I've been drawing and painting my entire life. I always had a knack for it and my parents encouraged it by signing me up for multiple art classes in my youth. I also took every art class I could through junior high and high school, but even then I wasn't really interested in what I was taught. Yeah, I grasped perspective enough to tell if it was 1, 2 or 3 point and I painted the color wheel ad nauseum...but I was never really taught how to create lighting schemes. Or how to properly render. Or how to convey mood. Or storytelling. Or any number of things on a very long and bitter list.
So I picked those things up where I could. Reading a book here or a magazine there. That's a tough way to further yourself and as a result of that and of my changing interests I quit art for close to a decade, went to college for engineering instead and expressed my creativity through songwriting and guitar playing.
Years later I started to hear about digital painting. Being a huge Star Wars fan, I had picked up the "Art of" books for Episodes II and III and was instantly drawn to Ryan Church and the amazing work he did for those movies. When it came time to upgrade myself to a new computer in 2007, I decided to take the plunge and purchased Painter X and a Wacom Intuos 3.
I've rarely made such wonderful and life-changing purchases as that one.
My first efforts were clunky. Ugly things ripe with clashing colors and poor technique. But I loved the process. I loved painting on layers and having an undo button and a color picker (mixing pigments was the bane of my earlier days dabbling in oils) and the speed at which I could create these monstrosities made them worth it. I didn't have to waste an evening to get all my supplies out and prepped and then cleaned and all put away at the end. I had a (semi) mobile art studio right on my coffee table and life was good.
But the more I tried to improve, the more I realized that I was lacking in those basic bits that were required to make the type of images I had in my head. I found help where I could. YouTube. Forums. The brick and mortar bookstores that are slowly disappearing. All great resources, but ultimately what I needed was a real instructor.
Two weeks ago I stumbled upon the blog of a teacher at CGMA and curiously clicked on the link to this online school. I have great hopes that THIS is what I've been looking for all these years. In one week, I'm starting Intro to Perspective for Entertainment Design. If it goes well, I have a rough curriculum plan mapped out for the rest of this calendar year.
Over this next week, I'll be posting personal pieces of mine that I've done (all within the last two years) to show as a reference point for where my art was when I started this. For anyone interested, I'll be showing the more interesting assignments from my class throughout the upcoming term. I'll also be showing off any personal pieces that I feel need to be displayed, especially if they showcase the knowledge I'll be acquiring.
I hope I can look back on this moment in a few years and see the improvement. I hope that I learn more from this experience than just art skills. And I hope that I can inspire you. To be a better artist, to try something new...I don't really care what in particular. The things we inspire in others are greater than all we could accomplish alone.
C
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