Why would Chris Ware want to draw strangers on a bus?
The Verge interviewed cartoonist Chris Ware, who drew GNs like Jimmy Corrigan, and told them about how he draws people on buses without getting arrested for bizarre staring, and why he does this:
That aside, is Ware saying surrealism is more common today? Because if we take any examples of artists mimicking the style of movie costumes for superhero adaptations as an example, I'm not sure you could say non-realism's become more common for the art form. And that's the problem - too much obsession with being "realistic", and only so many so-called experts making it sound like "realism = positivity" in every way, shape and form. Of course, as anybody who pays attention to showbiz in general knows, all that concern about "realism" stop cold when it comes to subjects like Islamic terrorism, and even modern communism. Nothing will inmprove if political correctness keeps impeding upon creativity along with informativity.
Basing character designs on real life people and images can have advantages, and there have been examples of drawing inspiration from movie stars in the past. But it's ludicrous to risk being so obvious about whom you base your character designs upon while drawing in public, and the day could come when an artist will find him/herself in hot water for staring too much at pedestrians on buses, and even trains and airplanes.
Someone who is familiar with your books like Jimmy Corrigan or Building Stories may be surprised to see the range of drawing styles in this collection. How do you decide the way you’ll approach a specific drawing? Do you have a “default” mode that comes out most often?Honestly, it sounds awfully embarrassing to draw people on public transportation, if only because what if you do get in trouble and they get mad at you? It'd be more challenging if an artist would just try to memorize some of the faces he/she saw in public, and illustrate without looking directly at the pedestrians at all.
Well, not to start out sounding pretentious, but at least for me, drawing for comics (aka “cartooning”) is different from drawing for a story; such drawings are completely synthetic, i.e., fictional, and so they’re designed to be transparent and clear, almost like typography. Conversely, everything in my sketchbooks actually happened to me somehow, so those drawings are more “traditional,” meaning they’re meant for looking more than reading, if that makes any sense at all.
When I’m drawing from life, I go out of my way to avoid “crosshatching,” i.e., the sort of built-up overlapping of screens of tone that we’re all taught in art school is a professional way of indicating light and shadow. For a few years, I defaulted to this way of drawing but eventually realized I was ignoring the quality and especially the texture of whatever I was trying to draw, whether it was a tree or a table or skin, so I started trying to use all my lines as a means of both communicating shadow and texture, for better or for worse.
Most of the figure drawings in this book are people I’ve seen on public transportation, who, especially since the advent of the iPhone, make perfect subjects, as they hold their poses much more consistently than do people who are engaged by the actual world. Even better, if they suddenly put their phone away and look out the window, all I have to do is wait 30 or 40 seconds and they’ll reach in their pocket and take out the phone again and I can resume drawing. When I’m drawing strangers, I’m always trying to get a solid sense of their presence and their vulnerability, and even the slightest error in judgment can throw a whole drawing off.
Tip to those staring at people on public transportation: if your subject becomes suspicious and suddenly looks at you, simply instantly look at someone else while assuming an expression of intense concentration until the original subject is satisfied / disappointed that it’s not them you’re looking at. Then they’ll go back to looking at their phone and you can go back to looking at them. Works every time, and I have yet to be arrested.
Finally, I will add that I think there’s no better means of seeing and being a part of the world, however briefly, than drawing from life. Nearly everything in contemporary culture now points us away from this. And if you’re someone who draws stories from memory, as I am, you need to “bank” your understanding of humans and how we hold ourselves, gesture, and deceive each other. I know some cartoonists place little currency in this, and their work shows it. This said, I have a strange occasional facial blindness, and I sometimes won’t immediately recognize people I’ve met before, which is a completely different problem.
That aside, is Ware saying surrealism is more common today? Because if we take any examples of artists mimicking the style of movie costumes for superhero adaptations as an example, I'm not sure you could say non-realism's become more common for the art form. And that's the problem - too much obsession with being "realistic", and only so many so-called experts making it sound like "realism = positivity" in every way, shape and form. Of course, as anybody who pays attention to showbiz in general knows, all that concern about "realism" stop cold when it comes to subjects like Islamic terrorism, and even modern communism. Nothing will inmprove if political correctness keeps impeding upon creativity along with informativity.
Basing character designs on real life people and images can have advantages, and there have been examples of drawing inspiration from movie stars in the past. But it's ludicrous to risk being so obvious about whom you base your character designs upon while drawing in public, and the day could come when an artist will find him/herself in hot water for staring too much at pedestrians on buses, and even trains and airplanes.
Labels: indie publishers, msm propaganda, technology
