The Yellow Ochre Newsletter
A weekly curation of encouragement and practical wisdom to turn your art from a hobby into a purposeful blessing for your community and culture.
How Our Mistakes Can Still Be Ok
“I don’t know the key. I don’t have perfect pitch. But I don’t care. Because you’re not gonna dance to the key.”
“It’s the context that makes it right, not the pitch. We teach you pitch when we should be teaching you context. You can put any note into that groove context and it’ll work.”
Let he who has ears to hear, listen.
Chicago’s Hidden Beauty
Aesthetics, as I understand it, is theoretical examination of the nuances afoot in God’s world, especially the human capability to be imaginative. Calvin Seerveld. Chicago beauty.
“Aesthetics, as I understand it, is theoretical examination of the nuances afoot in God’s world, especially the human capability to be imaginative.”
It was close to 10pm. We had just landed in Chicago. Airports don’t usually have the reputation of being “beautiful.” But amidst the stillness of a late night, a brisk quiet coolness, and a few phone-facing bus passengers, sat the bus driver.
I thought of Calvin Seerveld’s idea of art and beauty as this man made the intentional choice to sing to his inattentive passengers. This was a nuance of beauty piercing through a cold Chicago night.
I love Chicago. I love the architecture. I love the grand things the tourists love. And I love the hidden gems only I and the city’s natives know about. But I couldn’t help but think that this nameless bus driver’s small gesture was a thing of beauty that only the 6 passengers could receive as a gift in that moment.
What a beautiful welcoming to a favorite city.
Art Gleanings: Creative Vs. Non-Creative
Show the verbs
“Don’t [draw] the actual verb. Show the character about to do the verb or having just done it. ”
Creative Vs. Non-Creative Behavior
In his art education book, Art and Adolescence: Teaching Art at the Secondary Level, John A. Michael observes this difference between academic and creative learning in schools. I find this relatable to my own experience:
Creative:
Work from knowledge to the unknown
No model to follow
No right or wrong answers
Open-ended response
Trial-and-error, discovery methods
Tolerance for frustration, ambiguity
Noncreative:
Master a body of knowledge
Model/example to follow
Right answers
Fixed responses
Imitation, memorization methods
No tolerance for frustration, desire security
Etymology of “Create”
"to bring into being," early 15c., from Latin creatus, past participle of creare "to make, bring forth, produce, procreate, beget, cause," related to Ceres and to crescere "arise, be born, increase, grow," from PIE root *ker- (2) "to grow." De Vaan writes that the original meaning of creare "was 'to make grow', which can still be found in older texts ...." Related: Created; creating.
What Art Directors Need
““Most art directors need ten pieces of the same quality and same genre to risk their career on choosing you.” ”
Art Gleanings: Big Brush Strokes
What I learned this week about illustrating a Puritan Picture book
Do I self-publish or go with a traditional publisher? Marketing, reach, and distribution are high perks of going with a publisher (assuming they want to publish your work). The cons include pricing, royalties, and overall control of the project.
Do I choose offset printing or digital printing? If choosing the self-publishing route, offset printing has the perks of nicer quality printing, but you have to order in bulk, the start up investment is high, and I’d likely have to run a kickstarter campaign. With digital printing, I can do print on demand, but the book quality won’t be as high.
Do I print overseas or in the US? Printing overseas has plenty of headaches, but it’s do-able. However, at a higher cost, you could remove those headaches by printing in the States with places like Print Ninja.
Do I get an agent? I’m learning that many publishers only accept proposals and manuscripts through agents. But since I’m not doing this full-time, it’s likely not worth it for me.
Do I start a kickstarter? When projects are over 90% completion, many creators launch a kickstarter campaign to help fund the production of a project. This might be the way to go.
I learned more about my book’s original intent. As some know by now, I’m working on a project to illustrate a picture book of an old Puritan’s work (whose identity I will reveal at a later time). I originally thought he wrote this book for children, and so I began thinking of this project as a series of illustrations for kids. However, upon further research, I learned that the “children” he was referring to in his work was a metaphor for the foolish. His book aims to challenge the fool.
The role of social media in marketing as an artist. John Hendrix had some terrific wisdom to share on this matter. He said there is a difference between active and passive marketing. Active marketing is all about one to one relationships with people and networking. While social media takes on a more passive approach. It is passive because you do not know who your work is being exposed to.
“Professionals aim to solve somebody’s else’s problem that isn’t their own. The hobbyist is solving their own.”
This teaching idea is $$$:
Tips on book cover design
Tips on Visual Storytelling
“Instead of making art that trades on someone else’s drawings, make an homage to things that you love...Make that Pokemon drawing, but make it in your universe. Make that thing that you have loved as a child or the story you’ve always read but show Art Directors or people in the audience how that thing looks instead of your head.”
“When you treat your sketchbook like a playground, it turns into a king of treasure.”
Off-set vs Digital Printing
Weekly Round Up 2 - Art Gleanings
More art inspiration from the week
On gesture vs. details
If it is outfits you are interested in, invest in a Sears catalog. I fit is gesture you are interested in, then look beyond those extraneous, sometimes gesture-destroying details.
Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 63.
What is a pose or gesture but an orderly arrangement of body parts to display a mood, demeanor, attitude, mannerism, expression, or emotion.
Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 64.
Somewhere I read, “Whenever a photograph contains the principles and disciplines of the artist, the better it will be; but the more a drawing looks like a photograph, the worse it will be.”
Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 69.
Draw verbs, not nouns. A noun is a thing that can be named; a verb is a thing given the breath of life.
Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 69.
While sketching from a model there is a tendency to think of the pose as a still life. For the sake of animation study, think of the pose rather as a part (or extreme) of an action.
Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 79.
Using reference photos:
On Drawing Gesture & Figure Drawing:
Thomas Fluharty speaks highly of Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth.
Inspiration
This last week, I’ve gotten inspiration from these various artists:
Eyvind Earle - classic Disney artist. His whimsical forms!
Mary Blair - another classic Disney artist. Style and color!
Sarah Mari Shaboyan - color pencil illustrator/world traveller
Oliver Jeffers - illustrator. Our family loves his books.
Patrick Visser - illustrator tutorials. His exercises are nice.
Irena Spector - illustrator. I love her children’s book look.
Melissa Lakey - illustrator. Again, her child-like vibe is fire.
Facebook groups - Sketchbooking, urban sketching in Chicago, Sketch in Travel.
Weekly Round Up - Art Quotes
Explore insights on illustration, storytelling, composition, gesture, and creativity from masters like Walt Disney and Stanchfield. Learn how to illuminate ideas, craft compelling narratives, and bring your art to life
On Illustration:
The word illustration come with the same root word: illuminate.
It means to shine light onto something other than itself.
Illustration is to serve something outside of itself
Marshall Vandruff, Developing An Illustration
On Stories:
A good movie starts with a good idea for a good story…
Good stories also have a good clear theme, like “don’t judge a book by its cover” in Beauty and the Beast…
Along with theme, good stories also have at their core a very basic action:
Lion King: “Go home.”
The Little Mermaid and Cinderella: “Get the prince.”
101 Dalmatians: “Find the puppies.”
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves: “Stop the wicked witch.”
Beauty and the Beast: “Break the spell.”
Don Hahn
Animation Magic, 10-11.
On Hard Work:
The nucleus of artists from forty or fifty years ago was no more talented than this class. They had to go to art school to learn to draw, they had to read, study, and search; they had to discover for themselves what they had to offer.
Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 57.
On Mental and Physical Preparation:
You must create. The injunction of life is to create or perish…I have a formula: “Impression minus expression equals depression.”
Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 47.
On Composition
People can be very forgiving if the composition speaks. A composition can grab people across the room. (Nathan Fowkes)
On Anatomy vs. Gesture:
Our interest is in the gesture, which is the vehicle used in fitting a character into the role it is called upon to act out…
So to approach a model with the idea of copying a human figure plus its clothing could be called a waste of time. Our interest is in seeing the differences in each personality and their individualistic gestures and, like a good caricaturist, capture the essence of those differences…
There are really only a few principles of drawing but an infinite number of personality traits and gestures. To “hole in” after learning the body structures is to miss the excitement and the satisfaction of using that information to tell the story of life through the nuances of gesture…
We cannot back off from our emotions—if we do the result will be a mere anatomical reproduction…
A drawing or a scene is not final when a material representation has been made; it is final when a sensitive depiction of an emotion has been made…Yes, there is anatomy, form, construction, model, and two or three lines of etceteras, but only as far as those things are expressive of the story.
Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 45.
More On Gesture:
If we go at drawing from the standpoint of anatomy or model we are less likely to achieve the expression we are after, whereas if we work out some symbols for squash and stretch and apply them to anatomy, we can achieve our sought after gesture.
Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 26.
Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield’s 7 Reasons for Drawing Consistently (page 34)
Interest in life will grow.
Ability to solve drawing problems will be sharpened.
Creative juices will surge.
Healing fluids will flow throughout your body.
An eagerness for life and experience and growth will crowd out all feelings of ennui and disinterest.
If you go on a trip, whether long or short, let your sketchbook take preference over your camera. You’ll find yourself looking and seeing more than ever before. You will find yourself searching out new things to see, new places to visit, and more varieties of people to “capture” in your sketchbook.
Your sketchbook will become your diary. Think of it as a graphic autobiography.
On Seeing Reality:
Seeing into the realities—beyond the surfaces of the subject.
Robert Henri
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 45.
What a horrible fate—to be just a drawing.Walt Disney & Walt Stanchfield
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol 1, page 29.
Bruce McIntyre’s 6 Rules of Perspective:
Re: Meditation
Eastern meditation, says Tim Keller, is emptying your mind of all rational thought.
Christian meditation, he goes on, is the exact opposite. It is filling our mind with God’s word and speaking to your heart about that truth.
I came across this a few weeks ago and can’t stop thinking about how helpful it is.
Eastern meditation, says Keller, is emptying your mind of all rational thought.
Christian meditation, he goes on, is the exact opposite. It is filling our mind with God’s word and speaking to your heart about that truth.
His quote from Martin Lloyd Jones hits the sweet spot:
Have you realized that so much of your unhappiness in your life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself rather than talking?