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This month I'm trying to strike a balance between fundamentals and more abstract elements.  I also talk about the need to impress versus the need to express.

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Sycra Patreon Reward - October 2020

In this video, I talk about the need to express versus the need to impress.

Comments

Anonymous

I feel like you shouldn't have to compromise between have a polished piece and an energetic piece. If look at some more painterly artists they seem to be able to put the energy that you have when sketching into the brush strokes themselves resulting in a painting that is both polished and looks finished and energetic. That said I can understand have a trade off between have something being defined and being mysterious. Defining something by definition removes the mystery of it. Still you could have both in a piece by having parts that are defined and parts that are kept loose enough to keep their mystery. Pulling that off does sound quite tricky though. Maybe that's what you mean by stopping a piece before you ruin it. You just want to keep more of the mysterious parts intact.

Sycra

Yeah, striking that balance is what I find difficult. The usual explanations are "it just takes practice" but I don't know if that really applies to me, it's probably I'm not able to think about things the right way. I know there must be a way though, so I'll keep trying to reach the sweet spot! :)

Anonymous

Just wanted to pipe up as a patron and offer my reasons for why I’m here- I’ve always appreciated the way you think about things and I feel through your videos, more than anything, they gave me things to consider for myself. Though you don’t need to impress me- that happened a long time ago, and it was with your honesty and sharing of ideas, especially the ones you weren’t sure of and thought were dumb, or only applied to yourself. I can be very specific if that’d help- I understand how “I like anything you make and you can talk about whatever! :)” probably makes it sound like what you make is arbitrary- it’s not! lately I’ve been loving the talks about your relationship with your intuition, specifically because I feel like this is an area we differ quite a lot. At around the 31 minutes mark- I’m really curious as to what things specifically you attribute to your conscious/analytical side of your brain, and what to your intuition. That comment about the chin, and how you’re keeping it, despite the urge to fix it(?)- is that urge not intuitive? The same way you’ve talked about messing with a hue slider to find the color that makes your gut go “!! That’s it!”- why is one of those things something you go with, but you’re hesitant about the chin? Is the “idea deep within” only something your intuitive side’s allowed to bring to the table? When I don’t know what something should be,and I try to consciously figure that out- if I had to explain it, I guess it’s that I’m using my logical side to try and find a solution that makes my intuition happy, but my intuition wants it to “look right” too, and relies on my analytical skills to figure it out. The “!! That’s it!” happens when both sides are happy, but I can’t imagine there’s a hierarchy to it, it happens at once. The idea of splitting them, or that they can work independently of each other at different times confuses me the more I try and think about it. My intuition takes in all of my conscious thoughts and hears them, and turns them into something that makes sense, but my analytical side needs to intuitively be able to interpret and take in information for that process to happen. I’m also interested in this idea about expressive vs correct- As an artist, I would consider myself rather non-verbal. I don’t ever intentionally set out to express anything, but I can always look back and see a strong mood- just a mood,though I’m not really purposefully saying much. So hearing about intentionally setting out to say something and not just sorta… drawing the subject matter however you felt like, and then evaluating the end product afterwards has my attention too. (This got pretty long and rambly- sorry! TL;DR please continue talking about whatever has your attention when creating, I always find it interesting!)

Sycra

Thanks for your insightful comment! I enjoyed reading what you had to say, so no need to apologize. For me, there's a different physical feeling attached to my intuition and my analysis. The intuitive sense really is a gut feeling, whereas the analytical one is a judgment that lives in my head. So that's kind of how I distinguish the two. The judging one basis things on what other people might say, whereas the intuitive one is more based on what I feel about it. Looking back at old Pointy Chins videos, there are so many times I wanna yell at the screen and encourage or discourage different ideas... But it goes to show how, at least for me, it's really difficult to know what's right in the moment. Cheers. :)