Your Mind as a Toolchest

I heard an interesting quote from Kim Jung Gi today, one of my everlasting art heroes. He’s really big on drawing from observation… or more specifically, mentally mapping physical objects you see in everyday life and using them as items to include in your artwork. From coffee cups to fighter jets. 

I love this idea, having worked on projects that require me to pull from a pool of assets, thinking of these memorized items as assets in a pool that I can call up and plug into any idea that comes. And if anyone reading this knows Master Kim, they’ll note that very little of his drawings focus on the mundane. Often his characters are fantastical and settings extreme, but all made up of familiar material, stuff we recognize. I think this makes his work especially easy to understand, in the face of its extreme nature.

The quote! I’ll paraphrase. It wasn’t spoken in English, anyways. Paraphrase: “You must gain knowledge. If you know little, then you will be able to draw that much.” 

Chew on that, what do you think?

-Rob