Tag: kim jung gi

The art of Kim Jung Gi

For this post, I’m going to go short and sweet by being faithful to the old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

I came across Kim Jung Gi’s artwork back in 2016 during my first visit to Vancouver B.C. Taking cover from the torrential rain that day, my partner and I entertained a long detour through the Vancouver Art Gallery.

We spent almost two hours walking along the various corridors hosting a massive collection of diverse artists and their works. Our final destination would bring us to the section dedicated to artists within the manga/anime genre, and that is where I came across this,

and many more,

Never had I felt so engrossed into the details of an art piece. The details were dynamic and there were radical shifts from one point to another. Yet, despite these fluctuations, there was also an exceeding sense of balance in Kim Jung Gi’s artwork that provided insight into his creative process from the small to the large.

For a guy like me, who loves his astrophysics, this correspondence of the mechanics of the small and large pieces of the work only drew me in further. The gallery had a small TV showing Kim Jung Gi’s approach, and it floored me to see that the man literally drew from memory. Discussing his art work that day,  my partner and I would relate a classic conversation from Dragonball Z as an analogy of Kim Jung Gi’s artistic power levels:

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Me
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My partner

Over the last week, I’ve had a chance to improve a little further in my own journey through figure drawing. 

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From this…
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To this…

It is in these moments that I draw inspiration from artists like Kim Jung Gi. While his art may be daunting to the eyes of an amateur, I cannot deny that in following up with the man’s biography, what has often been casually cataloged as innate talent, is in fact an amalgamation of hard work, dedication, and perseverance.

There is still a long way to go on the road to mastery as I’ve been told repeatedly by my peers and mentors. At the same, I’ve also been equally advised,

tenor

I guess that’s what makes the whole aspect of it so much fun as by being an artist you get to continually expand your horizons to your personal liking. In the artistic realm, Kim Jung Gi has one heck of a mileage owing to his near crazy dedication to art which he developed as a hobby and now a life-long career. I hope to do the same on my own end, and even if I were to never reach his level, I could say I take satisfaction in the all the minute details of the experience for the larger part of what it is: a story of its own.

For those among my readers interested in finding more of Kim Jung Gi’s artwork, his sketchbooks are an awesome portal into his world.

Touching base with Pencil and Paper

When I was young, I spent a good chunk of time at my grandparents. It helped that their house was situated right next to ours, and my grandfather’s collection of weekly kids comics and magazines were an abundant source of entertainment and inspiration for the kid in me.

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My grandfather collected enough of these that we probably had over 500 of these thin magazines stacked up in a corner of the storage room.

Drawing came naturally to me back then, and I took any chance with a blank paper to draw whatever caught my eye. My grandfather fueled my imagination by sharing folk tales of old and just about everything that he knew while my grandmother indulged me with all the treats she could make to keep me energized with a full tummy.

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Being a Christian, my grandfather often shared his unique perspectives on the Bible. As a kid, the stories came off more as an epic fantasy, leading me to draw this rendition of Jesus and Simon Peter, no doubt referenced from an illustrated bible at his home.

As the years passed, my interest in drawing gradually took a backseat to my newfound love for writing. Rather than transpose what I felt was a simplified projection of my imagination onto paper, I felt it better to immerse in my imagination as a whole through writing. I was naive to think that between writing and art, one was lesser than the other.

Now, I have come full circle in realizing that art and writing are just two faces of the same coin. It is particularly sweet that I struck upon this knowledge in the process of completing the script to the graphic novel I have been developing over the last two years, and intend to dedicate in memory of my grandfather.

I have spent the last few weeks touching base with old friends in Pencil and Paper. It has been a difficult reunion to say the least, but we are gradually patching a decade of our on-and-off relationship in a newfound resolve to build a strong foundation for the future.

Frustration has been a loyal companion, but I’ve also used it as a source of motivation.

Firstly, I had to start by identifying the relevant skills I required to transition into the “graphical” aspect of my graphic novel. Phase Infinity, as I now call it, has all the characteristics of a long and arduous journey through diverse art courses intended to boost my amateurish skills while simultaneously churning out the artwork for my graphic novel.

To be honest, I find the final product to be a goal for the distant future. This isn’t necessarily discouraging as it is my first attempt after all. What has been annoying though is the persistent need to be overly critical about my work and for lack of any other word, too stiff and tight about my daily progress.

Figure drawing is my first priority as of this moment, and I have been enjoying it in all its gestures and forms. Consistency is the word for the rest of my year, as I hope to amass daily practice sessions.

Steve Huston has been my hero on this front, and I highly advice his books to my fellow artists among my readers.

Learning the human anatomy from an artistic perspective has also opened the door to some philosophy. Gesture drawing, in particular, has helped me embrace the fluid nature of our environments and our very bodies. For someone who has been enamored with the axiomiatic logistics of science and mathematics over the last decade or so, figure drawing has provided a refreshing, and new perspective of the world and its motions and rhythm.

Being a fan of Bruce and his philosophies, these two messages became screensavers of sort throughout my artistic process.

Being a fan of Bruce, these two messages which aligned with the philosophy of gesture drawing became de facto screensavers in my mind throughout my artistic process.

That is all for today! I will keep you all updated with my struggles in art-realm over the coming weeks by sharing some of my art work in the Art Corner, as well as a review in my next post of one of my favorite artists in Kim Jung Gi.