The Importance, for Artists, to Have a Good Teacher or Mentor.
January 17, 2013 in ART, PODCASTS
ART -The Importance, for Artists, to Have a Good Teacher or Mentor.
The Simpsons Quote:
Bleeding Gums Murphy: You know, you play pretty well for someone with no real problems.
Lisa: Yeah, but I don’t feel any better.
Bleeding Gums Murphy: The blues isn’t about feelin’ better. It’s about makin’ other people feel worse and makin’ a few bucks while you’re at it.
Bleeding Gums Murphy was Lisa Simpsons’ mentor. He taught her more about her art. How to think about it, what to do with it, how to improve upon it.
He died tragically of “script writer killed him off” syndrome.
There’s a lot of, up and coming artists, who sit around frustrated. Not knowing what they’re doing wrong or how to get past the wall they’ve hit. There’s only so many things you can get from books.
Sometimes you just need someone to take a look at what you’re doing and guide you where you need to go.
Today I’m going to be writing about good teachers and mentors. Why you need one and how you might go about getting one.
You can either watch the video below or read along. It’s up to you. The information is the same, either way.
That said, at the bottom of this post I introduce a new podcast I’m on so check it out when your done:
Mentors
I’ve had a lot of good teachers and mentors. I think it’s really important to find one or get one.
The reason I say this is, you can have all the academics down, all the theories, everything you need to know. You can learn them in books, videos and sources like that. But sometimes you need to have someone sit down with you and go over your work.
It’s critical to get that kind of feedback. You might think you’re applying the systems and academics correctly, when in fact, your not.
It helps to have someone look at your work and critique it.
Examples of Mentor-ship in Action
I have a few examples of this sort of thing here on the blog already. There was a post I wrote about making a painting breakthrough. I was studying painting. Trying to get my painting right, trying to get the theories to work, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.
Then my friend and mentor Paul Wee, came into my office and saw me in midst of despair. We had a conversation and he told me what I needed to do and why.
You can read all about it here:
I also wrote about, when I first started working on The Simpsons, my director guided me, critiqued me and taught me what I needed to do. It shows how much that helped and how much I grew.
You can read about that here:
How I Spent Hours in a Little Dark Room Chocking Matlock. Dante’s fractured arm
You need those kinds of experiences.
Mentors Force you to See Yourself
My first two seasons on The Simpsons, directors would just sit down and draw over my stuff…over and over and over. Yes, it’s brutal. You feel like you’re a total loser.
You thought you had it all figured out, until someone better than you started pointing out all your flaws. It’s tough.
But from that point on, you become aware, that there are things you need to think about that you never realized you needed to think about before. Suddenly you start seeing your work from the eyes of your mentor.
You start asking, “What would they say? What am I not doing?” this helps you improve and grow.
So I highly recommend getting yourself somebody.
How?
The Steps you Can Take to Get a Mentor
PAY somebody. I don’t know, whatever it takes. Maybe you can contact someone online. Maybe they can help you out and offer critique. Give you a little bit of pointers.
Maybe see if you meet up with them and they might give you a few pointers in exchange for some sort of compensation.
Or just find a friend who is WAY better than you. I happen to have my friend Paul who is a bazillion times better than, just about everybody. I ask him question and he just sits down and helps out.
He does this because he’s a friend of mine BUT he also does it because he knows that it helps him. It helps him wrap his head around drawing. He actually learns more by helping me. It solidifies and clarifies what he knows about drawing.
That would be my suggestion to you, if you want to improve yourself and improve your art. It will show you all the ways you could improve that you would have never been aware of otherwise.
Leave a Comment
If this was helpful, leave a comment. Let me know what you got out of this.
Bart Playing Video Games
Opt in this week to receive a behind the scenes look at some Bart artwork I did for…well, I don’t know what it was for. It’s some art of Bart playing a violent video game.
Also, and perhaps more importantly, opt in to TheDrawingWebsite.com newsletter. In that newsletter I give out, mentor-ish, tips on drawing for you to think about. You may ask me drawing question through it if you want also.
PODCAST – The Corner Booth
So I’ve teamed up with my co-worker Chance Raspberry and my pal and animator Larry Whitaker to create The Corner Booth. It’s a podcast where we talk about the animation industry from the inside.
We’ll cover many topics and have guests from the industry on the show.
One of the unique things about this podcast is that some episodes are recorded during a live meet up at an ACTUAL corner booth.
As of the time of this writing we’ve got two episode out. One is on:
Having Confidence in Yourself and in Your Art
The other was the live meet up recording. The topic was:
We recorded a promo for the show but, it took us like HOURS to get it. We couldn’t stop laughing and screwing it up. If fact, Chance took it upon himself to make a blooper reel. It’s SUPER long:
Madness. Do you see what I’ve got to work with here?
If this looks like fun to you. Come join us at The Corner Booth.
For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIES
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