Time Drawn: Fall 2006
I always have liked adding a touch of drama to my pictures. It’s a bit tough, for a few reasons.
For one thing, I am working in a static media. This picture isn’t going to move, you know. All I can do is capture a moment in time, and choosing the right moment is tough.
For another, I’ve long had a problem drawing people. One of the odd effects of being both asocial and asexual is how it’s affected my art. I’ve never just stared at people, seen how they move. Well, I do it some now, since I know it’s useful. Means I don’t naturally get how other people move. And I’m a very solid person, both physically and mentally. This means I tend to draw people just as solid and stable as I am, since that’s the way I know best. My people just aren’t fluid and dynamic, and you need that to add drama.
I know what you’re thinking, just avoid drawing people. Draw highly dramatic chipmunks instead. Or rocks, since I like them so. Isn’t so simple as that.
We humans are geared to respond best to human forms. It’s a basic survival instinct, after all. If you know what looks and acts like you, and you gravitate towards it, things just go better than if you, say, gravitated towards something with four legs and big sharp teeth. And socializing’s got a whole heap of subtle clues that we humans developed as we became civilized. Gotta know what’s standard before you can catch the subtle differences.
What this all means is that the best way by far to add drama and interest is to add a human. Even a tiny silhouette in a corner helps, adding a sense of scale and the hint of a story. And we humans like story, since stories are how we learn. Even the most boring class you had in school was a story, if a long, dull one with little sense of plot or rhythm. Remove the human element, and things blur together. There’s a reason we anthropomorphize everything, from humanoid foxes walking on two legs to a sun with a big smile.
This all is why I still like this picture, even six or so years after I drew it. Sure, I’ve learned a very large amount about art since then, this was one of my earlier pieces, after all. There’s a whole heap of things I would do differently if I made this concept today. Still, it tells a story, a moment in time. And it works with my overly stable human form, too.
I think it took half a sharpie to color all that black on the page, though.
