Tuesday, December 3, 2013

#5 To The Thief's Surprise, The Victim Had A Mask Too!


This was done way, way back.

This is just pencil on paper.

This is crude and primitive, from way back, before I knew how to draw.

I was in high school or college then. Yes. I has a number of these early drawings that presaged the Pharisee drawings that I drew the weekend i was in love.

I tried to do a better version of this, pen and ink, but I could never captured the weirdness of this first drawing. The expression in the eyes, the posture, the tilt of the drawing, the crude pencil lines, it was perfect the way it was, and any revision would destroy the magic somehow.

This is a thing an artist encounters at some point in his career. WHEN TO STOP. You have to learn when to stop. This is true of SALESMANSHIP, DRINKING, GAMBLING, WOOING WOMEN and GETTING CANDY ON HALLOWEEN. (And eating the candy after.)

A salesman reaches a certain point where the customer turns off. When that happens, everything the salesman says starts undoing the sale. Afdter a certain point it's like the salesman is driving nails into his poor vitict's forehead. This is WISDOM so listen. Here now: its the same with an artist and his art. You can get to one point in a drawing and after that, you just mucking it up.
Take a lok at Frazetta's THE DEARTH DEALER. Google it. While the knight in the center of the picture is well detailed, the further you get from the center of the picture, the more flippant and crude that painting is. The rocks are simple, flips of the brush. No detail.

No, Frazetta was not lazy. This was intentional.  The outer areas are indistinct, just like your peripheral vision would make it. But you don't notice. Thats the magic of the artist.


No comments:

Post a Comment