September 2, 2011

Library Books




























































5 comments:

Martin W. said...

you do a great bunch of stuff which is great! I think that your studies would benefit you even more if you put a ittle more thought into each drawing. Stick to you quick gestural drawing but then pay attention to lines when you give the drawing finishing touches. Try it and see if it works for you. It sure does for me :)

Michael Barquero said...

Haha, Martin W !

Been a while, what are you up to nowadays?

I probably should slow down a bit. Storyboarding professor tells us we have to be quick so I try going quick, but...to be able to abstract a shorthand one probably should study it slowly.

Drawing is sooo hard >:(

why you no update blog? where is you blog?

Martin W. said...

Hey mate, last time we wrote each other you were down in florida right?

I'm working in a 9to 5 jb now to get some money.
I kindof forgot why art was fun. Every time i picked up a pencil I felt it looked aweful. But the good news is, Im on the road back into art, slowly. Im trying to find the fun and "flow" of drawing again. What do you do to keep yourself creative and going? Id love to know!

I deleted my blog b/c i wanna start anew, Ill let you know when I have a new one "up" :)


oh, okay, so youre actually going for speed here! Then youre on the right path i guess. Yer in order to be quick you have to abstract a lot of the neat little curves and lines you still put in here and there. Maybe try and be a little more abstract then?

Michael Barquero said...

Yeah man, in California now for school; got two more years left.

For inspiration and creativity? I'm the wrong guy to ask :P Just came off a really bad art block myself where I felt the same way you do (still kinda do).

Since you asked though, I'll relay to you some advice I got from people at pixar, professors, and a quote book I read while I was the browsing ibrary:

One of my professors when asked after class about "burning out" told us for most creative paths we all kind of go through this curve that is almost exponential when we start, everything is awesome and fun; honeymoon stage.

Then as it starts to become something we have to do everyday we start to doubt ourselves, we doubt everything we do and don't want to do it; we plateau.

If you just keep going though, practice everyday, take some breaks, and push yourself through it, once you get over that, you'll be alright.

This video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Kind of echoes that sentiment, the "brick wall" is that stage. It's the stage where most people stop and give up, it's the stage that keeps out the people who maybe don't really want it that bad.

Maybe it has nothing to do with whether you really want it or not. Sometimes you just need a break and this is where a quote by my storyboarding professor who works at pixar fits nicely:

"Just say fuck it and draw 'My Little Pony'".

Meaning do something else, shift gears. Been drawing all day? Grab a block a clay and try sculpting; it's all the same. Maybe forget "art" all together and as another pixar person told a group of us: "do the dishes"; do something else.

One of the podcasts from animation podcast actually goes over this, think it was Burny Mattison's interview where he says he had a shot due the next day and he was really behind but he was stumped and doing shit drawings.

So, it was either keep on trucking and maybe turn in something half-assed. Or just say fuck it and the next day say tell your boss "I got nothing; I quit".

He said he set down everything went to a museum and when he came back he was inspired. Something about the trip energized him, and he just got to it and his supervisors loved what he turned in.

Despite knowing all that, at least for myself, I still felt like shit. Which leads to that quote book that went something like this:

"[thought] is the killer of creativity"

Maybe it wasn't thought (reason?), point is, don't overthink it and just do it.

Anyway, I could literally go on and on about this, but I guess the point really is, if you want something; just reach out and grab it.

I could totally be wrong about all this since, again, knowing all this, I still sometimes feel awful picking up a pencil.

One more thing: I know people say you shouldn't work in a vacumn, but lately I've just not been reading animation/illustrator twitters and blogs, and I guess ignorance to my incompetence in drawing builds something of a false confidence that actually does help :P

It's nice to just say fuck everything and work on your own shit.

Good luck, I'm looking forward to that blog. Definitely keep it up.

Martin W. said...

Thanks for that long answer man! Helped me alot! Because of your words I discovered a software called Sculptris which is a very easy-to-learn sculpting software and that really seems to loosen me up. Wonder why i didnt do that earlier..
Anyways, yer i remember that Burnie Mattinson interview. He also said something to the point of that his ideas would come while he was sketching so he kept sketching all the way, knowing that the idea would eventually come.
I think my problem often is, that my expectations are too high. I now find that if i just set small goals like "focus on the proportions" or the gesture, that i can do that okay and feel good about the drawing i create. A few weeks ago I tried to make a perfect drawing on the first go and I kindof always failed!^^ Now I can see the problem with that.

Btw, I hope you know how fortunate you are having teachers who actually work at places like pixar! I cant think of too many schools in germany that have this kindof advantage^^
Let them drawings come!