Art, Getting Busy

There are those days when someone passes by me whilst I’m at my drawing pad and exclaims, “I can do that!”

Graphite on card stock

I smile and keep drawing. After about a second, because I don’t want to lose the moment, I give them a pad and some pencils.

“Oh, no I couldn’t.”

But you just said your could. Give yourself this little gift, this precious time. Draw!

Some of the materials I favor are readily available at most office supply shops or even pharmacies. I chose them for that reason–wide availability.

Among my supplies I have A4 (8.5 x 11)  paper in white and a few colors, some A6 (4 x 6) plain index card stock, a few color pencils, #2 pencils, and blank journal books.

Then I scoop up my satchel and get busy.

I can do that.

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Be Limitless Stray from the Path

The quickest path between two points is a straight line. In a crowded world that is nearly impossible.

I like the winding path. Un-enforced and edge-bumping ways tickle my fancy and are traceable only by having passed by that way.

Stray from the path and be the explorer; sail for the edge of the map; do so with a kindly spirit and merry wonderment. Strive to overcome prior training.

I am sure of a shrinking list of propositions, like efficiency, production, and patterned recipes for success. I am friendlier toward my imagination and what I make when I ask:  “What if I?”

It is alright to stray from the path in Art. Meander in concept and in practice raise the hackles of design.

Fine but how to do all this “straying” and “raising of hackles”?

I suggest give up excuses. Then, consider each new project as an adventure; one that you make. Eliminating excuses means you have to perform. Excuses hold Artists back. Replace excuses with being limitless.

Limitless

Being limitless means experiment, explore, and expand a given method. Re-focus design, methods, and propositions, or generating more “What if’s”. In short it means give up relying on: “I can’t.”

• What other tools work? Inventive.
• What am I truly seeing here? Adaptative.
• What if this material or method were used as if it were…. [fill in the blank] Experimental.
• Transfer one set of learning to a new problem. Thinking.
• Make a new path. Keep your promises. Responsible
• Instructions are guides not shackles. Authentic voice.
• Personal experience is the real and the imagined. Placing You in the Design.
• Starting over is strength. Purposeful.
• Be thankful for serendipity. Happy accident or unconscious play.
• Put the “you” into your Art. Make your art a production, featuring your authentic voice. Produce your Art.
• Create your own projects. That is how you can be truly Expressive.

Becoming Limitless

Back to the allusion of getting from point A to point B in that straight line method of efficiency. In my design I intend to make point B because I can.

Art is My Super-Power

I Artist

 

I have fears. I think this is common among us humans. Perhaps that is why we crave the created beings with “super-powers” so universally. The sources I cite are our myths and legends as much as a nod to modern creators around the world.

These Super-Beings have flaws, just as I do. I so-identify with their weaker bits. One observation I made early in my reading, even at their weakest they do not quit. They command their fear and they overcome.

Art has a major villain is Fear. It is crippling.

• What if I fail?
• Beginnings I fear the most….
• What if no one likes what I make?
• “This is rubbish, therefore, I am rubbish.”
• That is that “mess” supposed to be?

Fear makes Artists “settle”, take fewer risks, make a cocoon and wrap up in it knowing, “I knew I couldn’t make it as an Artist.” So the tools and materials are put up in a cupboard where dust can collect and a comfortable forgetfulness settles.

I propose to laugh in my fears. Laughing at fear is a great way to begin an Art session.

Round One, the Sound of Laughing

• Stand up
• Breathe deeply
• Smile
• Spread out your arms so you look like a “T”
• Rotate your arms in a close circle
• And, Laugh for 45 seconds.

Round Two, the Sound of Laughing some more

• Sit down
• Breathe deeply
• Smile
• Stamp your feet
• And, Laugh for 45 seconds

Now after a minute and a half I am on my way to being my Art.

Being my Art? Right, I used to consider my Art as separate from me, Art is something I do. Art is me, my spirit, my mind and its eye, my joy, and my hope. I guard so my Art is not my fear.

Laugh at fear. My Art is my Super-Power.

 

Next post: I Artist: Be Limitless, Stray from the Path

I Artist, Making the Foundation Good

 

I need some mercy on my soul

Right now–

Gimme what you got.

 

Why submit to fear?

• Other people are counting on your fear. Your anxiety feeds them somehow. Maybe they can sense it on you.
• That’s why clients are reluctant to pay. And why they ‘micro-manage’.
• That’s why other Artists are salivating at their shot at what should have been yours.
• Denying fear isn’t my suggestion. Face it. That maybe the best start. You’ll have to design the next steps.

Re-design yourself.

• Jettison old bad habits. Heck, give yourself every break you deserve.
• Have your work space ready for work. Pre-stage your materials.
• Be ready to burst forth from the gate. Otherwise you’ve hobbled yourself to the ground and it’s 1:00 PM (1300 hours) and you’re staring at a blank some more.
• Make a list. Do the list. Move forward.
• Tell them you want more time, more money, more share. Then earn it.
• Nothing is cheap, excellent, and on-time. Choose two. It’s a good guideline for yourself, for your studio, for us all, and for your clients

Carve out your productive time.

• Know the cost you pay for every hour in your day. Same as with your rents, your materials, insurance, or any other cost. TIME IS MONEY.
• Don’t put things off. I know creative people “procrastinate” but when you do, keep it on your project. If you’ve convinced yourself procrastinating puts you in a ‘highly pressurized zone where you do your best work” and that’s working for you. Okay with that. But, if that ‘highly pressurized zone’ is not where you’re getting you the results you want then, d’oh!
• Manage your time. Work. Rest. Repeat.
• Production is not equal to Perfect. Better done on-time than perfect.

Minimize distractions.

• Clear out your calendar.
• Set your phone aside for a while.

Put yourself into your work. After all it’s why the client, gallery, consumer, or peers chose us.

• You and I may be unique but there are imitators and copy-cats
• Only you can do what you do—and that involves being the first one in the door. After that you have to hope © and ™ will protect you.

Keep your promises.

• Just no compromise here, okay! You don’t have enough treasure to buy a good reputation.
• Climbing back up from that hole that is ‘broken promises’ or ‘he doesn’t care’ or what a lousy reputation is what was made by not keeping your promises.

If you fail, face it. Who said your should pretend to be super-human? Failure is when you quit. Don’t quit. You’ll never be super-human, okay?

• Make the adjustments. Get back up. Go again.
• Improve your work habits. Only you can over-come You.
• Work so you can feel good about your project.
• Create that energy, that excitement where you can’t wait to see what amazing Art you’re going to make today.

Take care of your body and your mind. Not an exhaustive list, but hey, work with it for your own life.

• Rest & Work
• Nourishment
• Exercise
• Cleanliness
• Relationship time
• Reflection time

No excuses.

• Get back up if you fail. Put yourself into all your work.
• Re-design yourself when needed. Improve your serve: Be your time manager. Don’t throw flexibility out the window. Limit distractions—close your studio for certain hours.
• Be good to your word. Do what only you can do–produce your Art in a timely manner.
• Stand up for yourself. Ask for more of everything you can.
• You are the adult in charge of you. Own that.
• Be a self-starter. Then do your Art until it is finished. And finished on time.

Drawing Blanks–How To

Ink & acrylic on stretched acetate

Many times I look at a blank page and have a curious thought: “what’s in there

that I need to find?” Have I trained myself to think that way? Yes and no. I go

that way mainly because I rebelled against blank pages (and walls) so I drew

some shape or made a splotch of color or scribed a word or a sentence. So I kept

the habit as I lived. It’s like giving a horse a little nudge in a wide open field

with no one else present, just a friend, the wind, and wide open spaces.

So what is the “how-to” of this?

Move forward and try.

See how far you can take your day-dream. Better yet see how it can take you.

All it needs is a little nudge.

Everyday Art

If I want my Art to become more refined, more pleasing, more interesting I must coax a little pencil or paint brush into action.

Ink on card stock. Prompt was “Fast”.

Art and action are inseparable.

I was reminded of a pretty much universal objection to hitting the sketch book: “But I get tired of doing the same thing all the time.”

Well, then don’t. You’re not being forced into Art are you?

If I get bored I can

• switch from pencils and brushes to pens
• charcoal and newsprint
• draw with your “weak” hand
• try some new ways to lay down lines

just get going and make it like play.

Ink on card stock + color pencil. The prompt was “Lost”.

Make a prompt list and stick with it all during the month.

Just keep going and you will be glad to see your progress. Punch through that boredom with switching out media and an attitude of playfulness.

Serious play. It’s the way…

1. To make good Art
2. Stick to making good Art

 

Ink on card stock + color pencil the prompt was “collect”. Sorry Charlie Brown.

 

Make My Art Meaningful

How do I stay excited about my Art?

This was a topic at my table of friends. The setting was an informal lunch chat we losely organize as a catch-up session. We look forward to these short times together.

Slump, block, rut, going-nowhere was the theme and none of it was anything new to us, a common theme.

But wait; the key word in the question is “excited”. Who expects to be excited about media print advertising, art programs in public schools, art instruction, and the worrying hours in the studio before a fair or a showing? Art is work, a job, a way to make the rent, so Art is a real job.

I liked this response: “Dream and Do.”

It was a quiet reply that made us go silent for a little while. We were thinking whilst munching our lunch.

Someone finally broke the silence, “I can do that.” Sighs all around.

I could tell by the looks around the table a page had turned.

We would be good for another two weeks.

Or until the first text asking for, “Help!”

Helping part of the “Doing” I suppose.

On with the Dreaming.

Field Flowers, graphite on watercolor paper.