With the explosion of new technologies, we’re all constantly offered fresh and innovative ways to alter or improve the ways we work. There’s always yet another cutting edge way to do the job faster, easier and more efficiently.
But a lot of us resist. Not because we wouldn’t like the grunt work made simpler. But because we’ve already found what works for us.
A couple of years ago, I shot a documentary about a well-known Canadian artist. During a break of an interview we were conducting at a gallery, a young fan approached and asked how he decided what was going to be his next canvas.
He replied, “It’s not up to me. The paint decides”. Those of us who work creatively know he wasn’t kidding.
For all of the ways computers have improved the work of writing screenplays, I still sit down with a first draft and a red pen, eschewing the “click of a button” highlighters and post-it notes for a process that connects more directly with my own creative energies.
Recently, I worked with a comic book artist who draws all of his first pages with a red pencil. To anybody else, his images are almost indiscernible. But the feel of that pencil in his hand is what draws the illustrations to the page in the first place.
The same must be true for American artist Chris LaPorte. Once a sidewalk portrait and caricature artist from Grand Rapids, Michigan, LaPorte now works on massive murals, which he draws ---- with a pencil.
There are a ton of easier and quicker ways Chris LaPorte could accomplish his task. But the simplest of creative tools, the pencil, is what works for him.
It’s always about the final product –- and the tool that best connects it to your muse.
Enjoy Your Sunday.
…and follow the progress of Chris’ latest work online here.
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