What is a study?
A study is a type of drawing artists make all the time before they engage in a final work. (We all define “final” or “finished” work differently.)
I made this dog study in my journal this summer. It didn’t turn out the way I had intended. My mind said, “That’s OK it’s a study.”
But then immediately it struck me what a study really is, and how we need to view them. Click on the page to read my thought.
Try thinking of a study this way and your productivity shoots way up!
It’s Halloween. After I finish handing out candy to all the royals, dragons, dinosaurs, ballerinas, aliens, Draculas, Frankenstein’s Monsters, pirates, mad scientists, popular characters and celebrities I’ve aged-out of knowing, and talking vegetables you can bet I’m going to get some studies done before I go to bed.
I hope you do too.
I would argue that your entire journal is a series of studies! 😉 Happy Halloween! Big rain in the forecast tonight, so I’ll be lucky to see 5 trick-or-treaters. More chocolate for me. 😉
Tina, I would not argue with you about that! I tend to think of it a little differently. I think of my entire journal as a series of thumbnail sketches. But then I index for them and studies differently by some weird division in my mind, just because I know what I’m looking for and for teaching purposes I need to find the thumbnails that are not just regular pages, but are the landscapes and such that I could use as examples when teaching.
It has been raining here, though it has stopped. I don’t know if it’s going to start again. I need a lot of trick or treaters as I have a lot of candy—none of which I can eat with my jaw, so I want to move it!
I think “a study” may be related to something I’m trying to figure out right now. I want to combine my writing and drawing interests and endeavors together. And am starting a journey towards figuring out how to create illustrated essays (and possibly cartoons). My first effort, I created 4 panels in my sketchbook just for the drawings as the text is too long. Then discovered the page and the drawings are too small and will be difficult to scan to combine with text (however I do that).
I have only drawn in my sketchbook but am pondering whether now is the time to do drawings on individual sheets of paper. Gasp! says my brain, as that seems like I’m taking myself seriously. And I reply, maybe so…
Bonus points for taking yourself seriously!
And working on individual pieces of paper may indeed be the way forward.
But within the journal I think you can still mine for an arrangement between words and text. That struggling that you’re experience is part of a great synergy that happens when you work on a project involving text and illustration—one forces you to edit the other. Sometimes we think we need to be drawing X but it doesn’t fit the text. Sometimes the text is not as focused as it needs to be to give added impact to the images.
The more you play with this in the journal (or on loose sheets) you’ll hone in on what you’re trying to do and who your audience is.
At the same time you might want to broaden your experience of how others meld these two elements. I had a fun childhood of reading historical “comics,” illustrated history. I already knew the history, having read voraciously at an every earlier age, but I loved the “realistic” illustrations. Seeing a well-done mix of words and images helped form my design sense for later in life.
Graphic novels by your favorite practitioners might help you see a way through this mix as well.
Thinking about the action composition of your illustrations will help—and graphic novels might help you there again. I’ve written a lot about these but the posts are now archived. I’ll pull some stuff together and write a blog post. There’s spot on the schedule I was looking for an excuse to swap out.
And yes, if you’re going to publish for an audience, working on loose sheets makes productions steps easier in a lot of ways. But first you need to keep working out what the balance of text and illustration is. So you can also think of this process not just studies, but a form of rough draft.
Thanks Roz for the additional ideas on figuring this form out. I got started on this because of a couple “Wild Wonder Conference” online speakers who spoke on “Illustrated Essays” and “Illustrated Poems.” It’s been fun to explore, and works right now while I’m still healing and working in limited chunks of time, one panel at a time.