‘Wisdom comes from the mistakes we make’
Meet Benjamin Zayas, an artist on Sktchy. In this Q&A he gives some creative wisdom and a peek at his Sktchy profile.
What’s your background?
My background is primarily in study … from psychology to film I’ve studied just about anything that I find interesting and have received a few degrees in the process - it sounds fancy, but I assure you it’s not. A bachelors degree in computer animation (minor in psychology and sociology) with high honors isn’t going to get you a job in a small town, and family has kept me local.
So most of the previous decade has been spent in a search for my place in the world, the community and life in general. Finding Sktchy brought me back to believing that I can, through hard work and study, better my skills and find that place where I belong, doing what I love to do.
When you’re looking for photos to draw on Sktchy, what jumps out at you?
There are a number of things that jump out at me when choosing a picture. Initially I was choosing strong images with lots of contrast, because they are easier to draw. Then I began finding stories in the photos, themes, commonalities. I began tying together pictures (creating a queue that is now over 1,600 and counting) in an effort to bring those stories, people, places and moments into a singular world.
Though much of my work tends to be grounded in realism, I do enjoy creating an engaging story, or mystery in a piece. I want the viewer to be as much a part of the piece as the subject and artist.
When I do fantasy pieces it’s always my goal to bring the viewer into the piece in some way – it’s something I’m working on improving – but a big part of surrealism being effective is mastering the real first. Like a good author learns the ins and outs of grammar before breaking the rules to create poetry.
I would probably do more humorous pieces, but there is always a fear that someone might not get the joke and may take offense … so that kind of work is always easier with self portraits or when people invite me to “play” with an image or concept. I love humor, puns and irony – and some of my pieces reflect that (I hope).
What’s your medium of choice when you’re creating art?
I absolutely love pencil. I think I always have, because it’s one of the first tools we are given that is capable of just about anything, from the faintest hint of shadow to deep, crisp edges and every texture and weight in between … and, even better, you can ERASE. It’s the original “Undo” button.
Now, having said that, I appreciate elements of all mediums and have tried to explore them when I can. I like the randomness of watercolor, the way it forces you to emote on canvas and react to the chaos of the medium itself (something I have trouble with being an INTJ).
I love the way ink can give you sharp contrasts, bold colors and very even tones.
And colored pencil is probably the medium I get the most entranced by … trying to blend waxy, hard lines and scribbles into lifelike gradations and explosions of light and color - I seriously get lost doing colored pencil sometimes, because it’s some of the most methodical work I do, where recreating the most minute details seems to be a constant challenge.
Although any medium can appeal to me, depending on the project – by default, pencil will always be my go-to, even if it’s just a preliminary sketch for a larger piece in another medium.
What’s your quirk in your creative process?
Breaking rules. The only art teacher I really connected with loved to give me challenges and tell me to follow them to the letter … only to see me find the loopholes, exploit the poorly chosen words in the directions and bend every possible combination of outcomes until I created something that was completely different than anyone expected.
Thankfully she encouraged it and entered one of my pieces in an art competition at the college … keep in mind, my degree was technically an engineering degree, but through her guidance I was accepted to show for an entire month in the art department. I wish I’d kept going in that direction, but wisdom comes from the mistakes we make.
Any words of advice for fellow artists?
My words of advice to any artist in any medium (even writing, dance, music, etc) would be to recognize the fact that everything you do will be total crap for a long time.
You must keep moving forward!
You have to learn from the absolute rubbish you make by finding what you did RIGHT, even if it’s buried in a million things you did wrong, it’s there and you must learn to focus on it.
When you can start taking the things you do right and putting them together, making them habitual, you have developed a style. The rest is just practice … it gets better, just like anything else.
Just imagine if you’d never walked before, trying to run up a flight of stairs. YOU WILL FALL DOWN – and probably not just the first time or two. You will fall down dozens of times … but each time you get up, you are wiser, you know your missteps, you gain better footing, your muscles gain memory and correct the fall. Eventually you can bolt up stairs like nobody’s business.
It’s the same for art. You’re gonna fall down a lot … but never lose sight of the goal. Every artist, no matter what they say, has started with no skills at all and worked to get where they are. It ain’t easy , but the rewards are worth every bit of struggle for those who really want to make the world more beautiful.
