you speak of, it’s actually dissociation. It’s the same mechanism by which abused children block out what is happening to them. Or what happens when you are watching a movie and get so engrossed you forget who and where you are. In artistic endeavors, it’s often a feeling that some higher power is doing the work but borrowing your hands. I reach this state… not often enough.
If you do a SDMB search of treehouses and Hobbit Holes you’ll see my Penchant for building and owning them. I’d take a particular look at the treehouse I built and made into an office space. I do not live at that residence anymore, but the people who do love it…it’s great because the local tax assessor tried to tax it as livable space and was declined! HAHAH!!!
Anyway, I may be an adult, but it doesn’t have to always show through
Artists have a pallet of skill sets and style from which they draw. The mind sees perfection without worrying about skill sets.
I think we all see images that are be beyond our ability to capture. As we continue to practice and expand our skills and techniques, we get closer more often.
Isn’t there a range, a bell curve, that applies? Twenty percent of the time we nail it, and 20% of the time we don’t get close. Most of the time we’re in between. Depending on the assignment, getting close is often close enough. We knock out the piece and move on, not worrying that we didn’t capture what we originally saw in our heads.
Are there not times when your work comes out better than the original idea? Don’t we have good days when everything works and other days when we can’t draw a straight line with a laser beam?
We make decisions along the way that affect the end result. Some might send us down the wrong path. We make adjustments and they may or may not work. Some of capturing what we envision has to do with the time we allow for the project.
I understand that Industrial Light and Magic has a stable of artists that all create fire. There are different types of fire, and each of the artists specialize in one particular form and may be incapable of doing another. (Campfires, a burning building, the sun, etc.) Same with water. (A pal of mine there specializes in shadows.)
This supports the idea that we each a limited pallet. Try as I might, all my figures come out cute and cartoony. I’ve been trying to fix that for 30 years, but I don’t draw, per se, all that much. I’m a graphic artist not a fine artist.
We all strive to ‘push the envelope,’ but there will always be images we just can’t capture.
I don’t always have a completed picture in my head because now and then it IS about the journey. Sometimes I don’t even have the picture in my head. Some projects come along and I have to start them without knowing where I’m even going but I have to rely on my skill set and instincts to do the grunt work and that’s ok too because I’d rather be paid than crowned the next Great Thing. It’s my own projects that frustrate me since I am the client and I’m not asking for anything I wouldn’t ask myself to do.
Thanks for the clarification, tdn. It’s an amazing feeling and it’s odd that I don’t try to recapture it more often.
I can only speak for myself but I say no to this particular aspect of artistic skill or ideas. The computer no more limits your ideas whether you are holding a paintbrush in your hand or a mouse (or Wacom pen on tablet). I think the computer is actually more freeing to an artist because there are so many resources to be had. It can make your work and ideas flow better IMHO.
Before I touched a computer I experienced dry spells as well as “fugues”, as you say, in my career as an illustrator. I now work almost exclusively on the computer to produce a variety of graphic designs and I still experience the same ups and downs as I did when designing the old-school way. The computer is simply a tool, albeit a different kind of tool, but a tool none-the-less. You still have to get the lump on the end of the log to recreate what is in your head regardless of the tool.
Rarely does my final result reflect exactly what was in my head in the beginning. I start with a vision of what I’m wanting but the creative process often fine-tunes that vision into something I never imagined…sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse! Actually, I think that I don’t have total control over it and I’ll bet that most artistic/creative types experience the same thing.
My woodworking is almost all from my own hand drawn plans. Many things come out exactly as I expect and many come out nothing like I expected. In some cases, I just start cutting the shape with an approximate idea of what I want anyway.
I mostly make toys, they are fun and have a high tolerance for mid-creation changes. My most recent works were a good size wood frame, wire cage for my daughter’s hermit crab and a pair of pine wood derby cars for the kids.
I am working on two 10 foot sweeps (oars) with several others for the environmental group I am part of. This is a freehand operation relying on draw knives and planes and sanders to do most of the shaping. The initial cuts were on my band saw.
musician/songwriter: they always completely mutate by the end, and even if they become completely different than my original mental picture, it’s always a more interesting mutation that I couldn’t have envisioned.
Interesting; for me, computers are limiting because of my style. My drawing style is really sketchy - sort of the rapid viz style - and doesn’t translate to digital drawing well at all. So I find it incredibly difficult to produce a drawing with a Wacom that’s anywhere near as good as what I can do with pen and paper. I’m a fairly good 3d modeller, but have often wondered if I’d produce better models with clay simply because it’s direct hand-to-media, rather than having to work within the limitations of software. Maybe it’s only because I am more tactile than others, but for me it’s in some ways more difficult to work with computer graphics because there’s not only the translation from brain to paper, but also the added difficulty of learning all the tools, tricks, and limitations of the software. Sometimes, software just won’t do what you want it to do.
To address the question in the OP; sometimes a piece will sort of evolve as its created, other times it’s almost picture perfect to what was in my head. And sometimes I just can’t seem to get that image in my head onto paper, and have to come back to it another day.
When I write poetry, I generally just start with a first line, and occasionally with a form in mind. It’s interesting to see where things go from there. Generally, if I have a goal, the poem gets distorted to meet it; if I can be goal-less, the poem will go somewhere I might not be expecting and will have a more natural contour, a feeling of surprised inevitability–which isn’t possible but seems like it should be.
As a writer and poet, most often I do, if only because I’m an obsessive perfectionist and won’t rest until something’s absolutely the way I want it–even if it means multiple drafts and/or banging my head against the keyboard. Sometimes I can’t get an image or a character to sound how I imagine them to, though, as hard as I try.
As a composer, my music tends to surprise me more often than not. As an artist, I’m completely dismal, so I’m happy if I get anything more than stick figures right.
The OP asked if the computer limited his ideas which is why I responded the way I did. I do not believe it limits your ideas but of course it may not produce the effect you are looking for.
Of course, you’re right, there are some things the computer just cannot do but it all depends on your artistic style and what you are trying to create. I’ve found that Photoshop and my Wacom pen often do a better job for me than pencil and paper. I’ve been working with this program since 1993 and it’s like second nature to me. I don’t find too many limitations within the program itself, only my own lack of knowledge of certain features which curtail my ability to get my ideas down solidly. That can be frustrating!
I guess what I’m getting at is for me, I find it limiting to work with computers (for some types of art) because I know there is a limit to what I can do with the computer. So my ideas will be restricted within the framework of software limitations or insufficient knowledge of the software. But - that’s me, as an individual artist, and I know others have different experiences and idea-generation processes.
I always start out with an idea of what the finished work is going to be like – but more in the general sense, with some specific parts but mostly an amorphous concept. Once I get creating, it tends to become very organic, and the final product usually only ends up resembling the initial idea in spirit, except for the basic parts I came up with in my head (a melody, say, or a drum line or something, when it comes to music.) I’ve never considered the idea that I was “getting it wrong” because there isn’t really any such thing. I used to think there was, particularly when I was still pretty new at the whole music composition thing. It wasn’t until I realized that I only thought that way because I was considering how it would be received by others that I came to the decision that others don’t matter. It was my creation, and the only person’s opinion that really counts is my own. It’s nice when others like it, and I’m always open to constructive criticisms of a technical nature, but the art itself is … well, art, and that’s purely subjective. No right or wrong. Just art.
Technical issues – the limitations of the medium, for example, or the lack of experience with it, are another issue, but even there, there isn’t always a right and wrong way. There may be better ways to accomplish a particular thing, but they may not be the only way, and you use what’s comfortable to you until such time as you either discover a better way to do it, or you find the need for a better way to do it and seek out information on how to accomplish it.
With my paintings, I use tiny pieces of wood, making designs on the painted canvas. Once a piece of wood is applied to the surface, it cannot be removed or repositioned. So I have to plan my work very carefully, and then not make any mistakes in the execution. When the work is complete, and I can stand back and absorb it in its entirety, 99% of the time I’m amazed at the beauty of what I’ve created. Even though I know what it’ll look like, nothing can compare to seeing the finished work itself.
I also sell prints of my photography. I start out with 35mm slides and scan them into Photoshop. That’s where the real creativity begins, and I never really know ahead of time what I’ll be doing with a particular image. There’s a lot of “What happens when I do this?” involved, and I’m almost always really surprised by the results.
