The Path Through The Woods (Thoughts on the appeal of rough drawings)

Pencilling continues apace! Good news: I figured out how to make the pencils sort-of show up in photographs (long time readers will know this is a problem which has, somehow, managed to elude me).

As is the nature of work-in-progress, there are spoilers in the images above and below.

Have I talked about the great tragedy of rough drawings here? The artists reading this might know what I'm talking about; it's not a real tragedy, it's just a weird little affliction that people can develop if they've been practising drawing for a certain amount of time.

It has been my experience that at some point in the life of a drawing person, their drawings become their most appealing while they are still rough. You or I look at a drawing in its rough form (and these are all relatively "rough" drawings I've posted here), and figure "this is about as good as it gets." If this ever changes, I am not sure. I have not reached that point.

To a broader audience, maybe that's counter-intuitive.

One of our teachers in animation school helped explain why this happens. He was (and still is) Keith Ingham, and you can see him in the DVD bonus materials for Rock and Rule (1983).

My understanding of this phenomenon is that at a certain point, an artist gets good at seeing the potential in a drawing, and that's what this is all about. After a certain amount of practice, an artist can look at a squiggly, wobbly rough drawing of a circle and be able to pick the perfect geometric shape out of the rough. Maybe it's like a trained woodsman would be able to look at terrain before them and pick out the safest, easiest path through the woods.

So, in the panel two images above, I can look at Vignelli's rough-drawn pupils and my brain automatically puts them in the right place. At some point I'll ink them and hopefully my hand can put the ink in the same "right place." In the image directly above, the wheel is wonky and the fender ought to occlude the shape of the carriage behind, and the wrinkles in the drapery are undefined. But I have a brain that is working to resolve all that suggestion into its ideal finished form. Whether I'm able to realize that ideal finished form is a question of patience and skill and care.

In the image above, the hair to the left of the woman's face is unresolved, her thumb has two potential lengths, one of the kid's eyes is in the wrong place, the kid's hand is extremely unresolved, the body of the man in the background is just suggestive sketching, and there's lots of structural under-drawing generating noise. And that's how I like it.

But this drawing is also not ready to be shown to the average reader. That's the unspoken contract between the artist and the reader: I try to not confuse you. The woman's dual thumb tips might be confusing or, at best, distracting. The reader is owed artwork that communicates clearly. Note that doesn't mean everything in the drawing needs to be carefully delineated — more and more I appreciate the power of suggestion; I think it's why Mike Mignola is so popular among artists. But the message of a panel, a page, a story needs to come across. You might argue this panel already does that, regardless of how many thumb-tips the lady has, but the next step is to not leave any clutter lying around to trip the reader. Sure the panel reads, but let's not leave room for the reader to ask, "what's going on with her thumb?"

On a panel from Chapter Three, a comment asked "is that the guy's tongue?" The answer is, "yes it is," but that should be clear — I don't want it to be ambiguous. I want you to think, "what a creep," not, "what is happening there?" So I ought to go back and revise that at some point.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy looking at roughs as much as I do. I don't know if this is a universal experience for either artists or readers! It seemed that way back in animation school, but who knows. Tell me about how you feel about rough versus finished/"clean" artwork, I'd be interested to learn.

Meanwhile, I am drawing. DRAWING!

Until next week,
I remain,
confusing or – at best – distracting,

TC