Vanilla Beans: Whisper Words of Wisdom
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If you haven’t noticed, one of my summer jobs during my working hiatus has been streamlining my class system and moving everything to a new classroom site.
I’ve finally got Point and Underpainters tucked away nicely.
Wonk is next.
Whisper Words of Wisdom
Copic and perfectionism go hand in hand.
Something about markers attracts the kind of people who need to have things just-so.
In all my years teaching and in years of using markers in a group studio with other illustrators, I can’t think of anyone who took the Jackson Pollock approach to Copics.
Nope, we all want smooth blends and perfect coloring.
But perfectionism comes at a cost.
We’re always going back to fix things.
“I bet it’ll blend if I give it one more coat…”
“Oh, I’ll just fix that little area over there…”
One more try is usually one step too far.
The fix often makes it worse.
How so?
Well, I’ll pick on myself here. I am absolutely terrible at making two eyes the same size and shape. One eye is always a little off.
So I fix the bad eye, but that enlarges the size.
So I grow the other eye to match but now that they’re bigger, I realize the eye shapes don’t match.
So I reshape the first eye again…
And grow the second eye again…
And then make them match again…
You see how this grows, right?
It’s not just me. You know exactly what I’m talking about here because you’ve done the same thing.
Fixing the fix of the fix of the fix.
Every “improvement” takes you further away from the original stamped image or line drawing- and not in a good way.
More times than not, the cure is worse than the original mistake.
I’ve seen students dig deep graves trying to erase something with a colorless blender. I’ve seen lots of oily patches when someone decides to reblend something for the fifth time.
Sometimes you’re better off not fixing it.
Artistic maturity is the ability to understand limits — not just the limits of your materials but also the limits of your skill.
Some spills are too big to erase with a colorless blender.
Some outside-the-lines oopsies will never disappear.
Sometimes you are the only one who notices the difference between the left eye and the right eye.
And there is always a point when the blend isn’t going to get any smoother.
I'm not being a downer here— just realistic. And I’m definitely not saying never fix anything. That’d be silly.
But I do have a challenge for you and I’m working on it too.
Let’s learn how to let it be.
Most of the time "close enough" is better than "please ignore that giant pink blotch where I tried to fix my mistake sixteen times".
Coloring shouldn't be stressful! When we obsess over flaws, we make life harder than it needs to be.
Try being a little more zen about slight imperfections.
Your blood pressure will thank you.
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SEPTEMBER EVENTS
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CURRENT PASSWORD: RubberDuckie
ALL SUMMER LONG
My daughter Audrey does the Copic color palettes. You can tell because she’s not afraid of featuring several downright dingy or almost neon colors together in a bunch where I use them sparingly as single punches.
It’s good to share more than just my own color voice.
Anyway, even though I haven’t had the time to feature them in Beans for a while, she’s been crankin’ ‘em out all summer long. Here’s a bunch of her most recent; there’s some real bangers here!
(click to visit)