Firstly, I want to apologize to the watchers of this blog. I started this blog at a time when I really should have waited. The company I work for, Funcom, just released it’s new game Age of Conan and the beginning of crunch was not a good time to try to start a blog. Any how, that is just an explanation for my absence, I know no one likes to hear excuses, so onto the post!

This week I had the pleasure of babysitting a friend’s pet ferret. If you are unfamiliar with ferrets, they are a small carnivorous mammal, related to and about the size of a weasel. They are known for being absolutely crazy! I have been thinking lately about getting more into the art industry and I realised there were quite a lot of things I could learn from this little ferret!

#1. Never stop trying

If you know nothing about ferrets, know this first: They never give up! My grandma had a ferret who, whenever she got out of her cage in the morning, beelined straight for the refrigerator and tried to move the thing. Ferrets will always try to go where you don’t want them to be, and they will always go there no matter how many times you pull them away and move them somewhere else. They are determined little creatures!

And this applies to art… how?

Even if you feel like you’ve been knocked around or prevented from going where you want to go, never give up. No matter how many times it feels like you have been blocked from your goals, you have to get up, keep marching on and try again. This applies to yourself and your art as well. Even if you are frustrated with a piece, stay course and don’t quit. That frustration is a way of learning, once you get past it, you will be so much more knowledgeable and thank yourself later for not losing focus.

#2. You always have more fun with friends!

There is nothing more sad than a lonely ferret. Even if you do nothing at all, your very presence in their vicinity brightens their whole little world. It was hard to resist spending all of my free time in the evenings in the playpen with the little animal, as she used me as a human jungle gym. If I wasn’t playing with her she seemed to get lonely and despondent.

And this applies to art… how?

Like ferrets, humans are gregarious. We need the company of our fellow man. Without them, we also get lonely. With encouragement from your friends or online pals, you can do anything. If you are ever feeling down about your artwork, be sure you are making strides to let people know about your work. Post your work online or show your sketchbook to fellow artists. Nothing can be more uplifting than a someone giving you a good critique on your art.

#3. Bite and if that doesn’t work, make a little noise!

Ferrets are known for being quite feisty. They will play nip (and sometimes get a little zealous about it- OUCH!) to get your attention. And when that fails, or if they are being held too long, they will make all sorts of noise to let you know what they want!

And this applies to art… how?

If you never put your stuff out there, you will never become famous. Regardless to what some may say, you won’t get famous for your artwork after you die. That is the exception, not the norm. You have to bite! By which I mean, you have to get people’s attention by aggressively showing off your artwork. You have to self promote. The internet is a wonderful medium for such, but it is also an immense ocean. You have to try really hard to get yourself seen above the crowd. Make some noise if you have to!

#4. Be on or off

Ferrets have this peculiar habit of resembling a light switch. They always appear to be one of two ways, on or off. When they are on, they are 110% playful, in your face, loving life and having fun. When they are off, they are almost in a state of comatose. They sleep a lot and hard. Some people even have ferrets that are such sound sleepers that they can be picked up and moved around without waking up! Now that’s what I call out like a light!

And this applies to art… how?

When you are at half energy, it’s really hard to produce good quality work. Take care of yourself, get good sleep, exercise and eat healthy. When you do these things, when the time comes to concentrate on art, you can be at 110%, at top gear and enjoying yourself immensely. When you are sleepy, exhausted and only have the power of coffee keeping you awake, you can hardly concentrate on your goals in art or otherwise. Make sure to take care of yourself so you can be “on” when working on your art!

#5. War dance!

Ferrets have a move called war dancing, where they frantically jump around in pure joy, huffing with their mouths wide open in what can only be called a grin. They have a pure joy of life that you will be hard pressed to find in any other animal. It almost seems like nothing can get their little spirits down!

And this applies to art… how?

No one can make you get excited about art, you just have to reach from inside and find the love for it for yourself. You really have to be passionate about it. There is an inner joy I believe all humans posses that inspires them to want to create, you have to find that tap and let it flow. After all, art is what you want to do, right?

Is there an animal you think you can learn artistic lessons from? Feel free to share in the comments!

Hillary, also known as Hibbary on deviantArt, illustrates here how to go about the process of dying paper in a detailed tutorial. This technique is a great way to achieve a textured look to your paintings. Not many tutorials on the subject are so succinct and illustrative. There is plenty of room for creativity here.

Have a go and try dying your own paper. Comment and show off your work!

It’s “Too Hard”
We’ve all been inspired by other artists. It’s part of the definition of being an artist - observing others. And who better to observe than someone who enjoys the same hobby/ career/ profession as you? However, doubt can get in the way of inspiration. While at first you may be extremely happy looking at someone’s work and you can just feel that spark of creative energy flow within yourself, trying to emulate someone else can prove to be frustrating. Perhaps their skill level is above yours and you aspire to be like them, but in the course of trying, you discover how much unlike them that you are. It’s very frustrating. You might even claim, “it’s too hard”. But hard is a relative term. What comes naturally or easily to one person might be an uphill struggle for some one else. But you know what? The person that struggled will find it a lot more satisfying when they get the results they want than the person who didn’t have to try.

A Fear of Failure
Sometimes we’re so scared of failing that we don’t even want to start. This is where you doom yourself. Here’s the thing: you will make mistakes and in the course of making these mistakes, you WILL fail at what you were trying to achieve. Ok, so maybe fail is a bit of a harsh word- but it is true. When first starting out, the grand ideas in your head will not come to fruition on paper, it’s that simple. It will not happen at first. It’s this realisation that you need to come to terms with. You need to tell yourself- It’s OK to not be perfect. You CAN “mess up”. And if you do mess up, you do not need to ball up the paper and toss it in the trash. Try having a sketchbook dedicated to just experimenting. It may not be the greatest work you own, in fact, it shouldn’t be. But by dedicating yourself to a medium that allows you to make mistakes, then you’re telling yourself it is ok to make them.

Don’t Let a Fear of Failure Rule Your Artistic Experimentation
You can’t let a fear of failure rule you. The best way to do this is to benchmark your progress against one person - yourself. When you do this, you have nothing to judge by except your previous mistakes. If you constantly view artist’s works that are highly out of your skill level (and be honest about your skill level), then you ARE doomed to failure. There is a point in your career as an artist, whether the pursuit as a hobby or profession, where you can look at other artworks and not judge them against your own, but rather be inspired by that spark of creativity and go with it. First and foremost, you have to have your own identity as a unique artist. You have to get out there and not be afraid to challenge yourself against your old skill level. And most of all, you have to be brave enough to realise that you have to make mistakes in order to get better.

Use Your Mistakes to Drive Your Technical Expertise
Everything you know know is because you learned it at some point in your life. You were born knowing nothing. Some things you may have picked up more quickly than others, but you did learn everything you now know by making mistakes. You didn’t just stand up one day as a baby and start trudging across the room with perfect balance. How could you? You had no proper leg muscles. A part of learning anything is about training the “muscles”. You can’t be too frustrated at yourself for not knowing how to do something if you’ve never tried it before. And more than that, you can’t be expected to know how to do it perfectly the first time. Drawing is no different. You have to flex your drawing “muscles”, which consist of the way you see and even the technical expertise of laying pen to paper or learning a digital painting program. You have to train your eyes to see “correctly”, not just interpret the objects around you as learned shapes (ie: triangle for nose, almonds for eyes). Once you have trained your drawing muscles well enough, you can use your mistakes to your advantage. What do I mean by this? Well, by experimenting, you open your mind up to doing things you wouldn’t normally do. When you do this, sometimes a perceived mistake from one drawing can be used and honed as a skill in in another. One example is if you are practising hatching and the lines aren’t perfectly spaced. You may feel this is a mistake at first, but later come to realise, it’s a good way to indicate a gradient going from light to dark. Many good things come from experimenting- just don’t be too afraid to try!

What techniques have you tried lately? Have any of your mistakes turned into masterpieces?

June lives in Norway and considers herself to be a beginner artist. In this series of questions, I asked what her motivations, inspirations and thought processes when doing her artwork.

Q. When did you start drawing?

A. Can’t remember when, but as long as I can remember I have always drawn.

Q. Was there any one inspiration that got you into drawing (a particular artist, cartoon, ect) and why do you think that source had such a powerful impact on why you want to draw?

A. Inspiration that got me to draw was of course as [the same as] most people think - Cartoons - Lion King. Later my best friend, who has an awesome talent in drawing, made me feel like I would like to do more with my drawing.

Q. How important is it for you to improve your artistic skills? Is it something you constantly strive to do or are you content with your current abilities?

A. Well, I mostly just draw to get out [from being] bored, [to] get out fantasy, so it’s more for myself that I draw than anybody else (even thought I like to get comments on them =o)

Q. Would you consider making art more of a career or would you prefer to keep it as just a way to have fun or relax?

A. Just fun. I don’t have talent, time or a mind to do things on “command” (like commissions). I like to be free to choose what I want to draw [at] different times.

Q. If you strive to improve in your art, what is the best way you’ve found to do this? Do you think it’s simply just practising or a bit of something else like being constantly inspired by other artists or pushed by instructors?

A. Practice, play copycat for a while and slowly get my own style of [art].

Q. What do you think of your favourite artists and how do you think they got to where they are?

A. Well, mostly I think the artist I [like] now have, more or less, the skill in their blood, even though you always can be better with training, critics and such things.

Q. Do you ever compare your skill level to that of other artists? How does this make you feel?

A. Yeah, and it’s both the negative and the positive sometimes But I only tell myself what I think about it, and nothing more.

Q. When you start a drawing and it is not turning out as you’d hoped, what is your thought process and how does it make you feel?

A. It normally does, since my [imagination] is on a higher level than my drawing skill, but I seem to feel okay to [try] it. Even though I sometimes just lay the pen down and start doing something else.

Q. We all get frustrated or have “artist blocks” at times, what do you do to combat this? Do you take a break from art for a while or just try harder to get better? What technique do you feel is the best for defeating “artist’s block”?

A. I think [the previous question] is the answer for this one too!

Q. What advice would you give to people who are considering learning how to draw, but are afraid or are unsure as to where to start?

A. Just your imagination, trust your instinct and watch and learn ^^

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If you have any suggestions or tips on the format or would like to be interviewed yourself, just email me or leave a comment!