Inspiration or technique

First of : I like to draw.
A lot.

Such is my desire to draw that it drives me to actually do so, all while ignoring the fact that my actual skill set is, to say the least, “lacking”.

Although many people have by now called me crazy for thinking this, I have never considered myself talented or capable in the least.
Part of that is actually true and part of that is me being an overly critical perfectionist who hates everything he has ever done for not living up to his own standards.

But just how I write now to improve myself on that particular field, I draw a lot in the distant hope of one day being able to deliver something I myself can and will consider worthy of existence.
Fat chance…

Unlike writing however, which can literally only be trained by doing it a lot and gaining some practice ( at least as far as I am aware ), drawing can be learned via quite a lot of methods.
Sure. The “do it a lot” approach is viable and fine. But there are also loads and loads of tutorials and lessons to improve yourself with.

And that´s where the complications start. I hate every single one of them. For no reason at all.

I know that I have no objective reason to do so. And considering that all I want is to be better at drawing, I really should go and actually study it for a bit.
But something keeps me from doing so. Something openly rejects everything that even looks remotely tutorial shaped.

I think it´s because, what drives me towards drawing ( as well as writing and generally every art form ) is that I have a lot of creative energy.
I may not yet be able to do so, but my goal is to be able to convert that energy into something. I don´t care what it will end up to be. But something.

And tutorials seem to me like I´m not only drawing technique from them. But also inspiration.
It feels like I´m not only stealing. But overriding my own style and motives.

If I learn how to draw a human by watching others do so, or by redrawing how others did it. Will I ever be able to do it by myself ?
Can I even draw myself ? Or do others deserve that praise because I pretty much just did what they showed me ?

My rational side just thinks “Screw this. Get yourself a good way of learning and study the hell out of it until you´re able to do it on your own”.
But my creative side just can´t seem to let go. I have come so far on my own. Should I truly sacrifice all of this, and risk becoming unable to use my own energy, just so I have to work less to get where I want to be ?

2010
03/20
CATEGORY
Thoughts
Write comment

Buried but bright…

Most people I know would agree that Japanese culture, or at least the parts of it that we can see from over the wide wide sea, embraces extremes.
It´s either going all the way or doing nothing at all. Mostly going all the way, and then some.

It is therefore understandable that most of the stuff that comes out of this can and is by many either loved or hated. A middle ground is rarely seen and will most likely tend towards one or the other soon enough.

Why is it then that I inhabit both sides at once ?

Ok. I will openly admit that I am not that fond of most stuff they do. Hell, speaking statistically I´d say I´m about 99% solid hate and disgust.
But there a core that I can never get away from.

You see, the practice of letting go all restraints has an element of freeing creative energy. And that will probably fascinate me forever, no matter what the hell crazy stuff will come out of it.
It enables a certain fearlessness that I adore.

Take for example the much beloved and much hated topic of “Anime”. I´d say about 80% of all things Japan that I´m able to tolerate fall into this category ( the others mostly music and food ). And it also embodies the very concept I´m writing about right now.

No matter where you look in the genre. It roars a stylized look and feel at you that screams of it´s passion. Granted, mostly this is a passion to see the underwear of sometimes disturbingly young girls with brightly colored hair like the show´s called “Nana´s little fallout shelter” but bear with me.
I have no trouble stating that again a figure of above 90% ( I´d say about 94 to 96 ) of all things like this are complete and utter rubbish.

But I could not care less about that. Because it allows the tiny part of it that is not to even exist. Beneath all the piles and piles of ever similar, fan pleasing pedophile daydream animations there is one core of creative sunlight that could otherwise never grow to see the light of day.

And that gives me hope just as much as it makes me sad.

Sad, because there isn´t all that much of this in the world.
Sad, because it´s all too easy to overlook the diamonds inside the storm of shit. Not helped by the fact that the general audience seems to cry out for more shitstorm to come and never end.

But hopeful. Because, no matter how much shit there may be in the world. There´s always that little bit of brilliance left to sparkle through it.

Even this Blog embodies it. Between all the lines and lines, waves of text and floods of words. There may yet be a shred of light.

And should that spark not be well worth all the trouble one needs to shoulder to catch a glimpse ?
I think so…

2010
03/16
CATEGORY
Thoughts
1 comment

Tired 2.0

Ever been in a position where the night just goes on and you don´t sleep ?
And then, when it´s almost the next morning you have to physically force yourself to stay awake because otherwise you´d miss all those annoying things your life cast in front of you ?

What happens after that point is actually rather interesting. You´re suddenly awake. And I mean wide awake.
Of course, try to do just about anything and you will soon notice that you´re only awake because absolutely any energy you had left in you is being pumped into keeping you from falling to the ground this very instant. You´re running on the last pieces of energy reserves that you have left in you. And it can make some functions wither away in a weird way.
For example, once I arrived at the stage where my brain is less important than keeping my eyes open, I usually loose the ability to formulate a clear sentence bit by bit.
The longer I stay this way, the more I will just plainly say whatever crossed my mind, unfiltered and unedited via thought and translation.
Mostly this means I will get very mean, swear a lot and talk in English, no matter who I´m in the room with.

And the thing is, it can be refreshingly freeing. Just letting your mind wander, intuition taking over without having to check back on thoughts to get permission for all those little things it would like to do but usually is forbidden to.
Dangerous… but refreshing non the less…

Only problem is the inevitable crash that will come afterwards.
Come to think of it… the process seems much like how other people describe being drunk, slowly loosing control over higher brain functions and at some point just waking up with a headache the size of a mountain and no recollection what happened between now and the last few drinks. And all of a sudden there are weird, short little random burst of text on your blog that you have no idea on how they got there…

oh wait…

2010
03/14
CATEGORY
Ramblings
1 comment

Perspective on cooking

Cooking and I have this thing going on. Namely : I don´t bother with it.
So far this has worked our pretty fine as I find enough things I like that do not require me to set up half an alchemy lab and a few hours of wasted time just to create half a cracker.

This lack of me doing anything related to preparing meals beyond following instructions on the back of various instant foods has led many people to accuse me of being a lousy cook. And I can´t really blame them. By the very beliefs that led me to write more stuff like this I can not truly be good at something I hardly ever do.

There was however, more than a year ago now I think, one exception to that. And it still has me thinking from time to time.

I was arguing with a person I only met that very day. One of the more pleasant experiences I had while attending what most would call a “party” and I would call “too many people drinking too much”.
But my reasons for being there in the first place have nothing to do with this article. Maybe another time.

All that matters is that I had spend most of the evening discussing with a stranger. About whatever our minds pointed us on. Over the course of this I learned that he was a fan of cooking in the same way that I am a “fan” of writing or drawing. Only that he actually seemed to produce results he was satisfied with.
I replied, half jokingly, that this would be something we could never come to terms on, as I had at that point trouble preparing rice. Let alone real cooking.

That´s when he said, with a completely straight face that he was not only surprised at this, but thought that I would probably make a good cook if only I tried myself at it.

What set me back most about this was the absolute sincerity with which he told me this. There was no mocking sarcasm in his words. He meant it.
We argued about his statement a fair bit.

His reasoning was as thus :
You´re interested in art.
You´re good at stuff you take an interest in.
You´re good at art.
Cooking is art.
You could be good at cooking.

He followed this with a brief rundown of what defined art in his position.

Art is the practice of taking existing materials and creating an individual new something out of them via combination and manipulation. This is aided by optional tools that are in most cases heavily specialized. The finished product is mostly considered pleasing to one or more of the senses. And so on and so on. He got a bit more into detail but that´s the gist of it for this particular recounting of events.

Obviously his was somewhat at odds with my definition of art. But I will not further go into this for the sake of this article staying below the 5000 word count. What matters is that, after the initial confusion about the concept I got to think about it. And to my greater surprise I found that, considering it a bit, even my own definition would easily allow cooking to be a part of it.
I could not get this thought out of my head ever since.

There are some clear differences to be found. Not the least of which is that the results of cooking usually are consumed. But are for example music concerts not also short lived but remembered for days, weeks or years after ? Does art have to be set in stone to be considered such ?

I don´t walk around my life, thinking that every pizza I consume is a form of artistic expression. But every once in a while I will attempt to make myself something more fancy, or even something not so fancy that I will then “upgrade” to the point where I enjoy it a lot and every other person on the planet thinks me insane(er). And in each one of those occasions I think back to this old argument about cooking and art.

Maybe I should start to try it a bit more seriously. Maybe, one day… when I´m not in a hurry to eat something in between World of Warcraft and writing stupidly long nonsense to my Blog.

2010
03/13
CATEGORY
Thoughts
1 comment

A Story… Part 7 of shattered information.

As I found my way out of the sludge like waters and onto a shore of thick, slimy roots I looked at my yet again new surroundings.
By now I did not truly expect the transitions to make a lot of physical sense anymore.

What awaited me now could best be described as a forest. Only that not one of the things I would have classified as trees actually had any leaves. Or for that matter seemed to ever had any.
The roots I stood on after I climbed out of the lake just seemed to grow ever higher until they filled every part of the area. It felt like I was inside a living thing. Something sleeping.

I made my way carefully, half in fear of waking up whatever presence I felt in this place.

For the first time ever since I woke up, I felt truly uncomfortable. And now that I realized this, the feeling increased by the minute.
Something was out there to get me. Just waiting for me to take a wrong step, or idle for a bit too long. Only it was not “out there”. It “was” the “out there”.
I was torn between hastening my steps and carefully progressing.

Then, without much warning because I had my full attention on not making a sound, I crashed into the ground as my left foot got caught in something that stuck out from the ground.
Trying my hardest to suppress a scream of shock and sudden pain I cringed silently for a few moments that felt like hours of agony. The thought hit me that this also was the first time that I had felt pain in this place.
Yet again erasing the thought that all of this could be a dream it shot from my leg towards my head and sparked a display of agonizing fireworks before my eyes. In any other situation I might have found these lights to be something beautiful and interesting. But right now they just mocked my pain via visual interpretation of whatever my nerves decided to throw against me next.

But I did not make a sound for one second of it. I just knew I could not risk it. However great I imagined the pain to be or become, it would be nothing compared to what awaited me where I to be found.

Even after my body calmed down, my mind did not dare to move just yet. So I waited for another few moments, listening intensely to whatever could have noticed my silent screams. But there was nothing.
And after a while I decided it was time to move on, I had remained on one spot for much longer than I ever intended.

Looking back on it now, it is almost funny how none of these recordings could have reached your hands if I had just walked away. Never turning to see what I stumbled over in the first place.

2010
03/09
CATEGORY
Stories
Write comment