adyer07

Huh. I always just thought it was because my cat isn't smart enough to differentiate between "can noise, human making tuna sandwich" and "can noise, human is dispensing cat food."

I really enjoyed Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. It's more of a kick in the pants than an inspirational book, but it actually helped me think about (and act on) my priorities.

"The Art of Responsive Drawing" by Nathan Goldstein.

It's an in depth analysis of the elements of drawing and, more importantly, what those elements actually do. It really celebrates the expressive and creative aspects of drawing, in a way that's both beautiful to look at, and accessible to read.

The generator stuff is pretty wild - I got some real Cronenbergs.

I wonder if, in 5 years, we'll start to see this kind of trippy AI aesthetic filter into illustration and animation. Or maybe the AI will just get more naturalistic.

The analogy between pitch and color recognition is funny to me - it's like the skill gradient is backwards for artists versus musicians. One critical skill in learning to paint (naturalistically, at least) is learning to differentiate relative color, not absolute color. Learning to look at an apple and see warmer/cooler bits of red, for example. As the article points out, naming "red" is easy for most people, and then you spend years learning to mix all those funny shades in between.

There's a whole school of painters - after Edwin Dickinson, mostly - who talk about "color notes" and "color pitch". I wonder what the analogous cognitive processing skills are for artists.

This is delightful. The paper sliders are especially charming.

I wonder if the tactility of it helped make assembly easier to learn - or harder, because it didn't have immediate feedback.

Looking at your website - I don't climb, but I used to use chalk for powerlifting - I desperately want to see photos of HANDS! My immediate question was "what is chalk cream", and that makes me want to see the product in use. Does it turn your hands white? Is it powdery? How could a wet cream do the same thing as dry chalk powder? This seems like a really tactile product, so I want photos that help me understand it on a tactile level. The mountain photos are beautiful but don't sell the product. The photos of tubes could be renders for all I know.

You could also try signing up for HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and scanning for outdoors or climbing-related pitch opportunities. A lot of the posts on there are trash but there's the occasional good one.

The funny thing about drawing is that it’s not one skill - it’s a collection of many different skills. An architect, a cartoonist, an illustrator, an animator, Michelangelo and Picasso are all drawing, and clearly what they produce and its goal are very different. Arguing over whether to use Drawabox or Right Side of the Brain or Bob Ross videos is silly, because these courses are all trying to teach totally different parts of the skills we call “drawing”.

So here’s my very general advice for you:

- Start trying to make the drawings you WANT to make, before you think you have the skills. Illustrate your ideas and blog posts! Then, take a step back and evaluate that work - was it effective? What do, or don’t, you like about it? What skills do you think are missing, and what processes might you use to achieve it? A lovely illustration is much more than looking realistic - it may be completely unrealistic at all. It has mark making, color, design, composition...all separate skills you can work on.

- Identify people whose work you love. Find someone who you look at and think, “yes, I want my drawings to look like THAT.” Make copies of their work for practice (call it a “master copy” to feel smart about it.) Find out which artists inspired them or taught them, and copy their work, too. Find out what artists they like and stalk them on Instagram. Buy a print of their work and marvel at it, every day.

- Get a sketchbook on cheap, terrible paper, and fill it up. Doesn’t matter with what. Get comfortable experimenting and producing a lot, even if it’s junk. The time investment is important.

- Expose yourself to as many different skill sets as possible. Take a community college life drawing class! Draw a comic! Design a chair in AutoCAD! Draw from life, and imagination, doodle and paint and play with infinite patterns in Illustrator. You may start to feel what ways of thinking work for you. Perhaps you enjoy academic drawing and not cartooning. Or maybe you’ve got a hidden fascination with the abstract expressionists. That’s one way to find out.

- Make friends who draw. Share your work with them, and let them share their work with you.

- There are many introductory drawing classes taught by adult education centers, artists communities, colleges, etc. These are likely to introduce you to the same basics as a book like Right Side of the Brain, but also a little bit more of the “artistic” side, like smooshing charcoal around and exercising your arm. If you’re lucky you’ll get a nude model. These are great fun and I recommend one regardless of what kind of drawing you’d like to do - it’s a great introduction to issues that are common to many kinds of drawing.

Do you have a scanner? I think traditional “paste-up” style zines have such a cool hand-made aesthetic. Plus, no licensing fees for a glue stick :)

The final recording is interesting as someone with average hearing - it almost sounds like someone with a lisp articulating very, very carefully. I suppose “s” must be a very high frequency sound.

There actually is a second chance pool, but you usually would get an e-mail about it.