Digital Painting work so far

Here's what I've been up to for my Intro to Digital Painting class with Jason Scheier!

We started out with some basic-shapes-from-observation-in-grayscale paintings... like ya do.

Then we moved on to a greyscale master study. The original is by Anders Zorn. I fell in love with it while creating my copy; it's a beautiful piece.

For our third assignment we did a master study in color from Mian Situ's "Chinatown Delivery". I wasn't feeling so confident in color yet, so I started in greyscale and then added color later using a layer on the 'color' blending mode. I saved some process shots from this one.

Overall I've really been enjoying and learning a lot from this class. I wasn't unfamiliar with Photoshop, I've used it to create art and even a few paintings before, but I haven't had an opportunity  - or a reason - to learn it this well until now. I have to say, I enjoy it more than traditional oil painting, for the sole reason that it's an extremely forgiving medium for a beginner. Also it doesn't involve 40 minutes plus of setup and breakdown (which went to waste all too often when I would make a single bad stroke that I couldn't undo). And thus I'm more motivated to sit down and, you know, actually make art than I was during my landscape painting class. Whatever gets me to do that is OK in my book.

© Gina Florio 2014

Flour sacks and such

Here's some of the stuff I've been working on for Figure Invention for Animation class with Toby Sheldon!

Simply put, Toby is a master. The emotions he can accomplish with just five or six lines is just... unreal. I leave his classes feeling like I can draw anything. He does draw-overs of our work on the class blog. Getting the chance to have your work drawn over by a Disney veteran is worth the price of admission in my opinion.

This is also hands-down the class that I've had the most fun in. I look forward to every single session.

I'll put up my work for Digital Painting class in a separate post.

© Gina Florio 2014

Humans of New York - "Two Selves"

Photographer Brandon Stanton runs a website called "Humans of New York," which may be my favorite place on the internet.

I save a lot of his photos to my personal reference files. They're great for character design inspiration.

His photos are wonderful, but the icing on the cake, for me, is in the captions. He asks each subject a few basic but profound questions, getting responses that run the gamut from hilarious to heartbreaking.

This one was posted today and sort of piggybacks off of an older post of mine concerning my cynicism of the phrase "be true to yourself."

"I wish I'd partied a little less. People always say 'be true to yourself.' But that's misleading, because there are two selves. There's your short term self, and there's your long term self. And if you're only true to your short term self, your long term self slowly decays."

Very reminiscent to me of this quote, from "How To Do What You Love" by Paul Graham:

"The rule about doing what you love assumes a certain length of time. It doesn't mean, do what will make you happiest this second, but what will make you happiest over some longer period, like a week or a month. Unproductive pleasures pall eventually. After a while you get tired of lying on the beach. If you want to stay happy, you have to do something."

One commenter of the HONY post on Facebook added this thought:

I know these posts tend to get vague and philosophical and aren't directly related to making art most of the time. For me, this blog is a way to share not only my work, artists I love, and helpful tutorials etc., but also the things that keep me going. So much of making art is all about your attitude and your mindset. Quotes like the one above keep me powering through the slumps. Hopefully they help you too.

© Gina Florio 2014

Great Digital Painting resource

A few months ago, a wonderful artist named Lane Brown (seriously... you owe it to yourself to check out his beautiful work) commented on my blog and left a link to his page of art resources, which has come in extremely useful to me over the past few weeks. At the time I was looking for basic-to-intermediate digital painting tutorials to help fill in the gaps from my Intro to Digital Painting class (for while Jason Scheier is a great teacher and equally great artist, even the best teacher in the world couldn't make you a Photoshop whiz in just 3 hours a week).

Lane Brown's page led me to this site, Ctrl+Paint, which has been the answer to all of my Photoshop tutorial prayers. There are over 200 free videos in the site's video library, all concise, categorized and organized into an intelligent flow of information, as well as some paid video series that go more in-depth into certain techniques, all for $10 each. (I already bought the "Grayscale to Color" series and found it very helpful... for $10 it's hard not to justify the cost.) The videos range from traditional drawing practices, to composition basics, to more confident digital brushwork, even to things like art theory and mindset. But I wanted to share with you this one in particular which brought me a lot of comfort.

At the point I'm at right now, I think I can confidently say I'm not a total beginner any longer. I've been at this for a year and a half and I feel that I at least have a reasonable grasp of the very basics of drawing. But I remember when I had just started, and I felt like I was trying to find a needle in a haystack... in the dark. While it was raining. With a hungry tiger about to be set on me. You get the idea. I felt lost, like I had no idea what I was doing and like I would never get any better. But now I've been throwing graphite/ink/paint/pixels onto paper/canvas/computer screens for a while now, and I may not be lead character designer at Pixar, but I've had my own small victories, moments where I can look at what I've just drawn or painted and realize that it's better than it would've been a year ago, and that's enough. That's what keeps me going. Progress is its own reward.

PS: Another thing that's come in really handy from Lane's art resources page is a link to Houston Sharp's digital painting brushes. They're free and it's by far the best collection of Photoshop brushes I've ever come across in all of my digital painting time. I spent a very happy hour and a half just trying them all out.

© Gina Florio 2014

Why You Fail

I wanted to take a moment today to talk about self confidence.

Everyone, no matter what profession, has heard that the key to success - socially, at your job, and in life - is to "believe in yourself." When I was younger, I found this cliché phrase to be incredibly insufficient advice. "Believe in myself"? What does that even mean? Why do I feel like I'm being true to myself but I'm still not accomplishing all of my goals at the drop of a hat?

What I didn't understand is the deeper meaning of what this phrase is getting at: it's not about refusing to change, or being unapologetic for your personality. In fact, at least to me, it's almost exactly the opposite. It's about having the right mindset.

I was still confused about this phrase a few years ago when Dave and I decided to watch Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back on some random night (like you do). And when we did, this scene spoke to me on a level that it certainly hadn't when I first saw it as a kid.

I know I'm an uber-nerd for saying this, but seriously, there is so much wisdom in this one little scene that's applicable to art AND to life. I may even argue that it's the best scene in the original trilogy.

I felt very challenged in Digital Painting class last week when we went from our first assignment, a greyscale painting of some white objects and their shadows, to our second, a (still grayscale) master study. I found myself complaining in my head that this second assignment was so much harder and thinking we were moving too fast. But really it's "no different... only different in your mind." I didn't believe that I had the ability to finish it. And "that is why you fail."

I think a more accurate (although still cliché) phrase is "You can do anything you set your mind to." Because it involves setting your mind to it. It involves being willing to fail and having determination. But most of all, it involves believing that what you want to accomplish is actually possible. Because if you don't think it is, then you've lost before you've even begun.

© Gina Florio 2014

Friday February 7th Inspiration

A quick update on myself: I am currently taking a 3-month break from editing full-time in order to concentrate on taking three simultaneous classes at Concept Design Academy. The classes are Intro to Digital Painting with Jason Scheier, Intro to Story Development with Louie del Carmen, and Figure Invention for Animation with Toby Shelton. I had the first sessions of all of these classes this week, and my level of excitement for this semester cannot be overstated. Each teacher is a phenomenal artist (and also, coincidentally, all current Dreamworks employees) and the skill level in each class is intimidatingly high, with a majority of the students already being working story artists in some form. I feel nervous, excited, but most of all, ready to dive right into new challenges.

Today, I thought I'd feature a little inspiration, brought to you by my reddit addiction.

I was thinking earlier this week about how glad I am that I started this whole process a year and a half ago. I'm not going to lie, it's been a really frustrating year and a half. My relationship with art can get pretty unhealthy when I'm not performing at my own high standards, which is 99% of the time. I've poured a lot of time into it, time I could've been spending doing anything else, reading, watching TV, hanging out with my friends or Dave, playing videogames. And yet - I'm able to stand here today and feel I've improved, ready to take on these more advanced classes and move up a rung in my ladder of artistic challenges. So:

^ This is a favorite phrase of mine to repeat to myself.

And finally, this video.

I watched this today and had one takeaway (besides stunned amazement, I mean): you can either be the person drumming... or you can be one of the spectators, momentarily distracted while they do their shopping. For my entire life, I've been a spectator: living my life mostly through consumption, of food, media, products, while admiring the few content creators who put themselves and their skills out there for others to enjoy. And now I'm trying to be the drummer. Wish me luck.

© Gina Florio 2014

"Thoughts About Art" in 2013

Happy New Year, one and all!

In my editing bay, I usually have my Gmail up and open on my computer all day. Thus, the easiest way for me to jot down a thought I want to remember is to do it in an email draft. (The fact that this has led to me having a highly disorganized and stuffed-to-bursting drafts folder is a topic for another post. Stay organized, kids.)

I've been keeping an email draft called "Thoughts About Art" for the past year. I skim through it from time to time to refresh my mind and remember what I need to work on. During one of my end-of-year perusals, I realized that, despite it being rather haphazard, it was all at least slightly intelligible to the average Joe.

Here, for your reading pleasure, is the unedited copy of that email draft, as it currently stands. I'm going to keep adding to it, so you can all look forward to Thoughts About Art Part 2 at the end of 2014.

Don't separate out your life into 'Work,' 'Fun,' 'People,' 'Art'. Live a more complete life - these are all parts of one whole life

Remember what's important. People are paramount. If you don't have fulfilling life experiences you won't have anything good to say in your drawings.

THE IDEA IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE ART.

People connect with the IDEA BEHIND the art more than they care about the execution.

"the willingness to fail will get you farther than the will to be perfect ever does"

Release yourself from your self imposed deadlines. Take the time to learn to do it right the first time, and you will save yourself time in the long run.

The BIGGER PICTURE - when you draw you always concentrate on the figure or character that you're drawing. They fill up almost the entire frame. But YOUR CHARACTERS SHOULD BE PART OF A LARGER WORLD. Pascal Campion's drawings always tell a story - but they're almost always zoomed out so you can put the character in their environment, their place in time and space, which affects them. Keep the LITERAL big picture in mind.

Other people can't see the things in your brain. You have to draw them so other people can see them.

Keep it SIMPLE.

Really THINK about what you are trying to communicate.
Then figure out the SMALLEST NUMBER of lines/strokes to communicate that. Think EACH TIME you put pencil/pen/brush to paper.

Less is more. Give 100% to the things you DO have.

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude so it won't destroy your life.

Take a deep breath. You're in charge. Slow down. Really listen and observe. It can be done. Dragons can be beaten.

With every choice, something is gained and something is lost.

"Your responsibility is not to the people you're making the gift for... but to the gift itself."

Put instagram and blogger out of your mind. Do it for fun. Let your imagination free. Do what you want to do. The fun will shine through.

SLOW DOWN.
BE DELIBERATE.
DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

Be critical of your own work but STOP OVERTHINKING IT. Being mindful of the mistakes you're making is good for improvement moving forward, but too much criticism and negative thinking is hindering your progress. You're holding yourself back and getting in your own creative way. Analyze what you've done wrong and move on to the next thing. DO A HUGE VOLUME OF WORK. CLOSE THE GAP.

"For of all sad words from tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been." -John Greenleaf Whittier

"Whatever your dream is, it’s probably not going to come true if you just passively wait for it to arrive or if you just sit around and complain all day. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with the distance or the obstacles between you and your dream. Just focus on making progress. Any kind of progress is still progress. Engage your dream with sincerity, passion and take the next action right now. Ask for the job." - Chris Oatley
"The key is to make mistakes faster than the competition, so you have more chances to learn and win." - John W Holt Jr.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
-Mark Twain

2013 was a big year for me. I started out the year with a class on Perspective with Gary Meyer, took Landscape Painting with Leighton Hickman over the summer, and finished up the year with Analytical Figure Drawing with Kevin Chen, a fantastic teacher and class.

Last year my resolutions were:

THINK BIG PICTURE.

People are paramount.

Do more with less.

Be a creator, not an absorber.

 This year my resolutions are: to improve upon the above, and also to:

SLOW DOWN.
Simplify.
Start over if you need to.
Stay positive.
Tell a story and the rest will follow.

Also this, which doubles as an explanation for why the blog has been so neglected lately:

 
© Gina Florio 2013