Coming up next month (March 4-28th) I’m taking part in yet another awesome group show at the lovely Canteen Gallery in Ottawa! In November I kinda decided to take some time off from shows to focus on production; I’ve had a decent 2009 and wanted to take the time to build up a small catalog of work. I tend to scramble to get works put together for show deadlines, and wanted to avoid that for this calendar year.

But that being said, I find it hard to pass up contributing to the group shows held at Canteen. Inaas (Canteen’s equally lovely proprietor) always comes up with interesting themes and settings, and we’re definitely of one mind when it comes to what is and isn’t a fun project.

So yeah… Two Days Slow!
It’s an Alice in Wonderland themed show with a buncha cool artists attached to it. I’m working on a piece entitled “You’ll See Me There”, which is going to be another cutout dealio like from my last show. The illustration style is evolving though, so you can expect something just a little different… I’ll post a WIP in a few days.

You can find out more about the show on Canteen’s listing, or via their Facebook Event.

It’s been an interesting exercise in testing the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory thus far. I haven’t avoided a question and will try to answer all as deadpan as possible (until my naivety is shattered by something truly repulsive). Anonymity is like beer muscles for people’s intellectual cowardice.

I have gotten a few decent questions on the work of being an illustrator and that helps to balance out the inane stuff. Here’s the best question so far:

Well I can ask you a hundred different questions but I’ll stick to one. What is the best advice you can give a wannabe hopeful illustrator for getting into this market, discovering his/her style, and making some sort of impact.

As far as getting into the market is concerned, be patient, work hard. Put your work in everyone’s face and be an aggressive advocate for yourself. Be your harshest critic but also your biggest fan. Otherwise your insecurity will eat you for lunch.

Style wise, try not to think about it. If you’re drawing all the time, that will come naturally. You will make the marks that feel right to you, the ones your muscle memory has absorbed and saved and cataloged.

Making an impact? Being memeful helps. Make images that are loaded in advance to spread on the tubes. It’s a cynical stab at self marketing at its worst, but a genuine expression of interest in a given topic at its best. I see peers having great success with jumping on the story of the moment and making art to match.

“I’M WITH COCO.” That image was everywhere.

More importantly: do what you love. It shows in the work. That will get you more attention, more deserved attention, in the long run.

Sat. the 20th a lot of really talented artists are going to be drawing at Wildclaw Theatre’s Dance of the Demented. It’s a benefit for the Theatre’s upcoming production of Willam Peter Blatty’s Legion. You’re invited to come have drinks, draw with us, and raise money for the arts! So, bring your sketchbooks, dancing shoes, or iron gut to the Viaduct Theatre in Chicago.

9:00 PM to 2:30 AM
The Viaduct Theatre
3111 N. Western Avenue, Chicago

Google Map

Music by DJ White Russian, DJ Vapor Eyes, The Ordeal, DJ Miles Beyond, and DJ Chas Vrba.

Artsy fartsy assholes, such as myself, in attendance include: Jessica Joy (smART Show), Alex Wald (Ultraman/Shaolin Cowboy), J Anthony Kosar (Avatar/Buckaroo Bonzai), Tony Akins (Jack of Fables/House of Mystery), Dave Dorman (Aliens/Star Wars), and, hopefully, you.

I don’t come down a lot and I’d really dig seeing y’all at the event. I’m going to be nervous as shit and I suspect I’ll be very drunk and drawing giant penises for a live audience before the night is out. Should be a good time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dwayneclare/4345410928/

Randomness

Five years ago was the first time I’d picked up a pen with the intent to draw since around sophomore year of high school. My initial attempts were pretty crude. I had no knowledge of anatomy to speak of and I certainly didn’t have an understanding of line. For someone who’d read comics religiously as a kid, I’d absorbed none of their drawing lessons, except for maybe the bad ones.

After some initial experiments for both an unauthorized Friday the 13th fan comic and a friend’s webcomic, I got my hands on a Wacom tablet with the hope to create pixel art for 2D platformers (and to a lesser degree, do print design work, my dayjob at the time).

My first digital work was radically different from what I’d produced analog. Lineweight variance was a given of the medium and, for someone who’d never touched brushes or nibs or anything other than a technical pen up to that point, digital seemed to promise capabilities that analog simply could not.

I met people online who drew things for money. Illustrators, they were called, and a goal blinked in my mind like the soft electric sex of a neon sign. Be. An. Illustrator.

My work changed rapidly and I reveled in the amount of detail I was able to heap onto images. I didn’t know much of anything about color theory, so I relied on instinct. The result was highly saturated colors and secondary and triadic color schemes that, five years ago, were a bit ahead of the ‘80s trend resurgence and more unique than they would be now. This style dominated my work for the next three or so years. I made my first forays into hand lettering. I forced my way into the jobs I wanted and was pretty fearless.

Hubris has a funny way of making its wielder plummet to the earth. The work I was creating was technically good in some ways, but inconsistent. I didn’t know much in the way of color theory, composition, or anatomy. Occasionally, something neat would happen in a piece, but I didn’t understand exactly what the magic sauce was that made it work. I started to doubt my work. My lack of a formal art education undermined my confidence. My previously prolific work life slowed to a crawl. I did only the bare minimum work required of me. Pay work got done, but personal work all but shriveled up and died. This crisis of confidence coincided with a series of crap events. My dog died. The economy collapsed. I got a Cintiq thinking it would allow me greater control and might push the next evolutionary stage of my work and it did the exact opposite.

I spent the better part of the last year making up for my lack of confidence. I moved back to analog materials in an attempt to circumvent what I felt was a lack of precision in digital tools. My precious had outstripped the Cintiqs. I drew from life and read everything I could on anatomy, color, composition, linework, and mass. I breathed a sigh of relief as work picked up and I felt productive once again.

My digital work changed. Painterly work seemed better suited to the dull instruments that digital offered. I embraced a larger scope of interest than the limited color work which had been my bread and butter.

My work has entered a state of serious flux. I struggle with my lack of formal art education. I’m a work in progress, but I’ve come to hope that I will always be. I’ll never be satisfied with my work, but that just might be more blessing than curse. Here’s to hoping that 2010 proves that true.