This blog entry is my attempt to explain why I choose to write about wood engraving and why we need to take it very seriously. I have been involved in wood engraving since the late 1990s but I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the wonderful art and craft of wood engraving in the late 90s.
We have a little over a year to review. This is the second time we’ve been involved in wood engraving. This time I found a little book dedicated to the topic of wood engraving. It’s called “The Art of wood engraving,” and it’s pretty darn good.
The book is written by a man named Robert G. Smith, who writes about his experiences and the art of wood engraving. And here’s the thing: his experiences were pretty damned awful. It is possible to get into a state of “obsessive self-absorption” where you want to spread the wealth around by engraving beautiful things, and he went through that.
This man seems to have a lot of experience on the topic. I remember reading some of the stories about him on some other art sites and there were some stories about him that were actually pretty damn disturbing. One of his engravings (and the one on this book) was called “A man goes into a wood to make a tree, and in the wood he finds a woman with a child”, and it had been done by this man, Smith.
The art world is divided into three branches: the arts, education, and commerce. Arts and education are where most of us are, where the world is, and commerce is where people buy and sell. You’re probably going to find some of these art forms that are actually pretty decent, but don’t want to be too obtuse about them.
Arts are art forms that were created by people. It is the only way to describe the art of a specific medium. Of course some people will do things that are just really, really awful. Art for example is really hard to define, and some people just don’t make a distinction between good and bad and just do it out of habit, like this guy. He takes a cheap, crappy, one-panel drawing and puts it in a magazine that he feels would sell well.
He even goes as far to say that if he gets a large enough commission, people will buy it.
How do you make a living from drawing? If you’re a painter or a graphic designer, you know that the medium is just a very small thing, so it doesn’t make a difference. If you’re a software developer/programmer, you know that the tool is a little more difficult to use than that. You won’t get paid for it because you’re trying to get a good thing done.
Artists and graphic designers are certainly in the upper end of the creative-market. With a little bit of luck, you can live off the creative side of the equation without having to do it full-time. If youre a software developer, you can put yourself through a curriculum course at a college or university and finish a degree.
