40 Days of Art: Rough vs Clear
Apr. 1st, 2011 03:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinI was prepared to write up a whole thing on the idea of a clear rough drawing being better than a clean unclear one, but darn it if Mark Kennedy hasn't covered that already:
Temple of the Seven Golden Camels: Clear, not Clean
I think we all know what a clear drawing looks like, rough or clean, because it reads instantly. If you have to pick apart a drawing for a while to figure out what's going on in it, it is not clear. I see this a lot in rookie portfolios. Probably the best way to check if you're falling into this trap is to show a drawing to someone and look at them looking at it – if they are confused at all in the first couple of seconds, it might not be clear. Because the moment of truth is in the first impression, if you don't have anyone nearby to look over your art, try surprising yourself with it. You are probably familiar with how it looks on the page because you've been staring at it for the last hour or so, so you have to make it new somehow. You could take it to the bathroom, hold it below the level of the mirror for a few minutes, and then raise it up quickly so you get the mirror image flashed to you. Or scan it, flop it, save it and close the program immediately, do something else for a bit, then open the program and your image back up. Basically what you're trying to do is forget as much as you can of your intentions for the drawing and look at it in a new way, to see what it carries only at face value. If, when it comes into your vision again, it looks like a mess of spaghetti, it is not clear!
Temple of the Seven Golden Camels: Clear, not Clean
I think we all know what a clear drawing looks like, rough or clean, because it reads instantly. If you have to pick apart a drawing for a while to figure out what's going on in it, it is not clear. I see this a lot in rookie portfolios. Probably the best way to check if you're falling into this trap is to show a drawing to someone and look at them looking at it – if they are confused at all in the first couple of seconds, it might not be clear. Because the moment of truth is in the first impression, if you don't have anyone nearby to look over your art, try surprising yourself with it. You are probably familiar with how it looks on the page because you've been staring at it for the last hour or so, so you have to make it new somehow. You could take it to the bathroom, hold it below the level of the mirror for a few minutes, and then raise it up quickly so you get the mirror image flashed to you. Or scan it, flop it, save it and close the program immediately, do something else for a bit, then open the program and your image back up. Basically what you're trying to do is forget as much as you can of your intentions for the drawing and look at it in a new way, to see what it carries only at face value. If, when it comes into your vision again, it looks like a mess of spaghetti, it is not clear!
