The photo is from last week's gallery show, where we took Hopeless, Maine original art out in public. I admit that I felt a bit fraudulent as we put the work up - most of what's on the walls, I had coloured and I felt very odd about having my work in a gallery. Through the week, as people came in and asked who the artist is, I have mostly pointed at Tom.
In comics work, it's entirely normal for people to do different jobs. Drawing, colouring, and inking are often handled by different people. It's not even a comics specific issue - famous painters often had teams doing work for them. I live just down the road from Damian Hurst's art factory and it would be fair to say he isn't the only person working there. There's also a place near here that makes big sculptures for artists.
However, when we think about art, we often think in terms of the single artist alone doing their thing, and not the process that involves many people. It's the same with books, and in both cases most often it is the work of the wife of the artist or writer that disappears from view, these days.
So here I am, not disappearing but standing next to the work I coloured. And yes, every now and then some bright spark insists on phrasing that as 'coloring in' which evokes the kinds of things children do with printed images. Being a colourist is very different from colouring in. My colour choices have to support the work as a whole, and have to be to a certain standard.
I've been through some anxieties along the way because my colouring is so different from standard digital colouring. But, as we've seen more generic AI art in recent months, I've been ever more aware of the advantage of having a personal style and the obvious presence of a physical medium. Even when scanned and tinkered with using art programs, what Tom and I do retains the signs that someone physically created it, and increasingly I'm recognising that as a good thing.
I like helping create images, and I like having this be part of what I do. Writing is always going to be my primary focus as a creator, but I need the music and the visual art, the dancing and crafting and all the rest of it. I'm happier with more diversity in my life.
It's also worth noting that there are diminishing returns on doing one thing all the time. Doing one thing for an hour or two every day will eventually make you an expert. Doing one thing for four hours a day won't make you an expert twice as fast. There are things about how we learn and grow that work at their own speed. If I spent ten hours a day writing I would not progress more rapidly as a writer. If I spread myself around a bit, I can have more skills at a decent level, and I find I prefer that.
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