Illustration & Design by Sheena Israel News

Finding Inspiration for a New Painting

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 13:47:46 CDT

Creating Room 011- Step Two

Drawing

The Inspiration for Room 011

A few weeks ago I began the process of creating room 011 in The Invention of Rooms gallery. Once I had my Dura-Lar all taped off and ready to go it was time to gather the particular elements that would make this room different from the others. The inspiration for each of these rooms comes from a variety of places. Often times I am inspired by patterns in nature, or a single object that ignites a story in my imagination. Sometimes I even gather inspiration from the ornamentation or simplicity in a magnificent facade.

This particular room was inspired by Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a persian poet. The book I have is translated by Edward Fitzgerald, accompanied by Edmund Dulac's illustrations. I read these to myself as a child by flashlight. At night under my blankets I would pretend to understand them as the imagery flooded my mind. On the brief occasion when I did understand, I would become ecstatic. It has never exactly been the subject of a poem or the word choice that inspired me, but the imagery that is conjured from the sound of one word following another, like when reading Shakespeare aloud. While I notice the subject and object in a poem, I pay far more attention to the rhythm of the lines and the song created by the sound of the words.

XIV, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Where it not Folly, Spider-like to spin

The Thread of present Life away to win--

What? For ourselves, who know not if

we shall

Breathe out the very Breath we now

breath in!

Inspiration not Duplication

Inspiration is important for all artists, but while we devise our masterpiece we need to practice, practice and practice. Practice is important for any skill to develop, whether it is reading, writing, running, or even learning to wink. Forming the habit to create, even without an assignment or commission, can get difficult when the idea or inspiration well has run dry. This is a good time for an artist or designer to do a forgery.

In a painting class, I did an Egon Schiele forgery. I was inspired by his wobbly lines and dry brush. Had I never painted that forgery, I would not have learned the particular techniques I now use when a dry brush is required for texture. Sometimes the line between inspiration and duplication is a fine one. It can be a great honor for an artist to find that their work has been cloned. Other times it's insulting to the artist who has been cloned and embarrassing to the cloner.

As a designer, copying is sometimes an even finer line—it's often invisible until tripped over with humiliating results. At the point when we begin to see the inspirational piece more clearly than our own work, it's time to take a break, reassess our goals, and redefine the message. I like to gather inspiration from various sources. They often have nothing to do with each other but somehow they still communicate the same theme. Everything deserves its own story—sometimes it needs to be found, and other times created.

Go to: Room 011, Step One

The First Steps to Starting a New Illustration

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 18:23:11 CDT

The Creating of Room 011--Step One

The first few crucial steps that I take with each one of the room illustrations is in the Careful preparation of my Dura-Lar. This month I am on Room 011, I have learned the hard way how important it is to be careful and precise with the preparation of any new piece no matter what the material, because in a short while it could be a masterpiece.

Today as I set out to begin a new room illustration (check out other room illustration here) and I found it difficult to do so. When making art, starting is always a struggle for me. It's often when I make my first mistakes. Sometimes, the concept of a piece or metaphor is exciting enough to get me started, but what happens when the excitement wears off? I get stuck in the middle of the process and find myself needing to make difficult decisions that I am not prepared to make.

It's easy to advise someone to take a step back, take a break, a breath, and look at what your working with—to re-evaluate. But I would like to know how many of us actually take breaks as often as we should? I know I don't. Too often I catch myself saying, “what I really need to do is to push through it, or I'll go back to that smudge and fix it later.” I sometimes even leave entire spaces blank. Of course sometimes we do need to push through problems and leaves spaces blank, but I can't count how many of my paintings still have that blank spot, leaving them unfinished. The problem for me can always be traced back to the beginning during the set up. Whether it's a sloppy under drawing or simply being too caught up in the desire to get lost in the whimsical world of painting and creating, I can forget the importance of taping down my edges, cleaning my palate, or changing my brush water.

Sometimes it's Good to Break the Rules

The nature of my technique is as organic as any, but the beauty lies in the order as much as the disorder. I tend to strive for a special kind of balance, and if I'm lackluster in the beginning, the end product is bound to be the same. I don't mean to imply that I don't allow my intuition to take over, or that it's irresponsible for me to bend my own rules. In fact, my favorite part of my technique is getting the opportunity to know and understand the materials that I use. I am a sucker for being mesmerized by creating texture, putting on rich color, deep black lines, and using the materials in general. Sometimes I find myself making quick changes in order to showcase the beauty of the texture.

However, the truth is that I can't always predict how the pigment is going to react to a wash, which brush stroke the ink is going to grip and flow through. It's even hard to predict whether an air bubble will be a problem or a blessing. All I can do is set myself up for success and follow through with my intentions. To me, this means that I need to enjoy and honor the order and discipline of art making as much as my natural need to express and communicate through it.

Developing Technique through Self-Assigned Projects

The room series has allowed me to practice my technique in a way that no other single illustration ever could. Sure I have applied some necessary rules to ensure the cohesiveness of the series, and some of those rules do include the prep-work. The guidelines I have set for myself in this series has brought to light my strengths and shortcomings as an artist, and in the mean time I have developed a technique that works for me. Most of all, I have learned that the beginning of any project is crucial. In addition, I have learned that having the patience to tape down my edges and set up my work space is as important as understanding my materials. The series of illustrations The Invention of Rooms embodies the very practice of my technique. The technique I use to create these images is applied in a very specific order and practice is about perfecting the order so that while painting I am free to simply paint.

The Creating of Room 011

The first few crucial steps that I take with each one of the room illustrations is in the Careful preparation of my Dura-Lar. This month I am on Room 011, I have learned the hard way how important it is to be careful and precise with the preparation of any new piece no matter what the material, because in a short while it could be a masterpiece.

Follow my process and my technique of creating Room 011 and others by checking back into the blog category The Process of Creating.

Go to step two

On Making Decisions

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:02:28 CDT

It's hard to set distinct goals for myself with the Charlotte project because I have never really worked on something quite like this and I tend to have ideas floating all over the place. It's easy to write or sketch many different ideas, but hard to piece them together into something cohesive. The world in which Charlotte's story takes place has been on my mind for quite some time now, I just hadn't given her a name or a personality.

Once I decided that writing a children's book was something that I wanted to do, I then needed to make a few decisions just to be sure that this project wouldn't fall into the “someday bin.” Any large creative project really needs the right mixture of organization and passion to truly dive into it and I am guilty of having an embarrassingly full “someday bin.” To be quite honest, a few months ago I saw myself as a coward for being so afraid of failure until I asked my self, “what's the point of being scared?” So I decided to create some courage, because it's pointless to be afraid of failing at learning. It just isn't possible.

Focus on the Process

The discipline of creativity—no matter your medium—is an evolving process. You just CAN'T perfect what you don't practice. Though it's definitely a hurdle of its own to not get overwhelmed by all of the decisions that still need to be made, the only thing to do is focus on the joy of working through the process.

Reading Material:

For a helpful book on the discipline of creativity, check out The New York Times Bestseller,

The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life, b

y: Twyla Tharp

You ca see from the image, that my copy of this book is well used.

Character Sketch

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:17:03 CDT

Meet Charlotte: A New Character

I'd like to introduce little Charlotte Mae (last name still TBD), a wonderful little girl full of imagination and good intentions. This is a preliminary character sketch of Charlotte, the main character for my upcoming children's illustrated web comic.

I am still in the beginning stages of writing Charlotte's very first story, in which she receives a special gift from her late grandmother. This gift helps her turn a very sad day and many long faces into something extraordinarily magical. It has taken a lot of careful planning and many character descriptions to have finally settled on this young girl. I am very excited to share Charlotte's curious world and the journey of creating each story.