Its a Process
I have always been candid about being a new artist. I actually refused to call myself an artist for a very long time...meekly stating, "I paint things", rather than declaring, "I'm an artist". I begrudgingly conformed to the term "artist" when it was pointed out to me that people paid me for my work and that not accepting the title of "artist" was just self deprecating. What can I say? I have honest friends. So now I call myself a "young artist"...because "artist" still doesn't roll off the tongue.
As a young artist, I am learning. I guess I could pretend that I have everything figured out, but I don't. I am self taught. My lessons are from YouTube. I have to watch others to learn "assignments" that I would have learned in school. I have recently stumbled across @ellen_the_lemon on Instagram. What I love about her (other than her beautiful abstract art) is that she shares her process. She gives herself time to sketch and to come up with new ways to experiment. In one post that I read, she reuses her old paintings...you know, the ones we normally throw away. She cuts them in to shapes, capturing the best color of one section or a pattern in another. She then pieces them together in a collage format to show how colors look against one another and what patterns work....then she sketches these collages. She does this solely for her...not to sell, but to grow. And many other artists have their own form of creative "practice". They call it their process. Guess what I realized? Yep, I do not have a process. Oh geez.
Well, I guess I need a process. How does one get one of those? I suppose, in time, it should naturally evolve, right? But where do you start? In my case, I felt that I needed to take a few lessons from others; to learn from those who have been painting and selling much longer than I. So here goes nothing!
It turns out that some of my personality flaws have hindered my natural growth as an artist. Guess what? I HATE to waste paper. HATE IT. The result of this is that when I sit down to paint, I paint for a final project, so as not to waste paper. When I mess up and have to use another sheet of paper, I feel terribly guilty. Maybe "guilty" isn't the right word. I don't know exactly what the feeling is. Perhaps I'm just cheap and don't want to waste paper. However, after studying @ellen_the_lemon 's process, I'm thinking maybe I'll use the paper in other ways. After all, you truly limit your creativity when you don't allow yourself to "mess up", and maybe repurposing paper would curb that guilty feeling I have when I thought I was simply wasting it.
Color studies: testing the colors to see how they blend or displace one another. Well, theres something handy to figure out NOT in the middle of a painting. This is probably taught in every high school Art 101 class on the first day. But AGAIN, I never took Art 101. So now I am learning. Hey! Maybe I can use the back of those failed paintings for color studies. See, now I'm not wasting paper at all! Fantastic!!
Experimentation: There is some experimentation with every new subject matter, really, but what about other mediums, other types of canvas, or other types of paintings? Do I enjoy realism? Do I enjoy abstract? Do I enjoy impressionism? Do I enjoy painting skies more than flowers? Do I enjoy pen and wash more than all watercolor? Only one way to find out...Try something new! Experiment!!
With all of this in mind, for the past month, I have given myself permission to "waste paper". I have wasted A LOT of it. But also, I have grown. I have seen how paint acts with different types of paper. I have learned which paper gives me pretty clean washes and which inks stay steadfast to create layers unchanged. I have dabbled in acrylic ink and acrylic paints. I have used them alone, together, and with watercolor. I have thinned them and used them full strength, and I've even mixed the watercolor paint with the acrylic to change its color. I have done color studies and learned which colors do not mix at all. I have learned that I am really scared of green (that may deserve it's own blog post). I have learned that it is intimidating to look at a big blank canvas. I have used instruments other than brushes to create texture and form. I have read countless articles and blogs of superior artists and have found inspiration in them. I have learned that I'm NOT good at some things, but I'd like to improve upon them. And other things...well, I'm ok with not being good at them at all. One of my favorite things I learned from experimenting is that I love to paint dramatic skies and then incorporate them into more impressionistic landscapes. It is soothing and fun and provides an end result that I'm really proud of. I can not wait to do more of them.
So, now, how do I incorporate everything that I have learned into a practice and go forward? Well as I mentioned above, time will show what I keep and what I let go of as I grow as an artist. We will just have to wait and see.
Follow along!
