9/19/2025 Creation Batch
- Zach E Bear
- Sep 19
- 2 min read
Some recent drawings! I dabbled in a little bit of comic work just to get my feet wet for George Pratt's class. The comics come from one of my graphic novel ideas and are extremely rough.
Speaking of George's class, we had our first session last Saturday. I feel like I have so much to learn again on top of the daily struggle of being a better artist than I was the day before.
I don't know how in-depth I can go, but I'll share my homework and the critique I received during class. I can't share a whole lot since the class is based on handouts and work that belong to Mr. Pratt, but I can tell you this class was definitely worth the money!
Speaking of graphic novels, I've been writing a lot lately. I've had one graphic novel idea sitting in my iPhone notes for years, and I finally moved it over to a Google Doc for safekeeping. I'll share details and snippets of that later.
I've been trying to get everything out of my head and onto some sort of physical medium, even if it's just a phone screen. Words, drawings, ideas, whatever. At the end of the day, I just want to make sure I'm able to create.
I've been struggling with "growing my art" again. The more I hear about things I should do for my art, the less I want to do them. The more I hear about people wrapping cute little social networking bows on their art so they can build a sense of community or make more friends, the more it makes me want to vomit. Every time an artist does a painting reveal on social media, I imagine Kahlo and Klimt rolling over in their graves. Artists shouldn't be making things explicitly for others. They should be making things that others get the privilege to see. We should be living to paint, not painting to live!
I saw a line from one of Egon Schiele's letters where he talks about how museums and galleries should be thankful they get to exhibit his work, and that was before he'd even made a name for himself! I can't help but strongly agree. I'm in a rare position where I can be as exclusive or selective as I want when it comes to exhibiting my art and showing it in public; if I want to do it at all!
But I remind myself: I do want people to experience and encounter my art. I just want to make sure it's organic. And to an extent, I want them to work and dig for it instead of just having it thrown in their face.
I guess the only real way I'm comfortable with "growing my art" is static posts and images splattered around online.
