same to you Ed. Merry Christmas!!

thanks. Muchos Gracias!

yea, not bad. how u doin?

Hey Man! Thanks for the kind words. It helps to know my work is not in vain lol. Interesting that you stumbled upon my page by searching for 'line economy'. Perhaps I mentioned that somewhere here lol- i don't remember. But in terms of being scared-- never be. I like what a life-drawing teacher once told me-- mentioning my gestures and o.k lines, he said "your not afraid to take risks". I believed that, and I keep that thought as a motivation for when I don't know what exactly to draw. I scribble... and through many developing efforts- I used that teacher's saying to keep me motivated for what/or how to draw, when I'm not inspired at all! my point is, taking risks for an artist- is a very true statement, and if you don't fall into the "it's never good enough" trap each time you draw, all those lessons of risk taking will turn out to be a very powerful weapon! trust me. And yes, you definitely Should be learning with each "risk" you take. If you simply take risks for the sake of being 'different' or w/e- you'll most likely fall into making 'abstract' art with little or no purpose. You can observe the 'abstract art' failures in my dA scrapbook of what misery I'm telling you about lol.

You shouldn't be afraid to take risks! Ever! Look what happened to the works of picasso before and after his cubism discovery. In one sense-- da man went 'insane' lol. He was particularly interested in the shapes and abstract thought processes of things he observed (if I'm correct). Pictures say a thousand words- it's true (even more than that actually). But, what makes a picture? well, there are 'elements' and there are 'principles'. I remembered them from my middle-school/high-school days- and I started to 'actualize' them into my works, seeing it from a professional degree. I examined artists I admired, (I mean really good artists) and sought if they themselves even used these elementary principles of design. And they did! I realized then, that a lot of tutorials don't actually "teach" you these elements and principles. Things like: line, space, value, shape, rhythm, balance, etc. There are a whole bunch to know about... the majority of tutorials I see, simply mention perspective, anatomy and whatnot, but I don't think a lot of them do the kind of teaching that people-like-me need to know about, for making altitudes of similarly amazing images!

So, I began a journey! I told myself... I must go back to the caveman drawings, I mean like "pre-school-paper-on-the-fridge" type drawings lol. I was serious! I went back to all those BASICS. I asked myself, "what on earth is a line anyway?" why are certain lines used? I studied the atmosphere of graphite on certain sketchbook drawings and tried to differentiate the artists use of line and tone. I also then, began to collect a massive reference folder, and organized it based on my aspirations, and also on images which didn't really meet what I thought was "awesome", but that I might learn from either the mistakes which I saw in them, or simply be influenced by 'gazing' at these images for a 'long' time, and mentally re-creating them without drawing anything at all. That journey made me develop a bookmarks list of websites that focused on basic drawing skills.. (not those really crappy ones though); I already considered myself as a (developing- (almost-semi)- pro) seeing I was learning from industry experts in college-- but I dropped my enthusiasm because I felt I wasn't learning what I "needed" to.

That journey also made me be able to figure out when a principle or an element was being used- which increased my ability to critique artwork somewhat. I then bought a few pocket sketchbooks so that I could literally whip it out and 'draw', whenever my hands were free. At the grocery store, at the mall, etc. No-one needed to know, that's why it was small, and also it was convenient in the car or whatever. I took little scribbles of people walking, dogs running, any gesture I could try and grasp. Most of them looked like garbage. But I was proud! because my ultimate goal of this was to help me recognize what I was trying to recognize in my sketchbook folder of reference images-- that is, what strokes help make a more 'graceful' line, and when does it count to do this? how do I develop this so it's consistent? and, how do I disregard that "irritable" jot-jot (chicken-scratch) line technique which seemed to ruin anybody's good drawing idea? It was things like that I did. I even got so convinced in all of this artistic-method restructuring, that I created a daily list of simple art exercises. yo, it's like eating a spoon! but it works man. It's like tasting horribe medicine. These exercises simply emerged from observing artwork that I admired. I would pinpoint a line, or a shape, or some abstract structure, or color, and I would ask how does that little spot in the image justify the entirety of the rest of the image? and also, how did they do it as a whole process before finishing the strokes they made? I then thought of ways to make that process internally executable, so it would become of a second-nature. If that happens, we as artists can focus more on designing than wasting time trying to figure out if 'this line' or 'that line' works best.

I really admired automotive/interior design, product design, and architectural illustrators, and those artists who did highly technical freehand work, because I thought to myself-- If we as artists can achieve that level of skill freehand, then doing the cartoony stuff will be soo much easier!

As far as I'm concerned that is very true on my part. But this only comes from knowing how you as an artist learn best. Everyone's method is different. There are commonalities, but... not everyone learns this way.

I'm only telling you MY experience, and how I got to the point of developing my strategies (which I'm still developing by the way)- yet, I haven't actually told you the strategies themselves, but I can photocopy my daily list of exercises or give you some names of artists or links if you like... sorry if I bored you. It's not my "life-story" I promise, lol... I'm just a really elaborate speaker when it comes to expressing my thoughts on the written canvas. But my spoken speech is much shorter, and seemingly less hmm... articulate. maybe I'm weird, I dunno.

make a CA sketchbook, I wanna see you progress well dude!
God bless you too!



p.s. - In terms of putting in the Work to do it- that's all on you man. no pain no gain. practice makes perfect. Note me if you want my personal exercises or links.