Well, I thought that I’d talk briefly about making a piece of “mediocre” semi-digital art, and why I’m glad that I did. For context, it was mid-late November last year. I didn’t really sleep well and, whilst my mood wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t amazing either. I realised that I should probably do some art practice, but my “inner critic” was shooting down painting ideas left, right and centre.
In the end, I just decided to go with the “safe” and unchallenging choice. A cyberpunk cityscape – something I’ve drawn and painted more times than I can remember, something I can pretty much draw in my sleep by this point. And I don’t regret making this piece of art.
Still, here’s a full-size preview of the small semi-digital painting that I made:
This semi-digital painting should officially be posted here in mid-March next year.
Whilst it wasn’t a “bad” painting, it wasn’t really anything particularly adventurous or inspired for me either. But I’m glad that I made it. Why, because the experience of making it was relaxing. Just sitting there with a small 9cmx 14cm watercolour sketchbook, a 4H pencil and two waterproof ink rollerball pens (0.5mm and 0.7mm if anyone is curious), partly drawing intentionally and partly just randomly doodling and scribbling. Focusing on this tiny page rather than anything else.
Using a limited palette of watercolour pencils which meant that I didn’t have to think too much about colour schemes or colour pairings. Relying on colour theory knowledge which is pretty much hard-wired into my mind by this point. Just focusing on the process of adding paint, on going over the drawing with a wet paintbrush afterwards, blending colours together. Waiting for the paint to dry then adding rain to the dried painting the old-fashioned way with a white gel pen (you can do it digitally, but there’s something satisfying about just drawing random lines with a pen).
Then scanning the painting and cropping it to size in an old late 1990s graphics program before using a modern open-source one called “GIMP” to add a few basic effects. As well as saturation/lightness/black level adjustments, and also using selections to add a subtle blurring effect to the background, I also used low-opacity digital airbrushes to add “bloom” to the lights. Afterwards, I made some small corrections and added thin black “letterboxing” bars to the top and bottom of the picture using an old version of MS Paint.
This is all routine, there was nothing experimental or innovative for me about this painting. It was something I could basically make in my sleep by this point, but this itself made it worthwhile. Why? Because it was familiar and relaxing, because I could just “turn my brain off” and enjoy the process of making art for its own sake.
Yes, artists who make art themselves – rather than using “A.I. art” programs – will know this already, but like at least half of the reason why people make art isn’t because of the result. It isn’t to “show off” to an audience or to be trendy or anything like that. No, it’s because the process of making art is this weirdly satisfying thing which feels good to do – even when the art is bad or mediocre. The best way I can describe it is like reading a really good novel, or re-playing one of your favourite videogames.
It’s focusing on something for minutes at a time, with enough creative decisions to keep it interesting and compelling. It’s something which gives you a feeling of achievement – however subtle – because you actually have a thing that you made at the end of it. Being able to show it off to an audience or call yourself an artist is just a side-effect, a secondary thing. Even without this, even if you just make a random piece of introspective art or a piece of fan art based on something obscure or random, then you’ll still get all of this satisfaction.
So, yes, even when you make a piece of mediocre art, it can still feel good because of the process of making it. Even if the end-result is nothing special.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
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