I have just discovered something about Art with a capital A:
Always draw things which disturb you.
I should have worked it out earlier, to be honest - I like art which is troubling, distasteful or downright disturbing. Rather, I like art which makes those things into a form of beauty. Landscapes, say. I hate landscape art, because if you've got a terrific view, you've got to work pretty damn hard not to make it pretty. Now true, ace photography/painting can express the actual facts of the view, but also convey the emotion of being there - make it magical, overwhelming, cold, or whatever. But my point still stands.
I tend to draw nice things: fanart, people I know, charming ideas I have. And they're all very lovely, but in retrospect I don't know why, when everything I like about art is running a dangerous line to the distasteful.
And I do have several very taboo topics. The thing is, one after another, I've drawn them by accident, and they're some of the best things I've ever done. In other words, it's the upsetting and tasteless subjects that make the most impact in my art as much as anyone else's.
These aren't tasteless by other people's standards, I hasten to add - only my own concepts of things which shouldn't be drawn.
Quite at the top of this list is Dorian Gray. I mean, god damn - nobody should try to represent him in art, and I always detest people who try. I've got 37 editions of the book, and for each and every one which attempt to show him on the cover I roll my eyes. I'm not necessarily averse to creative images - his shadow on a wall, his back as he leaves the room - but an actual, front on drawing strikes me as something which shouldn't be done. As you've no doubt already spotted, mine's to the left. I have no bloody idea what posessed me, but I was just sketching and then ten minutes later, quite by accident, there it was. I am still in a state of confusion. But I did like it, so when I got it home I GIMPified it.
It remains one of my favourite things I've ever done, and I justify it to myself because it's an impressionistic picture of the ideas surrounding him, not meant to be an accurate representation. The original idea was for it to be all pussy and bubbling, like rusting metal streaked with green decay. But I got lost along the way again, and discovered this charming sepia effect. I think of it as one of Basil's watercolour sketches, but the red paint gives it an aspect like blood. It's about Basil, really.
On my wall in front of me is a sketch of Patience, dead. I've no qualms about spoiling you, because frankly anyone reading this blog is highly unlikely to ever read the two Doctor Who novels in which she cameos. She is actually one of my favourite ever topics to sketch, and if ever you catch me doodling a barefoot being in a clingy white medical dress, with long hair and an enegmatic smile, it's almost certainly her, because I do it all the time.
Pay attention class: in the screwed up canon of the Doctor Who novel, the Doctor is the reincarnation of the Other, a mega-powerful Gallifreyan who, along with Rassilon and Omega, invented time travel and founded timelord society. I hate this, by the way, it detracts from his character to be this super-godlike. But before the Other *pauses for breath* gets disenchanted and throws himself into the birthing room of a looming house so his biodata is absorbed by a new loom, and thus the Doctor has some of his DNA, although he can't quite remember it - before all that crud, he has a wife, and that's Patience.
Which brings us to Cold Fusion, in which the Doctor meets Patience again. It's a brilliant dynamic, because they both sort-of know the other is the most important person in creation, but they can't quite remember why. Lance Parkin, author, even manages to basically get the Doc laid. Admittedly in a shared telepathic communication, but I've still no idea how he gets away with it. But somehow it works, and Patience remains a divine, wonderful character.
So I enjoy drawing her a lot. Particularly with the Doctor, because of a line where Tegan observes his hand is accidentally lying on her knee. Therein lies the challenge - two people who're that close, but don't know they're that close, yet it comes out in all these subconscious ways. It's trying to express that accidental intimacy in a subtle way.
The image in my mind is set on the train journey as they escape from Scientifica. He's just rescued her, and they're sitting next to each other. He's looking out of the window at the snowy view, and she's asleep next to him with her head on his shoulder. She's been rescued from a hospital facility, and is wearing one of those thin white medical dresses, so he's lent her his jacket and she's sleeping under it. And on the seat, their hands are just resting against each other.
It's a perfect image in my mind. The sense of it being completely natural and relaxed is something I'm finding hard, however, and that feeling is the key to the scene, so I anticipate having to do a few more versions until I'm satisfied.
I've given up once or twice and done straight out cutesy doodles as well, complete with chibi smiles and hearts. But, spoiler alert for the book you'll never read, Patience ends up getting dead; so I was equally suprised as with the Dorian doodle, to find that appearing on paper. Again, perfectly. Again, more movingly than any of those attempts at that stilted train scene. I suppose art needs to be more organic than pre-planning. That one's not on the web yet, chiefly because I want to collect together my mass of Patience sketches onto a single page, but it is on my wall and I'm very proud of it.
The Naked Flame has never been a taboo topic, not even remotely. From day one I've been doing doodles of Lord M whenever I have space - recently, I intended to do portraits of all 40 major characters (I gave up at about 12) and was pleased with the results, both of my characters and other's. And even within it, I've always plunged headfirst into the troubling scenes. I suppose it's a result of me trying to capture them with the same intensity that they play in my mind. I've done them by script, prose, music and imagery. Never poetry, but if I thought that would work I'd try it too. I've drawn Lucy and scenes surrounding her final fifteen minutes, more obsessively, I think, than anything else ever. Recently that's slowed down, and I think because I've actually hit on the image I was aiming at.
So dealing with tough topics here has never been a problem, really - it's always been part of the experience. But I've never drawn Silver before, not properly. I give it a go every now and then, in a half hearted way. I don't really have the space or, right now, the will to talk you through her, so long as you appreciate that she's possibly the most important person in Lord M's life on account of something she did when they were both very young. He's carried the confusion around, and musing about her becomes a very destructive habit for over a decade, and then when he comes back to confront this thing hanging over him, she's dead. All very Shakesperian. It's a lot more complicated than that, and relates very closely to Lucy, Lancaster, his father, his wife, the whole lot of them. I'll explain it all someday if we have a very long train journey.
Which is why she's so hard to draw: because she's an ideal. She's one of the few characters of mine I've never "spotted" in real life. She is that "perfect summer when the sun always shone", personified. She's youth, and love, and happiness on dancing ankles. She is the ultimate cause for everything which has followed in his life, which means she's weighed down with symbolic baggage not only for the reader, but for him personally. I've never seriously expected to draw her because she's such a mess in my head - laughter, bells, "She moves through the fair" and "Lady Moonlight", wild flowers, sunlight, Kate Bush (no, I've no idea either), springtime, cool water, running, - a mass of imagery instead of a person. You can do it in prose, certainly on film, but unless I was to attack a canvas with a hosepipe and eggshells, I'll never be able to do it justice.
I just did, by the way: the natural punchline. Hence the blog. It's there on my wall, and is most peculiar. I am definitely going to GIMP this one, because I'm overwhelmingly impressed with myself, if a little disturbed. But that will pass. Like Lucy, Patience and Dorian above, it's not a true-to-god copy, more of an impressionistic stylistic thing to express the clingy concepts and ideas. And even though I'm still reeling at the sheer idea, I think people are going to find it quite lovely, especially if I don't explain the exact context the scene is drawn from and let them assume it's meant to be an undine.
Unfortunately, this has started making me consider those truly terrifying things - there are one or two - which I would never even think. They're as fictional as those characters above (which is to say, not at all), but the idea of putting them on paper is just intensely bizzare.
Always draw things which disturb you.
I should have worked it out earlier, to be honest - I like art which is troubling, distasteful or downright disturbing. Rather, I like art which makes those things into a form of beauty. Landscapes, say. I hate landscape art, because if you've got a terrific view, you've got to work pretty damn hard not to make it pretty. Now true, ace photography/painting can express the actual facts of the view, but also convey the emotion of being there - make it magical, overwhelming, cold, or whatever. But my point still stands.
I tend to draw nice things: fanart, people I know, charming ideas I have. And they're all very lovely, but in retrospect I don't know why, when everything I like about art is running a dangerous line to the distasteful.
And I do have several very taboo topics. The thing is, one after another, I've drawn them by accident, and they're some of the best things I've ever done. In other words, it's the upsetting and tasteless subjects that make the most impact in my art as much as anyone else's.
These aren't tasteless by other people's standards, I hasten to add - only my own concepts of things which shouldn't be drawn.
Quite at the top of this list is Dorian Gray. I mean, god damn - nobody should try to represent him in art, and I always detest people who try. I've got 37 editions of the book, and for each and every one which attempt to show him on the cover I roll my eyes. I'm not necessarily averse to creative images - his shadow on a wall, his back as he leaves the room - but an actual, front on drawing strikes me as something which shouldn't be done. As you've no doubt already spotted, mine's to the left. I have no bloody idea what posessed me, but I was just sketching and then ten minutes later, quite by accident, there it was. I am still in a state of confusion. But I did like it, so when I got it home I GIMPified it.
It remains one of my favourite things I've ever done, and I justify it to myself because it's an impressionistic picture of the ideas surrounding him, not meant to be an accurate representation. The original idea was for it to be all pussy and bubbling, like rusting metal streaked with green decay. But I got lost along the way again, and discovered this charming sepia effect. I think of it as one of Basil's watercolour sketches, but the red paint gives it an aspect like blood. It's about Basil, really.
On my wall in front of me is a sketch of Patience, dead. I've no qualms about spoiling you, because frankly anyone reading this blog is highly unlikely to ever read the two Doctor Who novels in which she cameos. She is actually one of my favourite ever topics to sketch, and if ever you catch me doodling a barefoot being in a clingy white medical dress, with long hair and an enegmatic smile, it's almost certainly her, because I do it all the time.
Pay attention class: in the screwed up canon of the Doctor Who novel, the Doctor is the reincarnation of the Other, a mega-powerful Gallifreyan who, along with Rassilon and Omega, invented time travel and founded timelord society. I hate this, by the way, it detracts from his character to be this super-godlike. But before the Other *pauses for breath* gets disenchanted and throws himself into the birthing room of a looming house so his biodata is absorbed by a new loom, and thus the Doctor has some of his DNA, although he can't quite remember it - before all that crud, he has a wife, and that's Patience.
Which brings us to Cold Fusion, in which the Doctor meets Patience again. It's a brilliant dynamic, because they both sort-of know the other is the most important person in creation, but they can't quite remember why. Lance Parkin, author, even manages to basically get the Doc laid. Admittedly in a shared telepathic communication, but I've still no idea how he gets away with it. But somehow it works, and Patience remains a divine, wonderful character.
So I enjoy drawing her a lot. Particularly with the Doctor, because of a line where Tegan observes his hand is accidentally lying on her knee. Therein lies the challenge - two people who're that close, but don't know they're that close, yet it comes out in all these subconscious ways. It's trying to express that accidental intimacy in a subtle way.
The image in my mind is set on the train journey as they escape from Scientifica. He's just rescued her, and they're sitting next to each other. He's looking out of the window at the snowy view, and she's asleep next to him with her head on his shoulder. She's been rescued from a hospital facility, and is wearing one of those thin white medical dresses, so he's lent her his jacket and she's sleeping under it. And on the seat, their hands are just resting against each other.
It's a perfect image in my mind. The sense of it being completely natural and relaxed is something I'm finding hard, however, and that feeling is the key to the scene, so I anticipate having to do a few more versions until I'm satisfied.
I've given up once or twice and done straight out cutesy doodles as well, complete with chibi smiles and hearts. But, spoiler alert for the book you'll never read, Patience ends up getting dead; so I was equally suprised as with the Dorian doodle, to find that appearing on paper. Again, perfectly. Again, more movingly than any of those attempts at that stilted train scene. I suppose art needs to be more organic than pre-planning. That one's not on the web yet, chiefly because I want to collect together my mass of Patience sketches onto a single page, but it is on my wall and I'm very proud of it.
The Naked Flame has never been a taboo topic, not even remotely. From day one I've been doing doodles of Lord M whenever I have space - recently, I intended to do portraits of all 40 major characters (I gave up at about 12) and was pleased with the results, both of my characters and other's. And even within it, I've always plunged headfirst into the troubling scenes. I suppose it's a result of me trying to capture them with the same intensity that they play in my mind. I've done them by script, prose, music and imagery. Never poetry, but if I thought that would work I'd try it too. I've drawn Lucy and scenes surrounding her final fifteen minutes, more obsessively, I think, than anything else ever. Recently that's slowed down, and I think because I've actually hit on the image I was aiming at.
So dealing with tough topics here has never been a problem, really - it's always been part of the experience. But I've never drawn Silver before, not properly. I give it a go every now and then, in a half hearted way. I don't really have the space or, right now, the will to talk you through her, so long as you appreciate that she's possibly the most important person in Lord M's life on account of something she did when they were both very young. He's carried the confusion around, and musing about her becomes a very destructive habit for over a decade, and then when he comes back to confront this thing hanging over him, she's dead. All very Shakesperian. It's a lot more complicated than that, and relates very closely to Lucy, Lancaster, his father, his wife, the whole lot of them. I'll explain it all someday if we have a very long train journey.
Which is why she's so hard to draw: because she's an ideal. She's one of the few characters of mine I've never "spotted" in real life. She is that "perfect summer when the sun always shone", personified. She's youth, and love, and happiness on dancing ankles. She is the ultimate cause for everything which has followed in his life, which means she's weighed down with symbolic baggage not only for the reader, but for him personally. I've never seriously expected to draw her because she's such a mess in my head - laughter, bells, "She moves through the fair" and "Lady Moonlight", wild flowers, sunlight, Kate Bush (no, I've no idea either), springtime, cool water, running, - a mass of imagery instead of a person. You can do it in prose, certainly on film, but unless I was to attack a canvas with a hosepipe and eggshells, I'll never be able to do it justice.
I just did, by the way: the natural punchline. Hence the blog. It's there on my wall, and is most peculiar. I am definitely going to GIMP this one, because I'm overwhelmingly impressed with myself, if a little disturbed. But that will pass. Like Lucy, Patience and Dorian above, it's not a true-to-god copy, more of an impressionistic stylistic thing to express the clingy concepts and ideas. And even though I'm still reeling at the sheer idea, I think people are going to find it quite lovely, especially if I don't explain the exact context the scene is drawn from and let them assume it's meant to be an undine.
Unfortunately, this has started making me consider those truly terrifying things - there are one or two - which I would never even think. They're as fictional as those characters above (which is to say, not at all), but the idea of putting them on paper is just intensely bizzare.
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