Although I'm frustrated with the amount of finished pieces of work I've done for 603 I'm realising my drafting process is exhaustive and I try to get as close to what I want each time even if I fail. Failure has become my best friend this semester and I have to embrace it. With each drawing and re drawing I'm having to ask constant questions of what works and what doesn't. The time I've spend this semester will be really valuable in the long run. Perhaps what I've seen as terrible indecisiveness is in fact a journey of realising what kind of work suits me. And perhaps my negative perspective of thinking I've only done pretty pictures is in fact a realisation I simply care about my work.
I'm doing collages again and instantly the process speeds up but also I feel less limitations to what I can achieve aesthetically and in terms of a narrative. I'm much less precious about my collage work but it still has the same level of impact and narrative if not more. Collage has also allows me to experiment with using typography.
I have a purist need to have drawing as my primary way to communicate my illustrations but I know I can have both the drawing and the collage and both are pure forms of making work. Communicating through images can be done in any way and that's the exciting thing to remember. I've been researching Stanley Kubrick a lot for a project. He was the ultimate perfectionist and was known to do many takes before he was satisfied as well as scrapping whole scenes altogether. His films were masterpieces though and I believe the act of doing something many times such as my drawings even if it comes to a dead end is vital to getting the right outcome.
I've been so invested in finding a process I can be flexible and informative with. I'm starting to think I have more of an eye for more commercial work. I find the short deadlines and practicalities of editorial force me into a way of working I can see myself adapting to with drawings as I'm developing a less fussy way of drawing characters and people. I find drawing from reference is useful but I need to avoid copying references exactly. I find drawing characters from imagination is liberating and loosens up my drawings which gives a nice flow to them. I'm starting to see the limitations of doing portraits and appreciate the value of capturing a likeness or characteristic of a person rather than making a copy which adds little.
I don't know why I ignored my collage work for so long despite the success and enjoyment using it I've had in the past but I also have no regrets in that I consciously committed to a hand drawn way of working and exhausted it. It was my journey even if it was the long way round, I'm learning the painful way but that's the best way sometimes. Collage takes pressure off my drawing which makes it fun again and will inevitably lead to more authentic and interesting drawings that can develop naturally for future personal/paid briefs.
