Kinetic Anatomy
According to the books, the rainy season doesn’t start around here until late June…just about the time I will be returning to the states, but you wouldn’t know it by looking out the window. It’s raining cats and dogs. I have no complaints, after we arrived here in Thailand it was sunny every single day for two and a half months straight. The first time I heard thunder I thought it was an airplane. On that day, the weather changed and it’s been raining regularly ever since. It’s the best possible kind of rain…a spectacular show of foreboding clouds come over the mountains, followed by dramatic lightning, a torrential downpour, and then it’s gone. The sun is back within hours. After years of living in the Pacific Northwest where the idea of “rain” meant months of gray, bone chilling damp…I have finally come to embrace a good drenching. The locals say this is unusual weather for the hot season… all the more reason to appreciate it.
But you’re probably not expecting to hear about the weather since I’ve named this particular blog: Kinetic Anatomy! That’s right, it’s time to get down to business. After reading my posts thus far, you might have the impression that I am on some sort of extended vacation with exotic experiences lurking around every corner…and that’s absolutely correct! This adventure in Southeast Asia has been nothing less than amazing and every day has some surprise in store. It was my hope that this sabbatical would be nothing less than transformative and it certainly has been …in more ways than one. Putting that aside for the moment, I came to Thailand not only to ride elephants and chat with monks but also to write a book.
Living in a foreign country can be a big distraction from “work,” but I also find it feeds me as an artist…providing me with daily stimulation and inspiration. When I initially planned this trip I liked to tell people that being in Thailand had nothing at all to do with the book but it turned out I was dead wrong about that. Being here has everything to do with the book. Yes, I could have written it elsewhere, but it would have turned out completely different. One of the things I’ve learned along the way is that you can’t entirely separate your life from your art…and why would you want to anyway? The best stuff comes from your direct experience. Only then is your voice at it’s most authentic. I write about this in Kinetic Anatomy, which is turning out to be much bigger than I had originally planned.
What is Kinetic Anatomy anyway? The inspiration for the book came from a drawing class of the same name, a class I developed from scratch to help animation students improve their drawing skills. It was based on the needs of those students as well as my own artistic pursuits. The main focus of the class was to develop strategies for creating drawings that depicted living creatures in motion. So we did a lot of exercises where the model was actually moving through space and the students had to draw them. We also worked from video which turned out to be an awesome resource for animals and all the stuff a model can't do in the studio..which is plenty! In the pursuit of mastering the drawing of movement I discovered many other, unexpected benefits in terms of pure and simple pencil control. The methods used in the class pushed the students to work in ways unfamiliar to them and with new energy. I had students tell me that after they took the course, they would never go back to the way they worked before. They became faster, more fluid, more responsive and more confident. I tried to impress upon them a need for their greater physical involvement in the drawing process. In short, Kinetic Anatomy is about drawing movement as well as movement in drawing.
student example
Confused at all? Well you’re just going to have to buy the book because one of the things I’ve decided is that it’s the images that are going to make it good, not the words! I’ve been giving some thought to all the how-to art books I’ve owned over the years. Did I learn to draw from them? I’m sure I must have read the text, but it’s the pictures that stuck with me. While I don’t want to generalize about artists, I think most of them (I’m going to do it anyway aren’t I?) are visual learners. We need art! We need inspiration! We need a kick in the pants from time to time because….(and here comes another generalization) we are all over the place! So Kinetic Anatomy is going to be filled to the brim with drawings, inspiration, and pep talks. The tone is going to be irreverent and quirky…just like me. What began as a “textbook” for a single class is blossoming into a manifesto on how to work as an artist…with a pencil anyway. All of the challenges that come up for me I now consider precious subject matter.
My tools here are extremely simple. I have a laptop, some rudimentary drawing supplies, and a camera that is absolutely limping to the finish line. My Nikon Cool Pix has served me well, but it’s on its last legs. I’ve got a piece of masking tape holding the innards in on one side and the battery door no longer closes without a fight. For a few days, it wouldn’t work at all after getting doused with water during Song Kran. I must admit, I was careless because I wanted a new camera but when I thought it had actually failed, I felt terrible. Then it miraculously came back to life! It’s a good thing too because I’ve found that most of the new drawings are coming from photographs. This is very unlike me. As far as I’m concerned, working from photographs is courting death for an artist…but that’s because most don’t know how to do it well. Meaning, it shouldn’t LOOK like you did it from a photograph. There will be extensive lecturing from me on this very topic in the book. Despite my trepidations about using still photography, I have found it very fruitful to roam about with camera in hand…not stopping in any one place for too long and then working in the quiet of my apartment. This idea of “roaming about,” and “not stopping” plays into my thinking about Kinetic Anatomy. In order for me to depict movement, I have to hold still...something I find difficult to do around here. So the camera helps...and all that I am learning about my own creative process will be in the book. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Speaking of which, here are some of the difficulties. It often gets so hot here that my forearm sticks to whatever I’m working on. That goes double for my WaCom computer tablet. It’s not natural for me to work at a desk or in front of a computer. At times I feel as if I’m going to go crazy if I don’t work in color or on something really, really big where I am required to use my entire body. I don’t have a scanner so in order for me to send anything out, I have to take a photograph in sub-standard lighting with the aforementioned sickly camera and mess with it in Photoshop. I consider all of this part of my creative process. This brings up yet another creative “opportunity” (which is another way of saying obstacle) and that is I am not a graphic designer. Any illusions I may have had about Kinetic Anatomy being ready for press upon my arrival home has been dashed by this revelation. I am concentrating on content and that’s work enough! Putting it all in a pretty package will have to wait for now.
Getting back to the idea that artists need a kick in the pants, I’ve set (and reset) goals for myself. The first goal is born of necessity as I have recently been offered an exhibition of the new drawings executed here in Chiang Mai. I’m so excited about that and it gives me a very immediate reason to produce more work and complete some already started. I find I am very good at beginning works of art, not as good at “finishing.” I have my theories about this…Kinetic Anatomy, Chapter 2. hee hee In any event, I am working like a demon and taken over the apartment.
My second big goal is also born out of necessity. I’ve never written a book before…or to put it more succinctly, I’ve never “taught” from a book before. In the classroom, I get to use my voice and my body. I see my students doing something wrong and I correct them right then and there. When the need arises, I do a demonstration. I play music! I make my students dance sometimes…all in the pursuit of higher learning. How do I convey all that in a book? I think I’m doing alright with it, but how can I know for sure? So I’ve sent out a call for artistic guinea pigs to read a chapter or two and give me feedback. This is exciting and a little nerve wracking too. I’ve expanded my audience to include readers new to drawing so we’ll see how they do with it. I plan to have the first chapters out by the end of this week.
HOMEWORK!
On paper, the goals for this sabbatical were as follows: personal development, professional development, and to bring back to the AI community. The first two are in the bag. As for the third, we'll just all have to wait a bit longer.
