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Too much too soon-Part 1.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Previously you’ve read me giving myself a little bit of a hard time about getting colour onto the drawings a bit too hastily. On reflection I was probably a little too critical of what I was doing but, I suppose it was my reaction to finding myself making images that were a long way from where I wanted them to be that early on.

Before I move on and take a look at where things went from here I thought I’d make a quick series of posts which Illustrate (excuse the pun) a bit more precisely what I’d got myself into.

Here is a layout for a drawing I’d had in mind for ages but had never taken the time to sketch out. As a result I drew it up directly onto a sheet of fine paper without my usual rough sketch to guide me. I chose to mark it out using blue pencil, in fact it’s blue leads in one of those fine propelling pencils, 0.9 mm lead thickness. The paper is what’s known as Bristol Board, which is an extra fine surfaced drawing paper. It’s lovely stuff but being very smooth it’s not that receptive to certain media, blue pencil being one of them. As a consequence you have to apply a little bit more pressure than you would like to get a line to stand out. This also means that the lines are more work to erase once you’ve been over the drawing with pen, biro or paint.  One needs to take care because whilst pressing a bit harder works well you also run the risk of “denting” the surface and then you end up with a drawing covered in little grooves which really cause problems when you apply colour pencil or a fine wash. At this stage I leave all construction lines and little errors in place as there’s no need to erase them yet.

The tinting of the white background on the image is due to me photographing the image with my camera rather than scanning it. This is another side effect of blue pencil, my scanner doesn’t pick up the image very well. I’m not sure why but this characteristic used to be something I took advantage of when working in the studio, and we did everything by hand, as you could layout a drawing in blue pencil, ink over it and then blow it up or down on the copier without the blue showing through on the copies. Maybe it has something to do with the reflectivity of that particular colour, I don’t know. It’s a slight shame as drawings in this form are often great visually and it would be great to leave them as is, but they are often tricky to reproduce. Note to self; experiment with blue pencil images and the scanner. If anyone out there knows a quick fix for this, please be kind enough to let me know.

Once I’m happy with a roughed out drawing I’ll often leave it for a day or so before working on it further. For some reason, and I’m sure it’s got something to do with woods and trees, revisiting an image after a break enables you to see very clearly anything which is not quite right. It really is like having a fresh set of eyes sometimes. Sometimes I’ll come back to a drawing after only a couple of hours, and it looks so crap I pretty much start again, but that’s not often.

The next step is doing the drawing proper in ink or biro.

Getting started.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Soulcraft what?

First things first, welcome to the Soulcraft Candy Blog.

Aside from telling you who I am, which you’ll find in the “About” section, I suppose I should also take this opportunity to shed some light on what Soulcraft Candy is about. So here goes, this is what was on my mind when I thought of it.

Last year I came across a very interesting little book written by an american chap by the name of Matthew Crawford who is both a philosopher and motorcycle machanic. A great combination of talents if ever there was one. The book is called “Shop Class as Soulcraft”. In it he explores the idea that learning to work with our hands, contrary to what modern working life tells us, is both highly valuable to our inner sense of self worth and helps to shape us fundamentally as complete and productive human beings. My understanding is that the impact of understanding and adopting these kinds of skills has the capacity to effect you at your core, and shapes the person you are.

I loved it. It got me thinking, a lot, about who I am and what I do. I wondered whether I had had my soul crafted, and if that was the case, how had it come about, what was doing the crafting and was it still going on? It seemed to me that it was a kind of creative process where there were two collaborators, myself and life itself. Some things that make you who you are, are things that life throws at you in the course of your existence. Others are experiences and learnings that you consciously seek out through your natural interest. Both have the capacity to effect you at your core, and so make you who and what you are.

I’m a creative person, always have been and I found all this new insight fascinating. Further pondering on the subject got me thinking about what comes as a result of soulcraft. One is a different and deeper understanding of the world around me, the other is a lovely way of being able to recognise in my own life the things that I really love to do, that hold my attention and focus my passions beyond the everyday. I decided that what I get out of all this soulcrafting that had been going on are beautiful nuggets of soulfood, and they are not just things that present themselves to me, they are equally things that I produce. There’s a two way street thing happening. Lovely stuff comes in and in response, lovely stuff comes out too. These moments are wonderfully enjoyable to me, like sweets. And that’s where the candy bit comes from.

Does this all make sense?

As I mentioned above, I’m a creative person and am fortunate enough to have worked as a professional designer for many years. During that time I’ve always been interested in the nature of creativity, my creativity and the processes that influence, drive and sometimes stop it. I’ve also been quite curious about how you go about balancing your creative life when your creativity is something you rely on for your daily bread. Unsurprisingly I find a great deal of that balance comes from engaging in other creative activities that make life more fun and more interesting for me.

I’m lucky, I’ve always been able to draw and make things, take stuff apart and fix it. I derive a great deal of pleasure from these activities. What’s also great is that through these things I get to exercise my passions and they provide me with my candy moments.

After mulling over all of this at home I decided I’d like to blog about it. I have no preconceived ideas about where I want this to go but I wanted to share some of my thoughts, some of my candy moments, and perhaps stimulate some reactions and discussions with like minded individuals.

I can’t tell you now how often things will appear on the blog but I’ll attempt to keep it regular.

So here goes.