Today's Document
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
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@shawnkirsch
This blog has not seen the love it deserves lately but I wanted to mention that for the past few years I’ve been very active over on Instagram and posted most of my musings there. The last 5 years, I’ve been pretty obsessed with woodworking and have gone down the rabbet hole. (LOL)
Don’t Underestimate Sanding
This post might feel a bit out of context since I haven’t written in some number of years, but when it comes to woodworking, it’s easy to ignore a critical step, Sanding. You might thing this is monotonous, useless, and a major pain in the ass, but for every single person who will touch or look at your object later for the rest of time, it will DEFINE the object. It is important to think about how the craftsman views the object and how the consumer with view it. The baggage that comes along with it is not always equal.
Why I love hardware
I remember saving up my first 100 dollars as a kid. It was a culmination of birthday and Christmas gifts, coins found under the cushions, a dollar stolen from the parents here and there, a few dollars saved from a skipped lunch at school. I was saving up for something BIG! HUGE! I was saving up for a CD player. A sleek, wonderful machine that would let me listen to music alone. It had no thrills, no skip protection, no real display, and horrible headphones, but it was mine. I remember buying it in the store with my grandmother. We talked about how long I had saved up this money, and how it was my first big purchase in life. I emptied my tiny little checking account on that CD player. From a young age, I was bound to be tied to hardware.
You see, being the oldest of 6, I had little to call my own, I spent a lot of time as a kid sharing things. I longed for the material things that I alone was responsible for. That no one else could touch. The CD player was my first big love affair into hardware. I loved the touch of it, I loved the noises it made when it started spinning the discs, I loved that even after the initial love affair wore off, I could replace the batteries and pop in a CD years later and relive those memories as a kid.
As I grew up, I became more interested in software, I was a gamer, a mediocre computer repair main, and an internet fiend. Looking back on it, I think the software always made me feel a little empty. The issue I had with software was that any moment it could change, it could take something I loved and replace it with 3 buttons. It was a thing that was always having to be relearned. I never had to reprogram myself to use that CD player. I could pick it up right now and know the exact buttons to press to get it playing my favorite song on a specific album without wasting a second. Try that with iTunes, buttons change on the weekly. I love the physical aspect of building something. Something that can’t be erased by a mistyped character. Something that has substance, something that begs to be paid attention to. Something that doesn’t change upon a whim. Something that will stay the same until it is destroyed. Something that will bring back wonderful memories years later when you find it in a box.
No a Cintiq Doesn't Make YOU Draw Better
A long time ago, I thought I needed a Cintiq in order to learn how to draw. My brain thought I needed the latest and greatest technology in order to learn a craft that has been around for ages. I was stuck on this idea for a long time. It was dumb of me. It was another way I put off the effort of learning how to draw. I bought a Cintiq, and while I spent some time drawing on it and learning, it would have been much better had I spent time drawing with a half-broken shitty school pencil on lined paper.
I always see posts on the internet, “what brush is that?” “What program do you use?” the list goes on and on, and while in some cases it may be a perfectly good question, most of the times I see someone who should be spending more time drawing and less time browsing instagram, deviant art, tumblr, etc. We live in the age of all questions answered and I think that takes away a lot of the importance of the journey. Excuse me while I get on my soapbox. In reality, people see a great drawing and say wow, what a gift you have. While some may have some natural ability, I’d say 95% of artists have just sat in a room alone and drawn their ass off. And even as an artist, I find some of my best pieces are not the result of a final product, but drawings that I enjoyed making. The struggle is real, and that is where the joy comes from. Struggling through 200 drawings and having only one of them come out well is what it takes to be a good artist. Not some magical device, not some paintbrush that has special abilities, not your favorite artist telling you the layer settings to use in photoshop, and definitely not a super expensive electronic paper and pencil. At Sony I watched great drawings being made with the broken corner of a crayon. While the tools may help, for a beginner to get hung up on equipment is really hard to watch. I just want to yell at them, “GO GRAB A PENCIL AND DRAW A BUNCH OF SHIT”. You will figure out which ones are good later. But you need to put the time in now. I hardly ever see a great artist posting on Facebook, “What kind of pencil do you use?”
I leave you with a post from a friend’s instagram account, also my favorite new character I’ve seen in years. #shewolf
“What gouache colors do you use?” I’m going to guess red, blue, and green...
5 years. Man, it goes so fast. It’s amazing to think where I was in my life when I started this blog. I hope I can get back to posting some more, haven’t had much time lately, but I’m working on it. Been playing with the 3d printer quite a bit though. Really enjoying it. It’s a nice mix of the science and art. I find I’m able to flex both of my brain muscles. Hopefully on the 10 year post, I will have a lot more words on the page. Until then!
what do people even blog about now?!
I don’t know. Seems so insignificant. Everything has been done already. Dark shawn in the house!
Ok, enough with that. Where have I been for the past year and a half??!?1?! That is a good question, I guess I’ve been at Apple for a bit, and I don’t spend time for drawing and stuff. Also the recent pottery addiction has not been good for my drawing habits. But I think I’m almost done with the pottery. It has been a nice distraction from drawing, but I’m ready to go back. I think also I’ve been in Silicon Valley and my mind has shifted to software and robots. I don’t write stories anymore, I want to invent something that will change the world. Or go to space. Something crazy, something that when I’m old and dying I won’t say I was wasting my life on that job. When I can’t move my old bones and all my teeth are fake. It’s amazing how the environment you are in changes who you are as a person. A job is a big part of your life and can engulf it. I like it up here, I miss los angeles, but theres something to like about this place too. Totally different places.
#hyperlapse been trying to finish this book a while. It's been a while since I've done much drawing. I finished this book a few months ago, and haven't really drawn since. I was looking in my journal and. A year ago today, Stephen silver told me sometimes you just need a break.
The largest piece I've made so far. #Shino glaze, and it started off as 9 pounds of clay! #pottery
Really loved how the glaze came out on this one. #pottery
Wow, it's hard to imagine that my blog is 4 today! Pretty exciting stuff, I wish i was contributing more, but you know, sometimes you post and sometimes you don't. There is plenty of old stuff to read anyways! I'm gonna try to get back to it soon. Cheers.
More pottery. I finished my first 8 week class, and I had a wonderful time. It was great having the "child's mind" again. Creating, failing without care, and overall having a blast learning and discovering. I think a lot of adults miss that feeling. It's hard to find it again once you get older. Here are a set of pots I trimmed up last night. It's interesting, I started to feel a little lost the past two weeks and one of the teachers told me to practice cylinders. At some point I think it becomes necessary to lose the child's mind mentality if you want to get serious, here's to hoping I can have my pie and eat it too.
A Lack of Drawing
There has most definitely been a lack of drawings lately. Not so much as in the amount I’ve been doing, but more in the aspect of the ones I post. I think it’s two fold. For one, I’ve been busy drawing I just don’t post as much. I’m finding lately that I’m getting even more critical of my drawings and I still don’t feel like many of them are ready for the public eye. Hence the quick journal flip thoughs. I’m forcing myself to draw, but every drawing doesn’t need to be under the microscope of the Internet. I need to draw to have fun, and the only way I can do that is to be able to fail and not believe its being made to get posted.
The second reason which is probably more of the reason why I haven’t been posting lately is because I’ve fallen in love with pottery. I’ve been taking a class near my house that is an 8 week course as well as practicing on the weekends. At first I thought it was going going to be a artistic doodling experiment, turns out it is much more scientific than I was hoping. I feel like I do so much science at work, I need the other side of my brain to relax. I’ve also found out all the things I like to do are a mix of the science and arts. Maybe that’s just part of my DNA and I’m forever cursed between the two sides. Either way, I’ve really gotten the pottery bug. I’ve been watching a lot of videos online as well as reading and investing as much material as I can. I feel creatively energized again. Anyways here are a few pictures, a big batch ready for glazing.
Another one bites the dust. A bunch of #inktober in this one
#Inktober number 12, fell off the wagon for a bit
All aboard the #Inktober train. day one. damn I'm rusty...
InkTober starts in 15 days. Who’s in? Rules and resources here: http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober #Inktober
whose with me?!?
Mo Tip #1: Always Have a Sketchbook
I'm going to be doing a series of what I've dubbed 'Mo Tips.' A period of my life where I was soo utterly lucky to soak in the wisdom of a wise wise man. Some will be art related, some will be life related. Eventually I'll post about how I got to have this experience, but for now, tip number uno.
There is never enough time to be as good as you want to be. You are behind the curve. There are people half your age who can draw twice as well as you, and you are competing for the same job. In order to throw the balance, you HAVE to draw every second you get. This means you need your tools by your side wherever you go. It means you need to take advantage of every minute you are sitting idle.
In line for a coffee? Draw.
Sitting at a long red light? Draw.
Watching ads during a Hulu show? Draw.
Riding on the bus to work? Draw.
You will be surprised how many drawings get done. It will also force you out of your comfort zone, you will be inspired in new places that used to be boring and a waste of time. The DMV becomes your favorite place to visit. You have to have a sketchbook around you at all times. Start hiding them places. Put one in the console of your car, in your backpack, carry around a small notebook in your back pocket, keep one at work, at home, wherever you can, stash one.
And last but not least, fill those suckers up.
