Ballad - Maggie Stiefvater

Some of you who've followed this blog for a long time, might remember I used to be in an art critique group with a few others artists, one of whom was Maggie Stiefvater, now NY Times best selling author. Above is a trailer to her latest book, Ballad. She's a fabulous writer so check out her blog, and her books. Shiver is my personal fave, but then, I haven't read Ballad yet.

She's still as awesome an artist as ever, she created the book trailer above herself.

Crisis of confidence

As you might have noticed, I'm not spending so much time on my art right now and this blog is suffering because of it. I apologize profusely for that to all my loyal readers who have stuck with me through the thick and thin of my posting habits. There will be art again, but it won't be right now.

But I do still have something to offer. A little advice for those who are working hard at their art, because I know what it's like. I'm also currently working on perfecting a new skill, my writing, and I've realized it's put me back where I was years ago with my art. It's thanks to my art journey that I'm making progress with my writing. When I realized that, it occurred to me that some of what I'm drawing on now (pun intended) as I work at becoming a good writer, is exactly the same stuff I went through with art. That turned out okay in the end and that inspires me to keep going through the endless slog of learning something new now.

Talent isn't the main thing, I really believe that it's not. It sure doesn't hurt but it's not what you're born with that makes you good at something. It's what you put into it, and most important of all, it's not quitting when the going gets tough. It's not giving up when you make a mess and your canvas you paid a fortune for is ruined. It's being passionate enough about your dreams to get out there and work on them every single damn day no matter how hard and how pointless it seems. Because if you do that, you plain and simply can NOT fail to improve. You just can't. It might be slower for some than others, but in the end, whether you were born with talent or not, you only get good if you work at it. And even more importantly if you never ever give up. Ever. Ever. Ever.

I hope she doesn't mind but I want to make a special mention of an artist friend of mine, who most of you who read art blogs probably know anyway, Rose Welty. Rose is an absolute, geniune and complete inspiration to me. She has worked harder at perfecting her craft than any other artist I've ever come across and it pays off for her. I bet she wouldn't tell you that her journey's been easy, no ones ever is. But she works so hard at learning, and whatever success she gets in the end, she darn well earned it. I'm sure one of these days, Rose is going to become one of those huge overnight successes. You know the ones, they've worked their butts off for years and all of a sudden get discovered and they're called an overnight success. Rose, thankyou because you've inspired me to get my butt moving I don't know how many times with art and with writing.

Art gave me a gazillion crises of confidence, I don't know how many times I thought I was never going to be any good, I still feel that way most of the time. I never had much faith in myself and I still don't but what I did have was the passion to spend every minute I had spare drawing or painting. If I didn't have time, I made time. I wanted it bad enough to work at it and even though I couldn't see my progress every day, in the end, it was there. I'm still nowhere near as good as I'd like to be but I can see my hard work paid off.

I'm hoping it will with writing too. I'm approaching it with all the same passion and effort I put into art, so hopefully it will.

With art, my struggle as always been to find a way of putting more imagination into my work, being less realistic. I'm still working on that, but I've managed to get somewhere I'm happy with. When it comes to writing, I've discovered I'm great at telling stories, not so great at the technical stuff. Although after banging my head against my desk for twenty minutes the other day, I finally understand what a preposition is. Seriously. I do. Ask me. I'm not technically very good and I'm not a visual sort of a writer, kinda ironic in an artist, no? I'm far better at telling than showing. BUT, I'm learning and last night, I had a brilliant epiphany and did some of my best writing. It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't stuck at it and kept trying even after bawling my eyes out at how hopeless I was.

I think one day, I'll be able to look back and say I can see the journey made sense and that I improved. It happened with art.

So that's my offering for today. Don't give up. Not ever. Not even for a little while. Make learning your job and work at it, give it all the attention it deserves. If you don't have time, then you didn't want it bad enough because if you really want it, you'll make time.

Oh and good luck, that doesn't hurt :)

More Digital Art

Art projects are a little thin on the ground with me right now. But I'm playing a lot with the whole digital thing. Here's what I was playing with today, which actually I'm not at all pleased with. It's just too busy and bleh. Plus I want to try something without flowers next time. I never thought that doing art in a digital way would feel like art, but it does. It takes as much thinking, more actually, more planning and working out than usual pencils does. It's kind of a cross between art and doing something a bit mechanical I guess LOL :D

Inspiration

Last night, one of my blog readers wrote to me about my post yesterday. He has recently lost his father and has been writing poetry as part of the grieving process. My post and our subsequent email conversation inspired him to write a poem. I think it's just lovely, and I also think that as an artist, a person or as a writer, to inspire someone else is an amazing compliment. So with his permission, I'm posting Nick's poem here. Thankyou Nick :)

The Dolphins - by Nick Rigazzi-Tarling

So full of life,

So full of love,

A life seems so secure

But when a loved one passes on,

We seem a bit unsure

We try to grab a little light

On the life that we have lost,

Like thinking of the dolphins

With the little boy, I lost.

But be assured that little life

Will come to us, again,

When on his anniversary

A tear we’ll shed again.

We’ll think of all the happy times

That we alone did share,

And keep it in our little heart,

For another time to bear.

For Wendy Prior

© Nick Rigazzi-Tarling

Happy Birthday Mattie

Mathew James Walker. 17th July 1993 - 2nd February 2009

Today would have been my nephew Mathew's sixteenth birthday. We lost him earlier this year, a few hours after the photo above was taken, after a fall at the Level's raceway near Timaru.

Matt was a wonderful kid. He knew what he wanted from his life and he embraced it for all he was worth. He fit an awful lot of living into those fifteen years. He was a keen writer and part of the reason I started to pursue writing seriously again. Life is too short and you never know how long you'll have it. You can't afford to delay your dreams. Matt didn't, the photo above was taken when he got to live one of those dreams, getting to ride along in a race car doing a hot lap ... whatever that is. He sure looks pleased about it anyway.

Matt was an organ donor and I'd like to encourage anyone reading this to think about that for yourself too. I'm sure when Matt told his Mum that he wanted his organs to be donated if it ever came to that, he never thought that it really would. But it did, and because his family had discussed it after watching a movie together, it spared them the pain of trying to guess what he would have wanted. I'm so proud of him and I miss him very much.

I don't drop to my knee's in the middle of the supermarket anymore, because the song they're playing was the one we played at his funeral. But I think of him every single day, many times every day and I cry. I'm crying today. Alot.

I wrote Matty a poem. It's not as beautiful as the one his Mum wrote for him just after he died. And it probably won't make sense to anyone but me, but here it is, none the less. Happy Birthday Mattie.

Mathew.

We watched the Dolphins he and I
As the sun rose and brightened his hair
Against the pillow.
I held his hand and said goodbye since
We would never be alone again after
This moment.
He was already gone but I hope he was
Somewhere, watching God's fingers
Caress the ocean as the Dolphins
Took flight
And danced just for him
And me, who loved him too.

Hedgehogs

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night and so I have nothing particularly useful to add, artwise. HERE is the reason why if you're bored and want to laugh at my misfortune.

I'm off to take a nap.

I have something useful to post tomorrow, but I can't think straight enough to tackle it today. Meanwhile, enjoy little demotivator hedgehog above. Those wee guys are lucky they're cute, that's all I can say.

Connie, complete

So here she is, all finished. Those curls on her neck took about as long as the whole rest of the portrait combined. I was seeing curly dogs in my sleep by the time I'd finished.

I haven't seen the framed version yet, but as I understand it, she's been framed in a beautiful brushed silver frame. I think that will look very classy indeed!