I got a bit livid at some really gross comments in response to Zen posting about their struggles with gender and sexuality. And them being one of my favorite artists ever I both always wanted an excuse to study their style and wanted to channel that aggrevation into something positive. So I spent today playing with a paint brush trying to figure out how they work such incredible magic. Certainly didn't find it here, I keep falling back to "basics" of shading instead of really getting into the style, but definitely picked up on their use of hue shading with minimal changes in value and saturation and how they have some really saturated shadows compared to a lot of artists. And I am a sucker for saturated shadows.
But seriously I zoom in on their brush strokes and its the most indescirable chaos that produes the most meaningful whole is sorcery. I can study how someone renders a photorealistic painting or sketch practice a bunch to get a form down but that isn't expression the way Zen does it. A lot of people draw to be correct but accuracy is boring. Whats really interesting is making something beautiful, with resonance, where something composed of a color picker and paint brush in minutes resonate and sit with you in your soul in ways photorealistic hair rendering can never approach.
I've only ever been at most a very passive consumer of their brillaint works but they have brought dozens of smiles to my face amongst a whole other range of punchy emoitions from their comics to their paintings and my only regret is that I'm still such an art novice I can't represent my feeelings like that yet. But thats what I'm struggling to try to achieve, ultimately. To speak a language you can't talk with words but that so many of those I follow can puit to paper with a paintbrush. Some paintings may speak a thousand words, but I take away the most from the ones that convey the words that cannot be spoken. I just hope Zen can realize their greatest expressions too and be unashamed and unapologetic of who they are.
So uh yeah, is gecko, gender and sexuality stress, solidarity, give them a nonbinary blanket and a pan scarf with some hot cocoa to brave the cold harsh reality or something. I dunno, I'm grasping at straws here, I just wanted to paint something to vent my frustrations.
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Noxid
aw, that sucks to hear. I havent kept up but I really admired their work on crossed claws. idk why some folks gotta go out of their way to be mean online :(
hoping things turn up for Zen.