What you see here is (one of) my desk(s) mid-finals. There are about ten books piled around my computer, at least three cans of ginger ale, all kinds of paper and pens, and a three pound bag of gummi bears. I'm not just sharing this to embarrass myself. There's something critical in this snapshot that is important to what today is.Oh yeah happy Earth Day!
As an art student/comic artist, I find myself using excessive resources in my process. I've probably killed more trees than any so-called environmental vegetarian ever would. I feel like I'm taking trips down to the paper recycling bin more and more every week. In light of the holiday, and in light of my high school background as an environmentalist, I think the sustainability of traditional art is huge issue for me. I try to think of ways to reduce my embarrassing paper trail every year, but it's a difficult task. The nature of art is creation, which requires consumption of resources.
I reuse and hoard paper like no other. The bristol you see laying on my desk contains my failed blue lines/inking experiment, pencils for an instruction page, and the inks for a GHOST! test. Oh, and it was my roommate's print reject. But! Not everything can be reused like that, right? Last semester I tried to get away with doing my pencils on one side of bristol and printing blue lines on the other. Needless to say, it was off and on in quality, and it was a little awkward to turn in as a final.
When I was at a high school that didn't have recycling bins, I would carry around a tote bag to capture people's plastic bottles so I could recycle them at home. I still recycle religiously, but I retain that hoarding nature with the paper I use. I'll keep the sensible paper like large sheets left over from a trim, but I'll also keep weird things like masonite I find on the street and the back of drawing pads. Will I really ever need a marker-stained sheet of cardboard? Probably not, but just the thought of throwing away a "perfectly good" blank surface rips my eco-drilled consciousness apart.
I'm a little neurotic, so paper conservation comes rather naturally for me. However, that's not good enough dammit. Which is why I'm leaning more and more towards digital process. Using just the computer is the godliness of saving trees. There's also a huge advantage to going digital within the programs. For example, I just learned that Manga Studio EX grids out three-point perspective lines for you. GOD DAMN talk about a time saver.
Command+Z never looked so good.
This is a great post, it's one of those things that comic artists and others often think about and are able to relate to quite easily. If the posts on the site so far are any indication of what they will be like in the future, keep it up!
ReplyDeleteYour thoughts on self-publishing and creating comics are extremely helpful and interesting for me as a high school student and wannabe comic artist, and I'm sure others will feel the same..
I'm not an environmentalist or anything, but I do find it hard to throw stuff away that could be a blank surface to draw on.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why, but all I know is that it can sometimes piss my Mom off. LOL.
And that second paragraph of what vidifferous said, I feel the exact same way.