Courage: And Why You Shouldn't Dis It

Sometimes the speed at which you receive information via the internet isn't fast enough. Then there are times it is too fast.

A few weeks ago I started to scour my past photographs. Not looking for certain people or a certain period in which I took them, just looking at them to see if I could see the image in a different way. I have been drawing more cartoons than I used to and I wanted to imagine what I could draw into my photos to make them funnier, or a little more touching, frankly any other emotion than just "oh yeah I remember that place".

Close-up photo of my computer screen I posted to Instagram

I loved the idea and began to draw on my photos using Illustrator. Though, as the 2014 holidays approached, I had to wrap up my drawings and ship out to California to be with my family. I was away from my work and away from my tools. I don't even have a decent example of my work to show you because it's all in Seattle!

In this time away from my computer, the work of Lucas Levitan went slightly viral. What Levitan did, in a series he calls Photo Invasion, was take strangers photos from Instagram and rehash them with his characters doing funny things.... and he nailed it. All of them are hilarious, drawn well and extremely clever.

(More photos after the jump)

So now what?


Do I give up? Do I say, "well he did it so well, no one will be interested in mine?" Honestly my first reaction was, "Shit, there goes that idea." It wasn't the idea of drawing on photos that I felt was executed so perfectly by Levitan, but the humor and thought process that goes into thinking of a whole new situation when given a photo that wasn't taken with the intention of being drawn on.

The more I sat and thought about how excited I was to return home and continue working on these, the more I felt like it was absolutely mandatory that I did. That is art. Art isn't an invention, or a single idea; art is an era, an emotion someone is conveying to the public. Just because we both like humor/photography/cartoons doesn't mean we can't both enjoy this art sandwich. We like the same sandwich, and quite frankly, when we are put in our own kitchens the sandwich will be made slightly different.

I'm not saying Lucas is the first person to try this method, we all watched Bob Hoskins bop Roger Rabbit on the head a few times, or Brad Pitt run around town with Holli Would. Not to mention the rise in popularity of people buying thrift store art and adding their own flair to it over the past couple years.

“Throat Shark Is Just Looking For A Good Time” by Chris McMahon

My main point I am trying to convey(poorly), is that you can't beat yourself up for having a similar idea to someone. They say great minds think alike and with over 7 billion people on Earth, sometimes it's hard not to.

As an artist it is so easy to get discouraged when you see someone doing that thing you wish you did back then and with help from the internet, we're finding these things out over night. Although, in a positive light, it does help us to see that this is something the public will enjoy if done well.

So keep an open mind, know that you are unique and never back down on your ideas, even if it means feeling like a hack for a couple of days.

....and happy 2015, by the way.