From Brain to Paper
Mankind Book 3 is still in the works. Just taking a little break here while Photoshop recovers from my working it too hard.
Before Mankind it’d been a while since I’d picked up the drawing pencil, focusing more on the typewriter. Getting back into illustration has been fun. It’s also got me thinking about a question that I used to get asked a lot, especially in art classes. “How do you make up things up from nothing, and get them from your head onto the paper?”
The truth is, I don’t. Not exactly anyway. I think the impression from artists who illustrate the world around them is that people who draw from their brains are working in the same way. Copying the imagined image onto the paper. But it’s not really so – at least not in my case. When I start to draw, I know conceptually what I’m going for, but I can’t say it manifests itself as an actual image in my mind. And every pencil stroke brings with it micro adaptations and recalculations that are ultimately going to effect that image. It’s like constant back and forth between the juices in my head and the physicality of the pencil and paper.
I saw this back and forth play out in a similar fashion when I started directing. You have a concept in mind but there are simply too many variables in the universe for you to ever re-create that exact scene. So you adapt. You recalculate. You have to. I’ve seen – and we may often hear about – directors who have meltdowns when they are unable to adapt in this way. When they try and ultimately fail to recreate what they see in their heads in front of the camera. As though the process of adaptation is a compromise. To the contrary, that’s where the actual skill is required.
I’m glad I don’t have that problem. After all, I’m the only one who knows exactly what I had in mind to begin with so for all intents, what winds up on the paper (or screen) is exactly that.
Photoshop has stopped its brooding. Back to work!
