Illustrators are not artists.
-
The hell you say and so do I.
I was going through some old drawings of mine and one in particular drew my attention. An illustration of an old co-worker's truck. He had an old Ford that he tubbed out and made into a slick hot rod. I wish I had a photo.
Anyway, right after I drew that thing 11 years or so ago I showed it to a friend who owned an art store/frame shop and does college football sports paintings and other fine art. He said to me; "That is nice but you are not an artist, you are an illustrator."
"Yeah well kiss my ass" I said, or something to that effect all in fun. We went to lunch and we went about our business none the worse for wear, or so I thought.
I think back now on that comment and it must have stuck in my head because after that I don't recall doing much drawing or any artwork to speak of for almost 10 years. I drifted through different jobs without focus and finally landed myself in the architecture field. I now make a living doing computer drafting, graphics and 3D modeling.
Late 2009 I find myself searching the net for graphic art and illustration just marveling at what great work there is out there all the while telling myself that I can't do that kind of shit. Well I found a couple people drawing in Moleskines and thought I could do that. I have an obsession with tactile things and the Moleskine just fits so nice and feels good so I started drawing again. Since then I have filled 3 full sketchbooks and have a number of smaller size for note taking, sketch ideas, etc. I am having a blast drawing again and I feel my creativity has been sparked. My daughter has also been drawing much more, amazing me at her talent and she is only 11.
(If you want to see any of my drawings along with my 3D ramblings just click on my blog link in my signature.)So why the Freudian outpouring? Not entirely sure other than to say that people can have an influence on you whether you know it or not. Am I mad at my friend? No way, he is still my friend and I have called him worse in joking. I just find it interesting that I recall that experience from a simple drawing I did 11 years ago. And I don't think that one comment directed my work life at all, just my view of my own talents. That in itself is an odd thing I think as we (I) tend to gravitate towards the negative more than the positive. I cannot tell you how many times my parents, brother, friends and wife have told me how artistic I am but one little comment like "you are not an artist, you are an illustrator" can sound and feel negative.
Anyway, I would love to hear other experiences in self awareness and / or loathing,
ha ha. -
Include illustrators
-
Man, I am glad that you are filling up sketchbooks. You go ahead. Don't question if it is art. It is expression. All of it is valuable, primarily to you. It represents a flow of thought. It is a treasure to those around you.
My sketchbooks are full of pages with apparently no direction in the images. Other pages depict conceptual scenes with deliberately skewed perspective, light and shade merely used to differentiate surfaces, sort of like the false shading that OpenGL applies to models. Still other pages are drawings from real observations.
I used to just doodle in the margins of any old piece of paper. I started to take notice of these ramblings as seeds for bigger ideas. I will sometimes transcribe these things to larger sizes to see if they become something, if nothing else, interesting compositions. -
"Art is anything you can get away with", Andy Warhol:
Most people think of art within their narrow window into the world.
-
I'm not sure if this helps you at all, Eric - but a very wise architect once told me that the REAL designer is the one that knows how to make the design WORK.
In other words, ANYONE can draw a pretty picture, but the one that knows HOW to make the pretty picture turn into reality is the true "artist/designer".
-
It's just an art snobbery, Eric...practiced by those that don't actually get their hands dirty themselves. I'm of an age that when it was time for me to decide where to head off to to study, I decided on an Art College and Illustration, rather than a University or even an Art College Fine Art painting course. Why? Because if I had chosen either of the latter, I'd have been dragooned into producing abstract art. Now I can appreciate abstract art as well as anyone, but that doesn't mean that I would opt to actually produce it...as is my prerogative.
Things are as bit more relaxed nowadays, but Universities still wouldn't 'lower' themselves into dealing with anything that had a remotely practical application.
So Tenniel wasn't an artist, or Turner's early landscapes...which were all produced as illustrations for various gazeteers?
And I'd like someone to (convincingly) explain to me why Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper are artists and Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish are 'only' illustrators. -
Why do some people favor certain renditions of a classical piece of music and not others? I am using the word classical here as a very generic term for widely recognized and valued works by dead composers from many periods, not just the Classical period.
The point is that a specific interpretation of a specific subject, whether visual or auditory or whatever may strike us in certain way, and therein lies the art?Edit: Oh, and a significant number of people tend to respond in a similar way to the "artist's interpretation". That seems always to be a prerequisite.
Advertisement