Aesthetic Emotion

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This came from my sketchbook. It started as just a quick sketch showing the bond between mother and son. 

I'm not sure who this is by. I found it on Pinterest. 

A lot of times I get stuck in the drawing process before I even begin. I do I'm thinking too hard about what I want to "draw". I watch my kids do the same thing and my advice to myself and to them lately has been to just get it out. Just put it on paper as fast as you can and then move on. Once you get it out, it can be turned into something better later, used as a reference drawing or perhaps it will be perfect as it is. If anything, consider it practice. 

What I've realized is that perfect form is great but capturing emotion is what really makes a difference. Emotion is what draws the viewer in. Emotion is what makes us fall in love with whatever it is we are looking at. That's why simple illustrations containing only line drawings work. Like the one I've posted above from my sketchbook or the simple line sketch I've included in this post of a man and a woman that I found on Pinterest. I saw it and it immediately caught my attention. It makes me wonder what this man and woman are going through. They have a story, what is it?

What I'm experiencing by falling in love with this simple sketch is according to Clive Bell called aesthetic emotion and it's completely subjective, even the term aesthetic emotion is subjective because some disagree with Bell's theory. While I see the sketch of the woman leaning on the man as a work of art, someone else might think it's crap... just a sketch, an unfinished piece... and that's completely ok. That's the beauty in it, it gives every artist a chance to succeed and develop their own style because someone out there will love their work, right? 

To better explain myself, and Bell's theory of aesthetic emotion I'll leave you with the first paragraph of Clive Bell's essay titled "The Aesthetic Hypothesis". I'm not sure that I agree with everything in his essay but read the rest for yourself in his book titled "Art" and let me know what you think. The essay starts on page 3. 

The starting-point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a peculiar emotion. The objects that provoke this emotion we call works of art; this emotion is called the aesthetic emotion. All works of visual art have some common quality, or when we speak of ‘works of art’ we gibber. There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist, which is significant form. In each, lines and colours combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. It will be said that the objects that provoke this emotion vary with each individual, and that therefore a system of aesthetics can have no objective validity. However, we have no other means of recognizing a work of art than our feeling for it. I have no right to consider anything a work of art to which I cannot react emotionally; and I have no right to look for the essential quality in anything that I have not felt to be a work of art. All systems of aesthetics must be based on personal experience-that is to say, they must be subjective.

Pictures in the snow

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I actually took this photo of my son and daughters playing in the snow with my i-phone... and yes, this is our back-yard here in Kentucky!!!

It's beautiful here in Kentucky right now... to me at least. I grew up in Connecticut and as a child became accustomed to ice cold winters with lots of snow, but I've spent most of my adult life living in North Carolina where winters are pretty lame. As most know from my post last month I recently moved to Kentucky. Finally, cold winters and snow are back in my life! Naturally I want take lots of pictures of the kids as they roll around in the snow. Ive been using my i-phone which does great in capturing the moment. But to be honest I'm feeling a little guilty because I have my D800 and the ability to create some stunning photographs, but I haven't taken it out of it's bag since I got here almost a month ago. Looking outside, the sun is out and it's ultra bright. This gets me thinking about exposure... and as someone who never shoots on auto, how tricky it can be with the sun reflecting off the snow. For some it is easier to throw the camera on auto but that means less control. Once you get the hang of it, understanding exposure is pretty simple. It's all about understanding 1) the lighting conditions and 2) your ISO, F-stop and shutter speed and what those three functions mean and do. For those who want to dig into it and do more with your photography, here's a great (FREE) guide to mastering exposure from one of my affiliates. No more super bright or way too dark, this should help you shoot for just right :) I think I'll go dig out my camera now... it's time to go play in the snow! 

(FREE) guide to mastering exposure

A Valentine's Day Sketch

From my sketchbook. 

Every year that goes by I tell myself I'm going to try next year to be more festive. So here it is, Valentine's Day 2015 and I think I did an ok job in my attempt to get into the mood of this particular holiday. I'm wearing red, I'm baking a sweet treat for my kids and I drew this cute little Valentine's Day mouse. :)

What is creative flow?

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From my sketchbook. I drew this on a long car ride with pen and watercolor pencils. I was inspired by an illustration I found on Bechance by Maaike Bakker. Click on his name to see his work, it's pretty inspiring if you like sea monsters!

Sometimes when I talk to my artist friends we joke that our clients think we have a magic wand that we can wave and create with. It’s definitely just a joke, I have no such thing, but to be honest there is something a little magical about the creative process. Realistically and for those who don’t believe in magic, it’s a purely physiological process. 

The process I’m talking about here is called flow. Creative flow. It’s a real state of mind. One that when achieved allows me or you or who ever is experiencing it to almost freeze time and speed up creative productivity. When it happens at least for me, the rest of the world falls away. I hear nothing. I’m in a different place. It’s like being in a creative trance.

How does this happen?

According to an article I found on psychology today, the state of creative flow occurs as a result of a temporary deactivation of the prefrontal cortex. This is called transient hypofrontality. The prefrontal cortex is where our voice of reason, our critical and impulse controlling self is housed. With our reasonable side temporarily shut out, our brain then releases a chemical cocktail flooding the brain with large quantities of norepinephrine, dopamine, endorphins, anandamide, and serotonin. There’s more to it, but in short, that’s what happens when people achieve creative flow. For me, it doesn’t happen all the time. It’s a once or twice a month kind of thing depending on what I’m working on and how inspired I am. I noticed that I’m more creative after a long run, probably because it jump starts that creative chemical cocktail.

What about you? What triggers your creative flow?

Reference:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-playing-field/201402/flow-states-and-creativity

Moving... Next Week!

You know that surreal feeling? That's how I felt this morning. I sat down to make my list of things to do today, looked at the date and realized that on this day next week I will be helping my husband load a U-Haul.

Next week, January 31st (yes the day before Super Bowl) we will be on our way to Kentucky. What that means for my business is that while I am in Kentucky is that I will be focusing less on photography and more on design. Doing both creates this weird separation for me. It's like wearing two very different hats. I enjoy both, but I think putting photography back in hobby status for the next two years will allow me to focus on my digital art and illustration. Nothing will change for my design clients,  now I'll even have time for more, so if you know of anyone needing graphic design please send them my way! 

I am really going to miss Southern Pines, this place is amazing. Some of the things I'm going to miss are the yoga studio, Hot Asana. I love that place! Fresh Market... the closest one in KY will be 40 min. away in Louisville! There's a one of a kind sandwich, a chicken panini made by Nature's Own that I'm not sure I can live without. What I will miss the most is the performing arts charter school that my kids attend. Moving means our dance bill will go up, since at STARS dance is part of the curriculum. I'm nervous about my kids going to public school... Kentucky is one of those states that does not have charter schools. I'm going to miss my friends, but I know we'll be in touch. However, the list of things I am looking forward to has been growing since I found out about the move and I'm feeling incredibly optimistic about this new start. First on the list is that we'll be renting a super cute Cape Cod style home with a pool and a yellow door!!! Check back in around the end of the 1st week of February and I'll post an update on the move with pictures. In the meantime, it's time to pack!

Presence

I started practicing yoga actively about 6 months ago. The instructors vary from class to class but the message has often been to be present. I always thought this applied to the class and never really thought much about applying it to my life. 

This past week i’ve had a bit of an epiphany. I’ve realized that since I left my civil service job, I have been successful in growing my freelance business and I’ve prided myself on being available to my clients. Available, is apparently different from being present.

I have not been present. Especially to my friends and family. My mind is always on the next task, jumping from one thought to the next. I was there physically but mentally somewhere else. With that realization, I dug a little deeper into my lack of presence and how it could be affecting me and those around me. This goes pretty deep so I’ll have to elaborate more in followup posts on the topic but in short:

• Not being present impacts the quality of everything I do. 
• Not being present impacts my creativity. 
• Not being present makes me susceptible to distractions and causes me to waste valuable time. 
• Not being present affects how I interact with people, particularly those whose relationships I value.

Those are just 4 of the ways not being present has impacted me. 

And here’s an example: I went on vacation to Florida this past summer to visit my aunt who is one of my favorite people, I love her so much. I got out my laptop and right away I could tell she was annoyed by it, she knows me to well and she knew I was about to become distracted… I couldn’t even help myself. I just needed to check stuff… email, Facebook, my websites (all things that would still be there when I returned from vacation) …  but truthfully, once I opened that laptop, checked my email and started thinking about the things I needed to create, that’s where my mind went, it was all over. My mind should have been there with her, instead I was distracted. The quality of the time we had together was tainted because I was somewhere else mentally. 

I don’t want to be distracted anymore, especially when it comes to the people I love.
I want to be present in everything I do. 

I’ve started a list of how I can do things differently. I want to put these things into practice before I share them here on this blog so more to follow as I grow in learning how to be present. 

I know that by actively being more present in everything I do, I’ll be a better friend/ parent/ wife/ artist… athlete…the list goes on to whatever I want to be.

Presence: The state or fact of existing, occurring, or being present in a place or thing.

What are your thoughts? Can you think of areas where your presence is lacking?

Feeling Imaginative

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Adding pen over my pencil sketch

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I added color using watercolor pencils and a wet brush. 

When I was a kid I was always day dreaming. My imagination was so alive it was almost uncontrollable, especially in 4th grade math class where I missed out on foundational math because I was too busy drawing happy troll looking characters on my desk and giving them haircuts with an eraser or escaping to the away dreamlands that would spill onto my paper.

This morning I woke up early like I always do to get right to work, I feel like I'm most creative as soon as I get out of bed, before the sun comes up, but to my disappointment, there was an internet outage and the project I was hoping to work on was a website. It was cold and rainy outside. I missed out on the perfect morning to sleep in. For a minute I almost allowed myself to get upset about outside forces interfering with my productivity but then I realized this was the perfect opportunity to do something I've been trying to find the time to do all week; draw something for myself, for fun. So I drew a tree house and as I drew it, I was suddenly back in fourth grade, escaping to a fun far away place where it wasn't rainy or cold. 

Loochfest Logo

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The beginning, Loochfest logo in my sketchbook

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Re-creating my sketch in Adobe Illustrator with the pen tool. That old school color theme up in the corner is the one I went with for a color pallet. 

My little brother, Cory called me a few months ago and said "Jack, I need you to design a kick-ass logo for Loochfest, I want it to incorporate a pig and a guitar." And that was it, that was his vision. Last year Loochfest was a small gathering of family and friends out at my bonus dad's* house so I didn't take it very seriously plus I had real work to do. I put it off and put it off and finally (because when I procrastinate it eats at my soul) I called Cory and asked why it was such a big deal this year. We had a good conversation about his intentions for the event. Apparently, he wanted it to grow from a 20-30 person family gathering to a 300+ person charitable music festival. He wanted to charge for tickets so he could donate the money to a local organization that would benefit veterans. He felt like having a solid logo would make the event seem more legit. After our conversation his need for a logo made more sense. I asked my kids if they had any ideas and they immediately came up with a "piguitar". With that I was instantly inspired. Moments later the piguitar was born in my sketchbook. It was pretty rough at first. Once I took it into adobe illustrator and cleaned it up it started to shine. I ran into a little bit of a creative block when it came to the font. Nothing was working. The piguitar needed a handrawn playful font but nothing too decorative or whimsical. I finally found a great font on Behance called Chomp. The font was created by William Suckling of Camberwell, United Kingdom. It was exactly what I needed and with a few adjustments it completed the design. For the colors I went to my favorite source of inspiration, Adobe Kuler and tried out a few different color themes, finally settling on a combination of vintage colors that worked out perfectly. I finished up the logo and Cory was impressed, I think I exceeded his expectations. I'm sure he'll be a return client, especially because he gets design services at the family rate.

The day of the event rolled around last week. When I arrived with my family there was quite a crowd! There was a stage set up with sponsor banners, a multiple band line up featuring reputable bands from all over North Carolina, to include Cory's own bands. Awesomely delicious pork bbq was being served up around the clock with a spread of beans, coleslaw and a few other backwoods selections. 

I'm looking forward to next year's event! Apparently my little brother knows how to throw a party.
And now that we've got the logo down, it's time to come up with some Loochfest swag!

I can't forget to mention, all proceeds from this event went to the Randolph County Chapters AMVETS Post 905 & The VFW. 

Here are a few not so great photos I snapped with my iPhone. I didn't have my camera with me. My husband wanted me to "relax" and enjoy the event. Attending Loochfest without my camera made me realize that it's really hard to enjoy an event when I'm not behind a camera!

*I should probably define bonus dad because it's going to come up quite a bit in my blog posts. Here's a quick back story.. Jim is my mom's ex husband. However, they were married for my entire childhood, he raised me. At the same time my dad has also always been in the picture and we've always had a strong bond, I love him. I love them both... I have two dads. My dad Dan, and my bonus dad Jim.

Dia De Los Muertos style logo

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I designed this logo a few months ago for the Dia De Los Muertos 24 Hour Endurance Challenge. The inspiration of course came from the classic sugar skulls that usually surface everywhere around Halloween. They have become quite trendy here in the U.S. but digging into their origins, the sugar skull actually has a very unique history. They first surfaced in 17th century Mexico when Italian missionaries brought the art of sugar molds to the country. Sugar skulls are exactly what the name is, skulls made from sugar created out of clay molds. These hand-crafted skulls come from a cultural holiday celebrated in Mexico with Aztec origins, Dia De Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. The holiday is one that commemorates and celebrates the deceased. The skulls are created to represent departed souls, with their names on the foreheads. They are elaborately decorated with happy designs and bright colors. 

As with everything, I started my process for this design on paper. I printed out a basic skull and traced the form. I filled it in with different flowers, swirls, and whatever random elements flowed through my pencil and onto my paper. I then traced over everything with a Pigma Micron pen. I do this so for two reasons, one is that I can get a better idea of how the final product will look and the second is when I bring the design into Adobe Illustrator and vectorize it, all the lines can be found by the software. For simple logo concepts this process usually works well and provides a good foundation for the next step but with this one I wasn’t satisfied with the conversion so I ended up tracing over almost all of the elements once they were vectorized and recreating them with the pen tool. To save on time and maintain consistency throughout the design, I also created a few custom brushes for this project. Once I had everything created on the right side, I copied and flipped the elements over to the left side so that everything would be symmetrical. 

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Brushes created for this project

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The beginning. Tracing over my pencil drawing with a pen. 

Working it into a vector drawing. 

The final result was exactly what I had envisioned, I'm really happy with how it turned out. Another local artist that I frequently collaborate with for detailed woodwork and other engraving products, Lawrence (Itslaser engraving), used the logo to create these awesome candle holders that will be used as finisher’s prizes for the race. He engraved the artwork onto the glass. Turned out awesome!

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Photo and engraving by Lawrence Covain

Color Theming

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I took this photo with my iPhone outside of the hotel we were staying in while visiting the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina. The yellow and pink of the flowers caught my eye, mostly because it's mid-October and the flowers were still so lively.
Once I got in the car (my husband was driving) I took the photo into Adobe Kuler to create a basic color pallet and finalized it in Adobe Photoshop by matching it with the Pantone Solid Coated book. So here it is, a little color inspiration from Asheville. 

Adobe Kuler is a program that I will reference frequently in my Color Scheming posts and one that I use almost daily as part of my workflow. If you'd like to know what the heck it is and how it works here's a video tutorial from Lynda.com.