Dig Deep and Unleash Your Imagination.

What drives you as an artist? I strongly believe that there is a hidden unleashed artist in all of us. We often feel limited or stuck trying to find ourselves. Have you ever had that image stuck in your head that you cannot seem to escape? It follows you everywhere, at work, doing chores, listening to music, and in your dreams. You try to draw it but find yourself making mistakes and wasting mounds of paper. You can’t figure out why you cannot draw a stick figure to save your life when you have drawn portraits,  and landscapes flawlessly in the past. Well Today in this blog I am going to give you a glimpse into how you can begin to make the changes to unleash your potential.

The biggest problem is finding what medium you feel most comfortable with it has to be an extension of you. For me it just happened to be the pencil. The next thing you have to figure out is your style. Each of us has a unique fingerprint, and in art we each have what I like to call an “Art Fingerprint.” An Art fingerprint is an original style that no one on the planet can replicate, almost like your signature. Sure they may try, but all copies will be just that another copy. You have to let go and find your own style to do that you have to take yourself back to that one point in time when you were really excite to finish a piece of art. It could have been when you were a child, in school, or a week ago, but that moment when you caught yourself off guard paused, and smiled at your picture. It’s that excitement you have to get back, and pull into everything you do.

When did art become work, and competitions, and who can sell the most? It’s a pressure that we all face especially in this age of modern sharing on sites like Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and so on. Likes, comments, and shares to the highest bidder. When we don’t see the results we like we fall backwards in fear that our work is maybe not as good as the artist with over 10,000 hits. I will be the first to admit I fell into the category of envy of other artists who hit these numbers because I don’t have the income to pay for ads, or other forms of web advertising. I am going to tell you some wise and great advice that someone very smart once told me… (my wife.) They are just numbers, and do not represent the great artist you are. Remember that as you are fighting an invisible battle online to become viral, because the greatest artists that ever existed were alive WAY before the internet was born.  So do not let competition hold you back. Pressure to succeed in today’s market had me torn, and had me creating art I thought people would like. I changed who I was in the artwork, and it wasn’t me at all. It became only business, and it made me very unhappy. I was un-motivated with no passion to continue drawing the same tired drawings that had no imprint of me in them at all. It was funny how me trying to fit in with the art community and be seen with them was what got me lost in the shuffle. I was just another artist with no originality, and I had lost who I was in the process. I needed to change or I was finished.

So what got me motivated again, the catalyst that broke the mold. It was something as simple as a sketchbook, and freedom. Eliminate the pressure, and just draw. You have to just let loose and let it all come out. No techniques, no references and no hesitation. Just draw the first image that comes to your head. T doesn’t have to be the best image in the world, just enjoy it. You don’t even have to finish it. Then for the next week  I challenge you to do it again, and again. You will start learning how you perceive your imagination. You might even shock yourself a bit, and may be able to find that you had more to show than you thought. The trick is to continue pushing what is hidden within. By just drawing out your thoughts, and experiences you begin to let go of all the pressures the world places on your shoulders.

The next thing you will want to do is refine it. Take the images you drew for the week, and just revisit them all. Ask yourself how you felt when you were drawing them. Find out what motivated you to draw them, this may go deeper in your core than you thought, and bring more than just art out, but I guarantee that you will feel much better when you do.  It may help to write your own journal or blog about each of the seven drawings. Nothing elaborates, but it will help you find out what motivates you to draw, and why you started in the first place. In doing this and remembering your reason for art, you will also come to remember the passion that brought you to art. I want you to carry that passion onto your own new original piece of artwork.

Skin through your artwork in your sketch book and choose your most favorite image. Not the most detailed, but the one that catches your eye. It may be more than one. I want you to incorporate this image into your next large piece. You can even take multiple images new and old from this sketchbook, and compose them into one great image or piece. Take your time on this one, and really enjoy it.  Make it yours and give it your style, your art fingerprint if you will. Place yourself in the scene and picture yourself there. The sights, smells, movements, take it all in and enjoy it. Use references only to refine your image, such as the flowers you drew, or people. Don’t simply copy the image left to right, or up and down like a printer. Move across the paper with randomness, or start from a different spot than you are used to just to get you away from all that technique that locked you down. The point of this is to find out who you are as an artist. In school we learn to look at a picture and make a copy of it, I want you to take that picture right out of your head, and draw it to the paper or canvas.

What it all comes down to is the fear and the challenge. The fear that no one will appreciate your imagination, or understand how you think. To be honest it doesn't matter if they do or don’t. The only person you have to impress is yourself. It’s your art, and your mark on the world. To put it another way do you want to be remembered as the artist who copied other art, or the artist that broke free and decided to do something never before seen. Me I would rather never sell a piece of art and be original and happy doing it, than an artist that just drew pictures that someone else already did. I want you to challenge yourself and bring out the best artist you can be.

 (Then again I would really love to be an original artist and sell artwork too, feel free to check out my website on the links below to find out how you can purchase the originals. :D Cheap plug.)

Thank you, and I hope to see more new great artwork

Derrick Rathgeber-Bruno

http://DerricktheArtist.com

The Flight of The Macaw - by Derrick Rathgeber

The Flight of the Macaw

by Derrick Rathgeber

http://DerricktheArtist.com

The Flight of the Macaw was one of my greatest pictures as an artist. I not only completed this piece in a good time-frame but I used over 40+ colored pencils. Composing this image was no easy feat at all either. The reference shot I had was small and blurry, but the pose fit what I was going for. I used other references such as encyclopedias, and zoology books to get the bone structure, and muscle movements down. In this blog I will be giving you a day by day play into the creation of this piece. 

Prints are available at http://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-flight-of-the-macaw-derrick-rathgeber.html

DAY ONE

And the macaw spreads his wings. There is something releasing about sketching the picture on the paper. It can be difficult to start a new project sometimes, and I know once I start to draw the piece I know it's on. I found a good composition in this image that followed a line of action. It gives the illusion of the birds movement, and flight path which is right off the page. I started to color the head and saw the clock, time for a break. 

DAY TWO

I really jumped right into this piece. I felt an immediate connection, and after the success with the Bird in Bloom piece I really wanted to improve more. I used about 4-5 pencils to get a good bone color in the beak. I started to work on the creases and noticed that after I colored in the eye, I felt him staring right at me with almost a grin. Although the camera I used picked up more white than it should have, you can still see the layers of colors I started to put in. I wanted to give this bird a bit of my personality, and you can see that with the yellow to red flame coloring I put in his feathers. 

DAY THREE

Something happened today that was a bit unexpected for me. I found detail that was not in the reference picture. My dad in Costa Rica took a far away shot of this bird in flight and it was very blurry. You could say that I winged it...pun. Seriously though I stopped looking at the photo at this point and just colored. I saw the form of this beautiful bird and knew where I wanted the muscles to flex, and even more I wanted to feathers to fluff out as if he had just flapped his wings, and you get that hint of back-draft. I also went right into the shading too. I don't usually do this until I shaded all the base colors, but like I said something just came over me today, and I was on fire looking forward to tomorrow. 

DAY FOUR

Back to what I was talking about in day three. The muscle definition. I think that was my primary focus on this piece. Not only did I want to see how many colors I could put in it, but I wanted to see how many feathers I could ruffle, and muscles I could flex. The one small challenge I found was the molted white feathers on the legs and by the wings. With colored pencils you cannot just color white over red and expect white. So I had to color around these areas using negative space, and then using small strokes to add the detail of them being white feathers. I did this with grays and browns. After adding some lights and shadows to this point I think I was done for the day. 

DAY FIVE

Today the macaw started to fly. Can I admit one thing, I actually go so nervous before I started the wings that I took a day or two away from this piece. after I put so much detail into the body I couldn't mess up on the wings. That would be the end of it. So I started on the feet. Believe it or not the feet were harder than the wings. I had to get a movement that made sense as well as give them some texture. The color was interesting to, I would say between the blues, grays and tan colors there were about 7-9 colors in the feet alone. That's why I love colored pencils. Just by adding one more color in a different direction or stroke you change the look and feel of what you are coloring. It may take longer, but you have total control. As for the wings I think the most difficult part was the angle of the feathers and showing the wind pushing down on the top feathers, and lifting the bottom. to do that I added a curve at the end of each feather, and moved them as I visualized the bird in motion. You have to do this, create a line of action and engage the audience. You have one image to capture their imagination, by drawing them into yours. 

DAY SIX

Ah the right wing. This wing was killer. I almost made the mistake of thinking the macaw's feathers were blue on the top and bottom. After looking it over I found they were just a darker color of red. The feathers are actually layered, and their blue feathers are on top. That being said I really thought I would have more blue in this picture, but If I am going to make it believable you have to do your research, even if you are making it your own. Now if you are drawing directly from your imagination, which I love, then all bets are off. This is the funny part I made sure that I placed the blue on the second wing anyways. I changed to composition to have this wing come off the border. It solved two problems for me, One I needed the wings to match up in color, and Two this was a perfect line of action that made this draw much more interesting. Now I was ready to move forward. 

DAY SEVEN

This is the phase where most of artists start to crash. The final lap of the finish line, and you fear finishing. Part of you wants to push harder just to end it, and the other halve just wants to put it away and never finish it because you fear the success or failure of possible messing up. This is where you have to be cautious and take breaks. For me I told myself I would just do the log for the day, and as hard as that was I did it. I added the shadows, and different colors of browns to get the color I wanted. A voice poked in to my head saying just color in the shrubs and be done with it, I know that would have been a big mistake. I was tired, and my wrist was hurting, and I know I would have skipped details, and just rushed it. So I gave it one more day. I originally attempted to draw this 18" x 24" colored pencil piece in 7 days, but I would rather add one more day and be happy with it, than ruin it but trying to hit a deadline that I placed on myself. 

DAY EIGHT

And with the large brush in the background with the skyline, this piece is finally completed. I think this piece cemented me into a good spot as an artist. What I accomplished fore myself was just priceless when I finished this macaw piece. I used over forty colored pencils, and I did it in eight days. It was a good feeling to know I did that, and I wanted to do it again. I continued making new portfolio pieces here on out, and rebuilding everything. If you think about it The Flight of the Macaw was me. I was spreading my wings and letting the wind take me. All the way trough I animated him in my head watching him move, and I think that made the picture take form and move with me. 

Thank you very much for following me on this piece, and remember prints are available at http://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-flight-of-the-macaw-derrick-rathgeber.html