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“ You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you give somebody additional experience or feel something deep or unexpected.” — Amanda Palmer
People are always arguing about the value of art and whether someone should or shouldn’t be considered an artist. Amanda Palmer perfectly explains my sentiments on the topic.
Who are we to say who's and isn’t an artist? Why do we feel entitled to marker people? Anyone who creates art has the right to call themselves an artist. That being said, just because you're an artist, doesn’t mean you're a good artist.
Most artists don’t produce because they want to, they produce because they've to. There's a force calling on them to produce their art. It'll eat at them until their art is complete.
Art at its core should make you feel something. Why differently would we produce it? Art is our way of expressing ourselves to the world. Whether you deal in the visual or performing arts, your art should make people feel something. That's the difference between artists who have staying power and those who don’t. Only those who transcend the ordinary can achieve the extraordinary.
However, I would suggest you stain your canvas in a dull tone to give you a more balanced ground to paint on, rather than trying to paint on a glaring white canvas, If you're just starting out. White is an extreme value to paint directly onto and it can make it delicate to judge your values.
Still, your judgment may be accurate enough that staining the oil isn't necessary If you're more advanced.
What does" success" mean to you? Does it mean you can paint or draw ANYTHING you can imagine, without struggling? Does it mean being famous? Does it mean you're teaching and inspiring others on a daily basis? Each of these will bear a certain way to achieve.
Defining this will help you know when you're straying from your path, or when your growth has come stagnant.
Oftentimes, new artists start drawing and painting without any desire to learn the fundamentals. They want to jump into the" fun stuff" immediately, break the rules and do something wild and unique and wonderful. That is a fair thing. But without a deep understanding of the fundamentals, you'll never know if you've broken the rules in an aesthetically pleasing way. Indeed Picasso was classically trained before he'd his exposures to Cubism (as were most ultramodern artists).
Form, line, color, space/ perspective, texture, value, shape. call them what you'll-but they will be critical to everything you do. Dedicate time to each one.
A better strategy is to focus on being good. Grow your specialized skills as much as possible rather than waiting to be inspired.
I guarantee, along the way (because it takes a long time), you're going to find a plenitude of ways in which you're unique, you'll discover concepts and ideas that you're excited about, and you'll have already done so important technical practice that when the BIG IDEA finally comes, you're more than ready to execute it.
There's a massive difference between poor and high-quality makeup brushes in relation to the running of makeup. Poor quality makeup brushes won't hold important makeup or efficiently apply makeup to oil. The bristles will also be weak and deteriorate fluently.
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On the other hand, high-quality brushes will be responsive and apply your makeup very efficiently and easily to your oil.
Still, rather than buying a mound of poor quality brushes (which you'll need to replace very frequently), invest in many high-quality brushes and learn how to take care of them, If you're on a limited budget.
Take a step back from your painting from time to time, walk around it, view it from different angles, hang it in a different light.
This won't only give you an interesting record of your canvas but will also give precious insights on where you may be suitable to improve your canvas.
Also, you can look at the progress prints during the day when you aren't painting ( i.e. when you're at work or on the train) to work out what the coming way will be with your painting.
The mind is an important thing and can play many devious tricks on you in relation to your perception of color. The colors you suppose you see aren't always the colors that are actually there.
Our perception of color can be heavily told by the surrounding terrain. Say for example you place a bright orange next to a red color. That bright orange may not feel nearly as brilliant as if you placed that same color coming to a dull blue (which is a complementary color to orange).
We also have preconceived ideas of what certain objects are meant to look like which can alter how we perceive color. For example, our idea of the sky is that it's blue. A common problem for beginner painters as they paint the sky with too much importance than what's actually there.
This will give you a completely different perspective of your painting. You will often be able to see issues that you may not pick up when standing in front of your painting.
You can place a grid over your reference print and sketch a proportional grid onto your oil painting. The idea is to try and match each respective portion of the grid on your reference to that of your oil.
Still, this is just meant to be a guide. You won't learn anything if you just try and copy each member without considering the oil as a whole. Use the grid to help you with the major structures in your canvas but try not to calculate on it.
