Things I Learned From Don Suggs

This is Don Suggs.


Don Suggs is a guy who talks a lot. Here is what he told me.

General Advice:
- Steal everything you can while you are a student. Take everything that you like and put it into your own work. Originality is not important now. Building a wide vocabulary is.
- Visual Representation alone is not interesting enough by itself. You need something more.
- Things put where we least expect them create interesting pictures.
Art vs. Illustration
- Illustration is about giving you all the information necessary for you to receive it and move on.
- Art is about provoking you, grabbing you, and giving you a deeper meaning.
- If you want the viewer to linger on your piece, don't give them all the information. Use inferences.
- Art is NOT about inspiration. Art is about working through boredom for 8 hours a day to produce something that is not horribly unnattractive.

Art Advice:
- Don't look at the details. Look at the big picture. Work from the formless to the forms.
- There is no reason why you can’t tilt the horizon.
- Don’t be too cute. Always be a little sinister in your pieces. [???]
- Still lifes are boring. [...]
- Don’t overwork one area of your image. Concentrate on the image as a whole. Work on everything with equal priority.
- Repetition (or echoes) creates visual interest and partnering balance [...].
- Unifying patterns or textures help to break up the space in an otherwise “clean” image.

Important Advice:
- Adding birds makes everything better.