Tao of Guerra

The Fifth Dimension
Back in the day when I sat down to read Michio Kaku’s Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension. Wait a minute! What do parallel universes have to do with art? Art and science share a great many things in common, but you’re right, I’ll get to the point. Kaku described the early decades of the 1900s as a time when people were fascinated with the fourth dimension. Artists were obsessed with how to portray multiple dimensions. Ever thought about what Picasso was doing when he painted all of those disjointed looking people in his “modern art” pieces? He was trying to illustrate how images without a set fixed point would appear. If we can’t see into the fourth dimension, then higher dimensional beings would look like blobs or disjointed beings. When you understand what Picasso was trying So next time you think Picasso was smoking something, you might think twice and realize that he was trying to do something most people today still cannot begin to conceive. Picasso was brilliant in his observations and mixing that with his imagination. Here’s a great quote from Hyperspace:

“Picasso was once accosted on a train by a stranger who recognized him. The stranger complained: Why couldn’t he draw pictures of people the way they actually were? Why did he have to distort the way people looked? Picasso then asked the man to show him pictures of his family. After gazing at the snapshot, Picasso replied, “Oh, is your wife really that small and flat?” To Picasso, any picture, no matter how “realistic,” depended on the perspective of the observer.”

Drawing Realistically
This may seem like a strange introduction to a post on realism, but it’s an important place to start. Many times, artists forget that we’re drawing on a flat surface. We’re not re-creating reality like a photograph, we are interpreting reality and then creating a representation of it through a series of dabs, lines and scratches. Perhaps every artist at some point wants to achieve an ultra realistic style. Although this poses its own set of problems for comics, seeing that there aren’t big bold black lines outlining living things. So, trying to achieve realism with an ink line is next to impossible.

Balance
I like having my own style that falls somewhere in between realistic and cartoony. Drawing realistically is an important skill and helps you to hone in your craft and challenge you. But when you choose a style in which to draw, more often than not, the more realistic art is the less emotion it can express. In general, the harder you try to make a face look real, the more dead it appears. Emotion comes from the exaggeration of the eyes, eyebrows, mouth and body language. I think that’s why artists who are completely in the realism camp like to draw things more than people. Cars, buildings, everyday objects…things that don’t express emotion.

Curiosity Makes an Artist
Parents often push their children into adopting a realistic style. This is especially true in the west, where we have the perception that the more realistic something is, the better it is. The drawback to realism is that you don’t get to fully exercise your imagination. If you’re too busy developing your skills as an artistic stenographer, meaning someone who’s concerned with drawing things exactly as they see them, that can be frustrating and unsatisfying, especially for young artists. It’s like taking a left handed child and forcing them to use their right hand.

People need to choose their own style (or multiple styles) and develop that, not what someone else imposes on you. As individuals, there are certain tendencies that we naturally gravitate to. If not, all art would look the same and what a boring world that would be. Even among realistic artists there are differences. The important thing for growing as an artist is to try new things. The best way I know to do this is to switch up your style. Get out of your comfort zone. If you are more drawn to realism, try drawing cartoony and vice versa.

People have a tendency to pick the path of least resistance. How many artists do you know whose art never changes? I don’t mean that their publisher only buys a certain style so that’s what you see most of the time, but their overall portfolio looks almost exactly the same, year after year. How boring! As an artist, you should be hunting for new ways to do things; hungry to improve. Why? If you’re not curious and constantly developing new and better ways to do something, then you’re not an artist. It’s that simple. It’s what drives you.

Next time you get a chance, go to a museum and see paintings from some masters. I recommend this over books since prints never do the original painting justice. Take a close look and see how the brush strokes eventually build up to create an illusion that you can fully appreciate when you step back. They knew they couldn’t reproduce the real, so they found ways to fool your eye.

What do you think? Realistic or Cartoony?