The well is empty

As of this posting and after 10 weeks of fighting digital drawing/painting I have nothing to say. Of course when I say that I blather on anyway.

The past week was almost a total reversal of last week, at least as far as my attitude is concerned. The drawing artist and the painting artist were able to work together. Neither artist attempted a takeover and both respected each others territory and expertise.

If you happen to be a first time reader or an occasional follower, then perhaps you are wondering what the heck I am talking about. Who are these two artists you speak of?

Within myself I have at least two inner artists (I’m thinking there may be more) struggling for artistic dominance. Those two artists are “drawing artist” and “painting artist”.

You can read more about them in these two previous posts.

As mentioned above the two personalities were well behaved. No squabbles, no rushing the drawing to get to the painting and generally a relaxing week of digital creation.

Strange thing though, nothing I did this week was terribly satisfying nor were there any feelings of wanting to give up. Several of the images turned out well enough while several were duds. I am completely ho hum about the results.

It appears my creative well is low or perhaps even empty. This usually means review time. As of this post I have completed 72 digital images. I have tasked myself with doing 100 digital drawing/paintings in a row (one-per-day). I think now would be a fine time to pick several images for review. The following images are the ones I liked or at least provided a springboard for new ideas and techniques.

Note: if you wish to see all 100 digital images you can start viewing them one day at a time starting Oct 18/21 on Instagram. Read about my dailies if you want to know why?

Digital Image Review

June 7/21: One of my first digital drawings – managed to replicate my “real world” inks reasonably well

June 10/21: Discovered the “smudge” tool in Procreate. It’s great at mimicking my blending style of using graphite on textured paper

July 9/21: One month later and starting to control the drawing process. After almost 30 images there is nothing in that batch I felt worthy of showing. Some were good, others were not.

July 13/21: At this point the digital tools are becoming much more intuitive. I’m finally starting to think about the drawing process without the learning curve holding me back.

July 16/21: I started experimenting with atmosphere. I was also realizing how easy it could be to fix the error I made in this image — do you see it? Of course I never got around to “fixing it”.

July 19/21: I had great time doing this image. I like the simplicity of the Tower House. At this point I am getting to the point where drawing and painting are working well together.

July 28/21: This is one of my favourite digital images thus far. I felt in total control. Not a drop of colour was added until I was 100% satisfied with the drawing. My process was beginning to standardize.

August 1/21: I actually created this image as a header for a pervious post. I was pleasantly pleased with how easily it came to be.

August 13/21: This is the header image for this post, completed the day before the next image. I was grooving on the stylized trees so I carried those ideas forward.

August 14/21: This is my most recent image as of this post. It is nothing more than two tree like shapes on a pile of rocks with clouds in the background. I’m beginning to feel good about my method of working in digital.

Hopefully you found one or two images that were interesting. Not only am I out of artistic energy, I am also low on blogging energy. I have a week to refill my tanks, talk at you then.

3 comments

Robin King says:

August 19, 2021 at 5:58 am

Whoa…I thought having those “two artists” slug it out occasionally was my own personal thing! You, too? ((hugs)) Your work is terrific and your blog is intriguing!! 👏👏👏👏👏 Following…😁

LikeLiked by 1 person

1. eRitchie Art says:
  
  August 19, 2021 at 3:31 pm
  
  Yep, darn inner artists, sometimes they never shut up and ruin many hours of hard work. 😉 😦 Thanks for the hugs, back at ya! And thanks for following. I’ll take some time this evening to pursue your site.
  
  LikeLiked by 1 person
  
  1. Robin King says:
    
    August 19, 2021 at 3:55 pm
    
    🤗👋
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person