Category Archives: Reflection

Hot Takes

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This was originally posted to my Ko-Fi page a month early for followers and supporters. If you would like to read these posts a month early, head over to my ko-fi account to follow me there.

A question about drawing portraits and getting better at drawing portraits popped up on my  threads feed. Appropriate right? Before I could respond, a response from an artist I respect responded with (I paraphrased here,) “You have to draw a portrait perfectly because the viewer will know when something is off.” Then she wrote (again paraphrasing,) “You need to draw from LIFE!”

​Those are two statement that I can not disagree with more. Let’s discuss that second statement, “You need to draw from life.” Woof, that’s a big one. Yeah, drawing from life is best but if you are just learning for funsies, it can be hard to draw from life.

I want to also point out that this artist is really coming from a place of privilege. They have a supportive spouse, live in a nice home, kids are out of the house, their spouse has a good job and she doesn’t hold down a full time job OTHER THAN BEING AN ARTIST.

Drawing from life means that you can go and draw or paint at the time of day when the light is right. I got out of work today and the sun was setting. If I had driven to a spot to paint, even if it were only 5 minutes away, I would have set up my easel or gotten out my tools and made art for 15 minutes. Some time but not a lot of time. Sometimes I’m able to make art on my way to work, but not always.

If it weren’t for photos I would never have made the progress I have made in make portraits.

Many artists take photo references and use them in the studio to supplement their sketches made on site. Some artists never make art on site, they just take pictures when they are out and about and then make their images in studio.

Yes, I like drawing from life but I also acknowledge that giving advice to someone asking for help like, “YOU MUST DRAW FROM LIFE” is garbage.

Artists can be such assholes sometimes.

​Now statement number 1: UNless you are attempting to draw in photorealism, you do not need to be perfect. People’s eyes will fill in the blanks. How does this person thing caricature works? You exaggerate and the viewer’s mind will make the connections. You get it close and the viewer’s mind will recognize that person.

​I drew a picture of one of my coworkers. To me, it looks NOTHING like him. It was off- the face too long, eyes not right, and just not right.

I had my sketchbook open to that page in my studio when my coworkers stopped by, she noticed the image and asked if it was from the meeting we were both in and pointed to the picture of our mutual coworker and said, “Did you SEE the faces he was making when so-and-so was speaking?” I knew in an instant that SHE recognized the coworker. Not because I was photorealistic, but because it looked ENOUGH like him that she filled in the blanks.

See also cartoons- my cartoon me image looks like me, not because it’s photo realistic but because I have enough details there for your brain to fill in my face over that cartoon face.

It’s why you can look at a smiley face and know it’s a representation of a human face smiling.

Anyway, you don’t have to draw perfect faces. You can draw wonky image that kinda look like a face. You can like wonky faces or you can say, “I want these to be a little more realistic.”

If you want to be more realistic, get drawing. Get a pencil and a sketchbook and start drawing. You need MILES on that pencil before you can get more realistic and feel good about it. Every drawing you make gets you closer to that realistic goal.

Also you don’t have to draw from life, ever if you don’t want to. Head over to instagram and ask your friends if you can draw from their selfies. Find an account like @earthsworld and draw, draw, draw. Then draw some more. (Don’t sell art made from someone’s insta post, that copyright violation!!!)((There are insta accounts that post images that you can use freely and make art for sale from. Same for facebook. There are loads of free reference sites. Find them and use them if you want to make art to sell.)

Drawing from photos is valid no matter what anyone says.

Sketchbook VS Sketchbook

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One of the things I really love about sketchbooks (and art journals) is that they can really encompass anything and everything. It’s also a point of contention.

Part of me wants to take all the sketchbook videos and categorize them into neat little containers that explain exactly what they are:

a finished art sketchbook- an art book

an art journal- an emotional sketchbook

an UGLY* or WORKING sketchbook- a sketchbook with rough ideas

and so on.

Part of my response of “WE NEED TO PUT THESE IN NEAT CATEGORIES.” Is due to the fact that I see all these things are really different, and they are. There are vast differences between an art book, an art journal, and a working sketchbook. The art in each one can be vastly different. But also have similar qualities.

I also think that because we lump finished art books in with the greater label of SKETCHBOOK that it’s confusing for people who want to start a sketchbook. It also sets a bar that is perhaps a bit too high.

As humans we compare ourselves to one another and I know I compare my art to that of other people.

When I look at my sketches and doodles that are in preparation for other pieces of work and then compare it to a sketchbook with finished art pieces, well I feel like I can never match up.

“If that’s their sketch, how amazing is their finished piece?”

A finished art piece in a sketchbook isn’t a sketch, it’s a finished art piece done in book format. It’s sequential art. And that’s okay but it’s important to note that it is a FINISHED art piece and not a sketch.

Sketches are meant to be rough. They are meant to be thoughts on paper. Thoughts made physical as we work our way to a more finished art piece.

I am not suggesting that sketches don’t have vibrancy, or that they aren’t beautiful in their own right.

I write this as someone who sells their sketches. I know the power of that immediacy and that vibrant capture of a moment. We respond to the artist’s eye and viewpoint of that moment. Sketches are beautiful and art on their own.

But it’s hard to compare a rough working sketch to a finished piece of art in a sketchbook.

(Going off of this, I think Urban Sketching is really Urban en Plein Air. A great deal of what we do in urban sketching is create finished art works in sketchbook format.)

I don’t know if there is a true resolution to this. Instead when I watch a video or look at an instagram of another sketchbook flip through I note to myself if I think this sketchbook is a finished art book, an art journal, or a working ugly sketchbook. I note this and then think about how my personal classification of these various sketchbooks helps me compare myself less to perfect pictures of art.

(It also helps me when I talk to the kids I work with about their sketchbooks. I talk to them about how we’re creating and using a working sketchbook, and how it’s going to have thumbnail sketches, color studies, and notes about our work.)

*I’m going to note here that I FUCKING hate the term UGLY sketchbook. But it seems to be what is being used here in social media land so I’ll stick with it and SEETHE.

Results of Values Journaling

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One of the main goals I mined from my values journaling session was that I really want to focus on making my own art for 2025.

Somewhere in my research for values journaling someone suggested (I really should do better at keeping notes) that you ask yourself the question, “When was I the most happy?” When I applied that to thinking about art and making art, I immediately thought to AJ Ning and the summer I paid my bills with art.

I believe I told the story here before, but back in the summer of 2002 I had moved home, had a disastrous break up, well 2*, and decided to focus on me. I had a summer where I didn’t have a full time job and I would wake up in the morning, drive to a scenic spot, hike, draw and paint. My pieces ranged from little 5×7 inch drawings and watercolors to large 22×30 inch watercolors and gouache pieces. There were a few small desk top sized driftwood sculptures too. 

All this went up on eBay and sold from anywhere from 10 cents to $125. $125 was decent money in 2002. It was close to half my rent for the month. 

Anyway, back then I looked at the landscapes and drawings of lighthouses as selling out a bit, no matter how much I enjoyed making them. Landscapes sold to tourists felt like selling out.

Today I see landscapes as an exploration of my space in the world. I always enjoyed painting and drawing them, but now I’ve embraced landscapes and portraits and everything else as something that I can just enjoy making. I’ve released the idea of “selling out” as a judgement I made on myself and made by others onto myself. It was a juvenile judgement.

From this goal, to focus on making my own art, I’ve decided that I want to apply for grants and artist residencies. In my research I realize that I’m late to the party when it comes to residencies and grants for this summer. I’ve missed most deadlines for residencies that occur during the time I can take vacation this summer, and likely will have to schedule into the following summer. Though summer 2026 will be more flexible if I can find things out in advance. My summer schedule at the DayJob is flexible.

It’s an interesting thing, applying for grants and residencies as I approach 50. When I graduated from my undergrad program I was told I should apply for residencies, but I saw application fees and also the various fees associated with the residencies. The information I had access to didn’t show any residencies that paid the artists, and many do. Many just cover housing. If I had done more research I’d have found what I’ve found now. And that are a lot of grants and residencies that cover expenses of the residencies. There are some that make sure the artist can even eat!

Anyway, if I can’t find a residency for this summer, I’m going to see if I can get a grant and craft my own. Maybe it’ll be a residency on my bike- I’ll ride my bike places and paint and draw there. Maybe camp. We’ll see what happens. All I know is that like last summer I want to immerse myself in making art then set about having a show.

*It turned out that my now wife and I just needed a break from one another to grow the f*ck up and be a good couple.

Technical Skills and Style and Mixed Media

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I consider myself a mixed media artist. I went to school to be an art teacher and an art therapist. The skilled learned were broad spectrum and about all media. I didn’t have to be super skilled in all of them, but I needed to understand them well enough. I missed out on pottery.

In all honesty I think learning all the media I did in high school, college and grad school suited the way my brain works. ADHD and all that.

I consider myself proficient in print making, specifically relief and dry point as well as drawing with a variety of materials and finally watercolors. Though I suspect some people who watch my watercolor videos would debate me on that.*

That said I enjoy learning about materials. I think changing up what I draw and paint with on occasion keeps my brain active and pushes me to try harder.

But what really get my artistic groove going is mixing media. Watercolors with pencils and pens and collage and gouache and acrylic and slapping all that into a sketchbook/journal.

I like it when I take the rules of a media and break them. Continue reading →

Getting Better at Art

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I mentioned in a previous post that I’d explore the topic of what it means to “get better at art.”

Each of us has a different definition of what better means.

I believe it helps to define what better means. If I look at the art I’m making and I’m thinking, “I can do that better. ” Or, “I don’t like that.” I need to figure out why I don’t like the piece or why I think it needs to be better.

For instance, I have felt like my landscapes were off, and it was easy for me to look at them and label them as stiff and boring. Around 15 years ago I looked at my portraits and thought, “I’d like to do those better.” Initially with portraits that meant doing them realistically. Then I realized I wanted them to be more about the personalities than fully realistic. Vibes not realism. So I set about getting looser with my portraits.

As for my landscapes I’m making a lot of landscapes. I’m forcing myself to look at values and contrast and I’m making myself work loose.

I’m using chunky materials on toned papers and attempting to be loose. I’m looking at the values. I’m making values studies. I’m trying to work fast. I’m trying to get the idea down and then go back and add in more contrast and value. I’m worrying less about details and more about the vibe of the landscapes.

In just a week of concentrated study my landscapes have gotten better. (IMO)

It’s back to basics but it is also defining what I mean by getting better. I could have just made a few dozen landscapes without a goal in mind, but without that goal I flounder. Without a goal I make image after image and get frustrated about why my art isn’t getting to where I want it to be. I go in circles.

With a goal I can try different things with different materials.

Currently I’m feeling better about my landscapes in the kid’s tempera sticks but I attempted a landscape in watercolors and it was stiff and lacked the fun of the landscapes in the kid’s tempera sticks. So my new goal is to work on landscapes in watercolors but to explore making them feel loose and spontaneous and fun.

The importance of Support and NOW

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My grandfather told me he’d always wanted to be an artist, specifically an oil painter, but as a poor kid from a poor family he joined the Coast Guard. Mostly because it was the only branch of the military where he could guarantee that he would never get on a plane. This was back in the late 40’s so I guess that makes sense. 

He served until he was injured falling from a ladder. I’m not sure exactly what happened with the injury but I do know it hurt his back and his hip. He had a lump that he was told was scar tissue. In the early 90s the lump grew and started to be painful. The doctor’s did a biopsy and found that it was still benign and just scar tissue but in the exams they found that he had lung cancer.

He died at 67, never having picked up a brush.

This has always been a driving force behind my art making and encouraging others to make art. Part of me wonders what kind of art my grandfather would have made, had he ever gotten the encouragement to pick up a brush. Especially if his family had the means to encourage him to pick up a brush.

I imagine him making paintings of forests and fields, things that celebrate the home and life he had made. Maybe he would have painted cars and trucks- the things he repaired as part of his job as one of the head members of the maintenance team at the local University.

I wonder. 

One of the big things I wonder about is what would happen if we were all given support around the things we love and care about? I’m thinking about Karen Faulkner.*

If you don’t know the story, Karen Faulkner is a Harvard grad venture capitalist who started to ride a bike for enjoyment and exercise in 2017. She made the US Olympic team as a replacement. She quit her venture capital job in 2021 to ride full time. She won gold in the women’s olympic cycling event at 31.

There’s a lot to unpack here. She went to Harvard, most of the reports I read failed to mention that she rowed for Harvard and holds rowing records. So she was already fit. She was a venture capitalist** so she made a fair amount of money.

What does this have to do with art?

Nothing really, but it goes to show that if you have support and systems and money you can quit your job and follow your dreams.

Many of the kids I work with are born into poverty and part of where I work, works to break the cycle of poverty through gaining scholarships and other financial help to send them to college.

I’ve been wondering how I can better support the people in my life and the people reading this with their art. How do we break generational poverty thinking and encourage more art making for art’s sake.

Throughout my life I’ve seen art and art making as an essential form of communication that reaches across boundaries and increases connection between people with differences. Art communicates. Art connects. Art heals.

Imagine if we all had just a little bit of the money a venture capitalist has and the art that would be made.

*forgive me for delving a little into my other love- cycling. I don’t follow races or even road cycling, but this story captured my interest.

**I have some serious ICK issues with venture capital. Look what they have done to NING and other companies.

links:

Olympic reporting

NBC Reporting

When the Internet Began

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Remember when the internet was a collection of people doing interesting things and sharing them? It was always a little weird and fun. Now I sometimes feel like the internet is a bit of a cesspool of hate and fear mongering. In an effort of rejuvinating the weird and fun I present to you these little videos:
https://vimeo.com/darenjannace/10946?ref=tw-share 

Worth the effort to click that link. A guy made a video by animating 30 post it notes a day for one year. 30 frames= 1 second. Amazing and just under 7 minutes long. Fun. Weird. Old school internet.

Back in the day I used to troll EDC groups with my EDC Spork*. Some hated me, some loved me. This guy made a great video about a tactical wooden spoon. I love the send up of tactical EDC culture. Hilarious.

*I really need to start to carry my spork again. I’ve gotten out of the habit since my workplace has 2 full kitchens for use, but often I just use disposable stuff available from the places where I often buy my lunch. UGH.

Drawing from Life Informs the Imagination

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I don’t design my pages. It has never been a thing that I do. I just draw and fit it to the page, occasionally I’ll put some text into a bare area and call it good. In a way the lack of design is design.

As I was working on a video about drawing cartoon faces I stated (paraphrasing here) that when I create a cartoon face I am drawing on all the experience I have drawing faces from photos and life. 

​The kids I work with complain about drawing from life, arguing that they need to work on their manga style rather than drawing stuff from life. They hate to hear that all the greats drew and still draw from life on the regular. Every time we put pen(cil) to paper it changes and alters our ability to render for the better.*

I did a vibey realistic drawing of a face today with pen and ink wash, a favorite technique. Then I went on to draw 7 different version of him with a few different materials. It was and is a great exercise in character design but also in seeing exactly how drawing real but with a focus on vibes and from “life” really informs my cartoon faces. Those characters can feel more REAL because I draw vibey realism.

I tested it with a fude nib, 2 types of gel pen, and a brush pen. Each gives a different feel to the cartoon face. 

As a further test I’m definitely going to test this idea out with the drawing tablet in Krita.

​* We can discuss what I mean by better in a future post.

Vacation Planning

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Some of you may know that for years I worked a retail gig, and even when I had worked my way up into the admin office and eventually the regional office, I still worked the holidays. Expectation in retail is that all hands are on deck.

Part of my reason for going to grad school was to not have to work the holidays. I missed seeing my family on the important days. Also, nothing will make you hate the holidays like working retail and dealing with how awful some people are.

I’m taking the whole week around Turkey Day off. Why? Because I can. I’m also taking about a week and a half off around Christmas and New Year’s. Why? Again, because I can.

​Turkey day is the last time we visit my family until warmer weather.

Every time we visit I overpack art supplies and think I’m going to make all sorts of art and spend a lot of time journaling. Instead, I watch movies, YouTube, and generally relax.

I’m about to go through this process again.

I have decided to take with me:

  • My current ETEWJ
  • My small square journal
  • A pocket notebook with ideas for videos and zines
  • Waterbrushes- assorted
  • Mungyo Watercolor Crayons reviewed here
  • Handful of Paint Pens and Markers
  • The Caliarts watercolor set I reviewed here
  • ​Various Pens

Related:

  • My laptop
  • My new drawing tablet
  • Camera and mic set up, though not sure which and I won’t likely record any art making. Also a tripod and a neck/chest mount just in case I go somewhere and I do want to draw.

Because I know that I won’t make that much physical art what I am hoping to do is to get some time in on the drawing tablet and get more comfortable on it. I’m feeling more confident but still awkward.

I also hope to get more of the journaling zine ready to go. I’ve got a lot of typing to do on it before I can do the hand drawing I want to do. I’ve wanted to scan and reprint some of the Useful Journaling and make them into a download and printable.

As for Christmas, I really want and need to get some real stuff done around the house, plus really dive deep into the zines I’ve had churning in my brain for the last few years.

I’ve been really enjoying my morning spreads and pages that I’ve been doing and I’ve got to scan a bunch more of them. It’s been quite cathartic to think about art in the face of difficult times.

During Tangerine Mussolini’s first term I spent a lot of time making zines, but also I spent a lot of time in those first COVID lockdown months feeling very flat and strange. Looking back much of that time was very surreal and I realized how much I prefer being able to GO SOMEWHERE on the regular. Even if that is work. I turned half my yard into a garden, which I have not continued to maintain… We’ll see about this spring.

Anyway, I have memories that seem very surreal, but this go round I want to make sure I’m making more art and connecting locally and further out.

Anyway, I’m going to go make art. I hope you do too.

The Video Making Process and Upload

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My video making process is pretty straight forward, and there are 2 styles when it comes to my art videos- talk while I art and voice over. I prefer the talk while I art despite it being a little more garbled and often make a little less sense. The voice over is a lot more work.

The videos are both shot in the same way. I have an overhead rig that I created out of mini lightweight light stands for creators or influencers (ugh). I then have a pole that goes across and over my art making area that is made up of a leg from an old broken tripod. I have a lot of lights mounted because the office where i work is so dark. This is the one downside of this house- the light in the rooms where i have had my workspaces has terrible light. It’s always been this way. I miss our old apartment and its’ amazing light filled rooms.

The camera lives on a mount above the space. It is always ready to go. I make sure that the batteries in the mic and the camera are always charged and that there is a card in the cam.

I make it so I have no excuses to not turn on the camera when I sit down to make art. I don’t record everything, but I am now recording A LOT.

I do have to remind myself to turn the mic on. It is the one thing I really do struggle with.

It doesn’t take long to fill up a terabyte drive when you shoot high quality video.

Basically I record in the morning before work, or occasionally after work. On Saturdays I transfer a week’s worth of video to my laptop and also move already completed videos to an external hard drive. Currently I’m saving the videos I used to make the videos but I think I’m going to only keep the finished videos, though part of me wonders if that is a mistake. Especially considering how cheap SSD and SD cards are.

Once the files are on my laptop I open up CapCut. Yes, I taught myself Davinci Resolve and used Adobe Rush and use a cheap online editor. Why? I can auto make YouTube thumbnails with it and once i figured out how to edit the audio it works fine.*

​It’s robust enough to do what i need since I shoot everything consecutively or in chunks that make sense.

Anyway, I pull the video into CapCut and process the audio first. I level the audio- push a button that brings the lows up and squashes down the peaks where I speak too loudly. Then I push another button that separates the speaking from the background noise. This is helpful when I have a lot of trucks tearing up the road in front of my house. It does leave a bit of a hollow artifact that I think I could fix in Davinci or Rush. sadly my new laptop can’t run Rush.

I then go through my video and remove the spots where I use a heat gun, fart or make other unpleasant noises.

I decide if there are areas where I want to speed up the video. I have found that most people want to watch the video at close to or at real time speed. I have decided that the most I’ll speed up my video is 2x for instructional videos and if I’m doing a voiceover of an art making, then I’ll use whatever speed make sense for the video.

If there are areas where I don’t talk, I add in cuts, full silence then and add music over those areas.

I then add in titles, text and end credits.

After all that I click another button and create the YouTube thumbnail. This involves finding a still in the video and adding text to it. this is where i think about the title to the video and the almighty algorithm and how search might find my video. I try to make something catchy but I fail at things people click on.

I am currently testing out “Getting Loose in Your Sketchbook” and “Fill Your Sketchbook” which seem to be the god awful click bait titles that are working. UGH I hate it.

This has been a bit of extra work as I play around with a glitch effect on the title. It’s fun but I think makes the title hard to read. I’ll probably quit using it for some of the stuff CapCut suggests in a colorway I like.
After all this I do a final check to make sure the title in the video and episode number is correct.

The episode number is really only there so I know what order I intend them for upload. I have and frequently upload them in a different order if the chosen order makes them fall on the wrong day of the week.

For instance, I don’t schedule review videos for Saturdays, those are for Tuesdays or Thursdays. I try to load a longer art making video on Saturdays because they seem to do better on those days. as for reviews, it doesn’t matter what day i load those, they always seem to get the same number of views no matter than day I post them.
Anyway, i’m writing this to avoid watching the election results roll in and it’s worked kind of.

​* Though there are times when there is an echo that comes from the noise cancellation on the mic. It only happens when there is a lot of really loud ambient sound- like the construction happening on my street. Those are times when I record a voice over because the audio is trash.