This blog...

...was initially for pieces done on a computer, but has since become a free-for-all. Here you'll find process work (digital and otherwise), sketch pages and studies, sometimes with commentary.

You can see the rest of my work here.

Remember kids : if you can't make pretty designs, at least make pretty lines!

-Paul

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Plan

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...ARTracker (TM)



I'll print out a stack of these and force myself to fill 'em out before embarking on a new piece. While it may seem unnecessarily formal, I'm not sure my informal approach was working. I'll be beta testing ARTracker in the new year!

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice!

6 comments:

-A. said...

What exactly is your goal? To improve the quality of each piece? Structure is good, but too much can make the whole process feel rigid and kill the fun.

I'm looking forward to your experiment. I hope if works.

Props on your work, both the naughties and the not-so-naughties.

I like the life drawings, why only once a month? I try to go every week.

Michael Pfeffer said...

I will miss the unorganized fun of the old blog.

This corporate takeover may result in better more finished single drawings, but I will always remember the layers upon layers of sketchy smut.

Paul Richards said...

-A. // I go to lifedrawing once (sometimes twice) a week, but I don't need to post the results that often. I'll pick a few that I like at the end of the month and compile them, or present them on their own.

Michael // The idea is to force myself to think more and focus, taking to heart some recent advice from peers. I'll quote a passage in from The Illusion of Life -- "If you don't have a positive statement to make, you should never pick up the paintbrush or pencil. More than a positive statement, it must have enough importance to be worth communicating -- to be worth the effort that will be required to put it on the screen. It must be interesting, provocative, spellbinding; it must be a story."

My art heros aren't compiling page after page of random stuff; they're weaving subtle narratives and creating presentable, publishable works. Why should I aspire to anything less?

Michael Pfeffer said...

Oh that is totally fine and I understand. I was about 2% serious.

More things like the Necronomicook will be great.

I just enjoy all the work leading up to the final product, and I hope you post all of the sketches and roughs that lead up to the finished pieces.

I'm pretty sure I got both vols of Drawn to Life on a recommendation from this blog, but I really haven't read them yet. I also got a copy of the Illusion of Life too. I guess it would make sense to take the time to read those three books that every speaks so very highly of.

Best of luck to you on this artventure.

Anonymous said...

After my next few commissions, i might try this out...

Joshua Godin said...

i've been using the the ARTracker (tm) for personal and professional projects just for kicks, and i love it. being able to doodle out nonsense is required by artists of most any facet, of course, but having the attentive capacity to reliable attain a specific goal is something different all together. the latter being, in plenty of situations, equally important to any ambitious concept artist.

to that end, thanks! keep up the snazzy work.