Artistic authenticity

Now, you know I’m a big fan of the Gram.

It’s to a great place to put your work out for the world to see.

What makes me kind of sad though, is when I see work out there of dubious origin.

I clicked on a post in my Instagram feed recently, thinking I’d missed a painting by one of my favourite artists. It certainly looked like her work, but it wasn’t.  When I say it looked like her work, I don’t mean I thought it looked like something she might paint: no, I thought she was reposting a previous painting.

Not only was this painting very similar (a landscape in oils), but the same person had also just posted work that looked almost identical to some new and very different work my favourite artist had recently released (abstract mixed media). Coincidence?

Looking further back through her feed, it wasn’t clear how she’d arrived at these paintings; not an evident evolving style, not a body of work. Just a few paintings early on that don’t appear to bear resemblance to their newer work.

Sometimes you do see artists with very similar aesthetics.  Usually there’ll be a particular series or point in time where their style will seem similar,  presumably in response to current trends. But there will be a solid body of work over a longer period of time that doesn’t resemble anyone’s art but their own, even if they are inspired and influenced by their favourite artists.

And my own Instagram feed does not tell the full story of my own artistic journey, because I tend to curate my feed, and I don’t want crap I painted two years ago hanging around.

But I do keep everything I painted. And my blog is a record of some of my process. It’s good to pull it all out sometimes and remember how far you’ve come.

I know that feeling, that longing to create good work, to get better. To be desperate to paint your vision.  I still feel that now!  When I was learning, I did copies of other artists work – and credited them properly.  There’s a couple of my Instagram feed, credited to David Atkins and Bob Rohm.

Studying and copying, yes, copying, are perfectly valid forms of learning, particularly for beginners.   Copying your favourite painting is brilliant for understanding decisions another artist made in terms of composition and colour.  Follow along tutorials are another form of copying, all great for getting you going.  And recently one of my IG friends (a brilliant painter) commented she was so frazzled she painted a study of one of her favourite artists,  so she could just paint and not worry about all the other stuff, so she could be soothed by the act of painting.  This is the beauty of art – that it can enrich people in ways other things can’t.

Then there is the baaaddd sort of copying.  Like the sort of thing I saw on Instagram, captioned not with “a study I did of blah blah blahs painting” , but just sort of passed off as their own with some trite ” just a little painting I did today!!!” in the comments.

There’s been a flurry of words around this on Instagram this week – check out Emily Jeffords, she puts this delicate issue across so well, not to berate people but to point out that in copying others, we deprive ourselves and our audience.

I agree.  And I also come back to this post I wrote a while ago after reading Ian Roberts.  No one can be original.  There is no such thing as originality – it’s all been done before.  But, authenticity.  That’s a different thing.

Authenticity does not come from being dazzled by what everyone else is doing on Instagram.  It is not to be found externally.

Authenticity comes from keeping records, journals, sketchbooks and observing.

It comes from making mistakes, exploring, playing, changing things up.

It comes from doing the work, not waiting for inspiration.

Authenticity comes from within. It is an internal process: listening to yourself.  Your fears, your hopes, your vulnerabilities. They will shape your art, along with your creative process. And this will give your work a truth that will shine through, and others will see what you see.  And you will be an artist.

 

Slips, trips and falls

 

Well. How ironic my last post was around my search for balance and being in the now.

On Tuesday, I tripped and fell badly, bashing up both knees but more catastrophically wrenching my shoulder – the painting shoulder!

Falling over when you’re past the age of 7 is just awful. Grown up bodies aren’t made for taking knocks like this! Well mine isn’t. The pain was so bad I almost puked on my garage floor. Too much info? Well let me tell you getting a bra on and off has been nigh on impossible since.

Thing is, when you hurt youself like this as an adult its such a big deal! It’s a bloody shock for a start. Which was why I needed cake and chocolate after. Medicinal.

Anyhoo. The whole thing certainly has stopped me in my tracks and made me focus on the now!  It’s amused me a little. What else has made me laugh a bit is my poor husband who, as you already know is the Patron Saint of husbandry, now has even more to do! If that is even possible.

So, what’s to do when your laid up? Thank Gods for Tim Berners Lee, as I’ve read all the web. Now I’m about to get on Pinterest so leave your username in the comments and I will look you up!

this was painted pre – drama

 

Easel snapshot

I’m going through an intense time of discovery and exploration with my art work at the moment.  It’s all I talk about (see here ).

As an emerging artist, I know I can sort of get away with swapping styles, playing around with different mediums and generally finding my way.  I suppose what I’m worried about is that I read an article that mentioned when you start selling your art work, you should really have a recognisable style.

I already sell my art work.  People like it and buy it. But I don’t want to appear scatter gun in my approach,  yet I need to go through this exploration.  And actually, I’m sure that being the sort of person I am, I’ll always want to try something new.

This is how my easel looked today.  Three canvases in varying states of abstraction and finish, painted in oils with the same palette. One of them I know I love, the other two the jury is out.

Not pretty enough for Instagram, but real life, peoples.  

 

Then I have four postcard size acrylics on water colour paper.  Again, they all share the same colour palette, but they vary in composition, and they were the result of an exploration I did (post coming soon on that).  I love pretty much all of them, and I loved doing them.

And neither of these sets of paintings are like my other work.

This perception I have, of “considered” exploration, is beginning to weigh me down a bit. I just don’t want to put my stake in the ground regarding style, and I’m not sure that I ever will.

My husband (I should listen to him more), said perhaps I should set myself an exploration project for the next three months.  Rather than trying everything in the hope that I find my “thing”, just focus on something and stick with it for a pre-determined length of time.  I do like this idea.  But what if I find it leads me down rabbit holes and a totally different direction again?  What if I never fully explore what I set out to?

Why am I struggling with this!  Arghghg!

 

The Instagram connection

Well, this graphic is a little dramatic but I liked how it sounded!

It’s Friday night, I have a toothache, a ton of stuff to do and really all I want to do it have someone cook me dinner and bring me a glass of wine.  Oh wait. Someone is cooking me dinner. My man really takes care of me, and in case you think I don’t know it, believe me, I do.

 

I love Instagram.   I’ve mentioned it before here.  But, I just have something I need to get off my chest.

My approach to following accounts on Instagram is this:  I proactively follow people I am genuinely interested in.  Yes, mostly they are other artists, but I also follow people who’s feed show me things I wouldn’t otherwise see – pictures of glaciers, cute puppies, the snow in Boston last year, the view from a hilltop in Cheshire, the mountains of Estonia.

I never start following someone unless I like what they are posting, for it’s own sake.  And I don’t expect a follow in return (okay, that’s a lie.  There’s an exception to this, which I’ll explain later).Of course some followers aren’t going to follow you back.  Like National Geographic.  Why would they? And I don’t take it personally.

However, I do generally follow back most people that follow me first, unless I really dislike their feed (spammy, porny or just… not awful, but not my cup of tea either). And I kind of like that – I don’t mind reciprocating the follow, and I’ve met some fabulous people that way that I otherwise may never have come across.  After all, we’re all there for the same purpose:  to promote ourselves and what we do.

So that’s my two pronged approach – a proactive follow and a reactive follow, both equally valued.

Then there is this:  those people who spend their energy following random accounts they have no interest in, other than to garner a potential follower in you.  They might even comment and like posts.  They follow you.  You like their feed and follow back….and then they promptly unfollow you. It’s like they don’t know there’s an app that tells you who unfollowed you.  What sort of networking is this?  It seems so misguided to me.  And shallow.  I imagine in real life these people either used to sell used cars or mobile phones and wore shiny suits.

I’ve no problem with people changing their minds: sometimes you follow someone and after a while you find their feed is not for you.

Then there are other folk, who you kind of think might follow you back:  they have a similar number of followers, they make art too, so you have something in common.  And if they’re local to my region – well that just makes me so happy!  So I follow them for two reasons – one because I like what I see in their feed, but also because they’re local.  And I hope they follow me back, because who knows, one day we might bump into one another at some event or other, eh?  And then they don’t.  There is silence.

And this, I realise is the problem.  Whilst I have no shame in saying yup, too right I’m on Instagram trying to promote my work ultimately and grow an interested audience, I’m also looking for meaningful connections.  And I have found them with some folk – you know who you are 🙂

It’s this game of Instagram I don’t like.  This is where, sometimes, the veneer slips, the disingenuous stands out and it all looks rather self serving and meaningless.

Besides, I really can’t quite believe folk would want a quantity of followers over quality of followers.

Christ my toothache really has put me in a bad mood!  Time to chill and stop brooding.  Cheers!

 

Is Social Rejection the Key to Creativity?

As someone who is ill every five minutes (I’m amazed I still have friends, really), this interesting article provides some great points for debate.

Cody Delistraty

On the psychology of why rejection and loneliness may be necessary evils for the creative genius

View original post 1,862 more words

DIY Bachelor of Fine Arts PART THREE: OVERCOMING FEAR

 

When I say fear, I don’t mean creative stumbling blocks that are part and parcel of being an artist.  I mean proper paralysing fear of even starting anything.

I spent what felt like months…oh wait, it was months…reading how to paint, how to draw, watching all of You Tube, and too afraid to actually put any of what I learned into practice.  For fear of failure.  I was so overwhelmed.

It’s seems incredible now, as I’m quite prolific, that I ever went through that, but I did.  Getting out of that place was sort of sudden I think, but I can’t remember the specifics….I just ended up committing more and more to my art.

The only solution, if you are in the place where I was, is to do it.  All the books say to do it, and everybody you’ll ever ask will say just do it – just get on and make some art.

At some point, surely, the fear of never ever trying will outweigh any potential duds you produce.  There will be duds, but there will also be indescribable moments of pure joy that pierce your soul, when you create something (even a square inch of part of a painting) utterly magical.

The more you do this, the quicker that fear will recede.  It’s no mystery why many artists set themselves challenges, like paint 30 paintings in 30 days, or 100 painting challenge.

All I know is, when you’re a beginner, you invest every part of your being into what you think is your masterpiece and agonise over it.  Well, if you paint regular, you can’t do that.  Each painting is just a stepping stone to the next one.  I can honestly say very quickly after finishing a painting, all that I have invested in it is gone.  I’m ready for the next one. Using what I learned to do better.

One of the things I struggled with was establishing a creative process.  I found it really hard to find out what other artists did (they can be cagey you know) at 10am on a Friday, for example.  And I do like a sort of framework as a guide.  As it happens, I got into my own rhythm and one day realised I had in fact established my own creative processes and practice – it evolved naturally from the act of doing.  Which goes back to the original point of this post: if you’re that freaked out you can’t even look at your paints without breaking into a sweat, then here’s a list of books I read,  to get the bogeymen in your head simmering down:

• The War on Art, by Stephen Pressfield
• Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, by Susan Jeffers
• The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron
• How to be An Artist, by Michael Atavar

And when you’ve read them, have a word with yourself and start making.  You’re most welcome.  Good luck.

Putting my big girl pants on

Readers, today I had to let down a client.  And by client I also mean dear friend.  I do not feel good about this.

She’d commissioned me to do some art work for her – she has her own coaching business. She loved my work and wanted to incorporate it into her website and downloadable planner.  She wanted me to have free reign so my creativity could flow.  And she quite liked the doodle type illustration as a style.  Having dabbled in that sort of thing ages ago, for about 5 minutes, I felt confident I could pull it off.  Plus, this girl is one of my biggest supporters and has bought a LOT of my art.  Not quite the shrine my mother has in her dining room (like my own personal gallery, 6 pieces of actual canvas no less, that she bought from my first pop up shop. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry), so I wanted to do a good job for her.  Prove I was the fabulous artist she thought I was.

Me, being me, did not sit back and think about all this, and I didn’t recognise at the time that really this was a branding exercise.  We hadn’t even had a face to face discussion about it, as I cancelled our last get together as I was sick.

So I’ve spent this week exploring her ideas in an illustrative style and what I’ve ended up with is something that looks like my dog did it.  I mean, it just looks so basic.  Actually worse than that it looks baaaaad.    It’s not ideas or the concept I’m struggling with, it’s…….the execution.  I actually do not have the skill in this area folks.  There we go, I said it.  I just learned a huge lesson – I know where one of my creative limitations is at.  Like a musician that can play a few instruments but not all, being an artist is comparable.  Illustration is just so unnatural for me.  I couldn’t draw a cute flower if I tried.  I need a reference.  And then I’d want to paint it in a painterly style.  Being an illustrator, or a graphic designer is a specialism in it’s own right, just like fine art is for me.

What was hard for me, and took several miserable, chocolate fuelled hours at my desk to comprehend, was that I wasn’t going to be able to pull it off, and for the first time EVER say to someone (that’s not one of my kids, they don’t count, I say it all the time to them) “I can’t do this for you, “, gulp.   After a long little spell of negative thinking at the end of which not only was my friend hating me but the entire world hated all my art anyway (apart from my mum), I realised I had to put my big girl pants on.

So I got on the phone and was honest with my friend who made it so easy for me as she’s one of the nicest people.  She didn’t say “WHAAAAAAAT?  You’ve been dragging your arse on this since December and now you say you can’t draw a flower?  And you hate watercolour?  ”  Nope.  She said “Don’t worry”.  And she meant it.  I mean, obviously she would have preferred it if I’d been able to produce something she could use, but she was so understanding about the whole thing.

So, when we meet later this week for our usual coffee/massive breakfast feast off, we have this whole business/web branding/design style issue to go over, and hopefully I can help her with what to think about even if I can’t actually do the work.

The lesson here is: think before saying yes to everything.  And always pick nice people as friends.

Funnily enough, I drew this though. He was a Christmas ornament. Is this an illustration? I have no clue, but I drew him from life.

DIY Bachelor in Fine Arts PART TWO: COLOUR THEORY

This post is part of a series on some of the resources I use to improve my skills.  You can read the introduction to this series here.

EXCITED? MUCH

Ooooh, I get such a geeky pleasure out of this topic, I just find it so fascinating.  I’m not going to go into the science behind how we see colour.  It’s better explained by those in the actual know.  But understanding how to work with paint and mix colour is critical to a successful piece of art.  Yes, you could buy every colour available in your chosen medium, and sometimes it makes sense to invest in a particular hue if you always end up using a lot of it in your work, but that’s for later on, when you know what you’re doing.  The thing is, a lot of follow-along-and-paint-with-me tutorials use specific colours that you feel you need to use, and if you watch a lot of tutorials you could end up buying a lot of paint for different projects that don’t come together to form a cohesive palette.

THE BASICS

Having a grasp of colour theory isn’t just about mixing paint and knowing yellow and blue make green.  It’s about understanding triadic colour ways, complimentary splits and being familiar with words like chroma, saturation, and value.  If you want your art work to be cohesive, using a considered colour palette is essential.

Most advice, whatever your medium*, is to start with a simple palette, usually consisting of red (one warm, one cool), blue (one warm, one cool), yellow (one warm, one cool), and,  if you’re using oil or acrylic, white.  With these colours you can mix practically all the colours you will ever need.  It’s such a practical skill to have, to know what you’re going to get if you add lemon yellow (cool ) to ultramarine blue (warm) or cadmium yellow (warm) to ultramarine blue.  And then what happens if you add a smidge of alizarin crimson to it?

It’s one of the most useful skills I’ve developed, being able to mix my colours.  For a long time, I only ever used typical standard palette, which forced me to mix my own colours and which I know if I don’t write down in a list here that’ll be irritating:

• alizarin crimson (cool)
• cadmium red (warm)
• lemon yellow (cool)
• cadmium yellow medium (warm)
• cerulean blue (cool)
• ultramarine blue (warm)
• plus white
• plus burnt sienna, considered an earth colour, it leans towards orange and mixed with ultramarine blue makes the most amazing greys.

Mixing your paint, making some colour charts and understanding how far you can push your colours will also help you understand that certain hues have different qualities.  Some are very opaque, others more transparent.  These too have an impact on your mixes and ultimately how you apply them in your work.  And if you don’t learn a bit of colour theory you’ll always be limted!  Plus, you’ll save a ton of money only buying minimally.

I have added to my colours as I’ve got more experienced, and perhaps I’ll do a post of it and link it here when it’s written.

Anyhow, that’s as much as I’m going to say, otherwise I’ll just be repeating what these fabulous experts share:

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Carol Marine gives an excellent demo of how she mixes her colours in her Saturation and Colour Mixing tutorial. It’s a few dollars, which is about about £6, and worth the money.  In fact, I’ve bought most of her tutorials on this page, and I have her book Daily Painting.  It covers painting but also colour.  I love this woman.  I got such a lot out of her book and videos I wrote and told her so.  And I don’t do that sort of thing.  She replied too!

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Craftsy – I purchased Master Palettes: Exploring Colour Mixing with Scott Gellatly  I remember this had some great visuals of the colour wheel.

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Betty Edward’s book Color.  I really like how she explains stuff.

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Not essential but the Colour Mixing Bible by Ian Sidaway is useful, particularly when your eyes stop seeing or your trying to mix a colour that’s so subtle you have no idea where to begin – I found it quite good to have to hand as a reference.  There’s also a lot of info around paint properties.

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Will Kemp’s Art School has some great videos (free and paid) which I found so useful when starting out, particularly Painting a Jug with Two Colours.  It gives great insight to a beginner what you can achieve with so little.  He also has an enormous amount of resource, including a section on colour.

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Paint manufacturers also have lots of useful guides on their websites.

FOOTNOTE

*   soft pastels are a different kettle of fish, in that you need a good amount of variety by comparison to have an adequate palette…..however, even if your primary medium is pastel, I really recommend you spend time mixing paint -after all, you’re handling paint in it’s purest form and knowing how to glaze and scumble one pastel over another is a skill enhanced by understanding colour in more detail.  I speak from experience peoples.

 

DIY Bachelor of Fine Arts PART ONE: DRAWING

LISTEN UP!
Can I just say – this blog series, DIY Batchelor of Fine Arts, isn’t an actual course!  Vocational or otherwise.  Just thought I ought to make that clear.  No, not.a.course.  It is though, some offerings from me, sharing the resources I’ve used in my art journey so far.  If you haven’t already, you can read the introduction to this blog series here.

Part one is going to cover resources I used to improve my drawing, but the other thing I want to point out is that my learning wasn’t so slick that I neatly went from a to b to c.  I dotted around, partly because I didn’t know what I was doing, and partly because I get bored easily.  So what I’m saying is, I didn’t spend all my time learning to draw to perfection (and newsflash, my drawing is what I consider to be one of my weak points), then move on to colour, then composition, then watercolours, then acrylic, then oil painting, form an orderly queue please!  You get the drift.

Consequently there’ll be overlap with some of these posts – other topics might creep in under different headings.  I’m sure if you’re a clever sort you can come up with more structured learning set but I’ve got painting to do people!

DRAWING IS THE KEY
Personally, I don’t see how you can put a good painting together but not give consideration to your drawing skills.  It does matter (even if your thing is abstract).  For a start, it’s about seeing.  Seeing things differently.  Shapes, lights, masses, relationships, angles.  The only way to improve your observation skills is to practice regularly.

I am the sort of artist that likes to draw from reference.  I cannot pluck an image out of thin air and draw it.  I have no idea how illustrators come up with cute fantasy characters.   I suspect they have something called “imagination”, he he.

Consequently there are some approaches to drawing out there that just do not work for me: those books that tell you if you’re drawing a cat it’s a circle (for the head) and an ellipse (for the body), and if you’re drawing a camel it’s rectangles for the legs and cylinders for the humps…what use is that?!  I mean, I agree that it’s important to understand about volume of mass, just as it is to understand about perspective to give depth, but for me this type of approach doesn’t work.

USEFUL STUFF
I didn’t quite do these things in this order but I would if I were you:

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•  Read Betty Edwards Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.  There is a whole right brain/left brain debate going on, which the premise of this book is set on, but frankly I don’t care.  It made sense to me, and my experience of drawing up to that point.  The main thing I love about this book though, is it teaches you skills to be able to draw anything.  It covers negative space drawing, blind contour drawing, value, line and comes jam packed full of exercises.  Her explanation of the picture plane blew my wheels.  My drawing really took off after that, because of this approach.

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• Craftsy have some very good, affordable art classes, and they often have sales.  There are a few drawing ones I’d recommend:
  • 10 Essential Techniques for Better Drawing with Patricia Watwood
  • Draw Better Portraits with Gary Faigin
  • Figure Drawing – an essential guide with Patricia Watwood

These cover drawing from a classical approach.  To me, it seemed to follow on from the Betty Edwards book, rather than conflict with it.  You may not be particularly interested in portraiture -but the class is more an exercise in drawing by value, lights and darks, and I found it immensely helpful.

Later on, I also purchased:

• Sketching People in Motion with Marc Taro Holmes

I know I’ve harped on about the classic approach to drawing but I love quick sketching urban style too.  I like to be able to sketch quickly when I’m out and about and fill my sketchbook, like a visual diary.

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– Juliette Aristedes is a most wonderful classical artist, and I have two of her books, which I found so useful, particularly the DVD that came with Lessons from the Atelier.  The other book I have is called Classical Drawing Atelier.

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– Will Kemp has an online art school and I just love this fella!  He’s not on social media, which is a shame as I could stalk him in person    let him know how much he’s helped me.  I confess I haven’t actually done his online drawing classes (perhaps I should!) but I have used his free videos on acrylic painting and can vouch for the quality.  But for him I would still be going round in circles.  He really set me on the right path – for me.

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A word about Andrew Loomis….I don’t get on with his books at all, which is a shame as I have a few! And who am I to dis one of America’s greatest illustrators?  I love the style but my poor old brain just found it all too complicated, for the most part.  It gets very technical in places, and I don’t like the print in the book- very thick, makes it hard on the eyes.  However, he has done some very good instructional on hands, so I might revisit that at a later date.

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the classic approach to cast drawing on toned paper

Using Gary Faigin’s technique to draw my daughter

Using Betty Edwards approach

LAST WORD
Photographs.  They have their place.  I do use them,  but in a very specific way, which I’ll expand on in later posts.  Most advice is, draw from life where possible.  Especially if, like me, you are prone to being a slave to the photograph and get tied up in knots because it’s not exact.  For me, and I’ve learned this the hard way, art isn’t about perfectionism in that sense.  It’s about an essence, a feeling of a thing or place and expressing myself, and what I produce should bring something to the scene that is different from a photograph – or why bother with art at all?

You may not have time to do an extended classical drawing exercise every day.  Nor do I.  But you should carry a sketchbook, even a small one, in fact perferably a small one and take a pen with you (not pencil) and try and get a small amount drawn every day, even if it’s your coffee mug.  Or in my case, glass of wine 🙂  Cheers!

UPDATED: THAT WAS SO NOT THE LAST WORD

Peoples, I really do not know how I forgot to mention one of the most important practices of improving your drawing – especially as I have been consumed with it the past few days.  Life drawing.  Whatever your main subject interest is, nothing will help you see better than taking a life class.  The human body is something we’re so familiar with – until a beginner (or me) tries to draw it.  It is haaarrrd.   

A lot of life classes are not taught, so if you can’t get into one that is, I recommend you spend some time with Stan Prokopenko before you trot along to your local community centre.  Otherwise, you might be so disheartened your confidence might never recover.  Just getting an understanding of gesture drawing, essential for short poses, was a huge help for me.  Stan has a lot of free videos on his You Tube channel.

Prior to life class, most of my drawing was very drawn out (‘scuse the pun).  I’d take hours, shading and more shading.  So approaching a 5 minute pose was something of a stretch for me – I’d really not get very far before time was up.

I like to experiment with different materials at life class.  I like to do pen and watercolour or pen and wash for the quick poses, and charcoal for the longer ones (I’ve only just realised perhaps charcoal isn’t right for my short poses – and I work small, so what I end up with is dust.  A lotta dust).

Right, I think I’m done here.

DIY Bachelor of Fine Arts INTRODUCTION

 

WARNING

This post goes on and on.  Get comfy.

Only last night I wrote this declaring I was writing this blog for me.  Today this post is for others mostly.  I was asked on Instagram last night (I love that place, and I can’t believe it’s related to Facebook, I hope it doesn’t pick up any of its bad habits) about having my brains picked for painting tips.

Oh, and another warning – my resource suggestions are based around those which helped me with my approach to painting and drawing.  So if you’re interested in things like illustration, folk art or design, you may find all this totally pointless.

‘FESSIN UP

Now, I don’t have a formal art education, and I haven’t been doing this very long, but I’m happy to share the resources I’ve used so far, and pass on the good wisdom of other artists from whom I’ve sucked up every word they wrote or you tube tutorial they filmed.

Whilst, like most people, as I kid I loved drawing, and have dabbled on and off all my life, it’s only later in life and in the last year I’ve seriously put my stake in the ground and declared “I am an artist!”

In a previous life I did unnecessarily complicated things with data for the NHS.  Then I got sick and had to give up my career and find some other way of living, some other purpose, that could fit around my chronic fluctuating illness. I took a convoluted route to art.  It was in some ways happenstance: someone I was following on Twitter asked if anyone wanted to post some of their art to a drawing thread and for some reason I decided I did.  There’s not a lot to lose posting some of your art on the internet hiding from behind your computer.  It gave me confidence to continue posting my artwork and I began to think I might really invest in this way of life.

Very quickly, the need to make art became compelling.  You artist people know of what I speak!  I mean that feeling inside where you just have to draw or paint or drip or chisel or some piece of your soul will die and never grow back.

Making art teaches you a lot.  I don’t mean just about the technical side of things, like paint handling or composition, I mean it teaches you about problem solving, self sufficiency, self motivation, self confidence, self reflection.  It’s not for everyone in a full time capacity; it can feel solitary, and it’s a way of life.

WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t have a formal art education; I’m self taught.  This isn’t by desire but by design:  I already used up my student loan graduating in computer science years ago, and though it’s all paid back, you only get one loan courtesy of the government, and I do not have the funds myself.

Though I coveted a degree in Fine Arts, I’m now so glad this wasn’t in the end an avenue open to me. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it at all and would possibly have found that approach a frustrating one. Certainly I’m convinced I wouldn’t have made as much practical progress with my work as I have done, but I guess I would say that!

I also looked at a number of School of Arts type establishments around the country, some of whom offer distance learning.  I found they were either as expensive as a degree (and in fact offered degrees) or were slightly less expensive but only offered vocational qualifications.  Because they offer all kinds of payment systems I was sorely tempted, but again, I’m so glad I didn’t pursue this course of action – I came across one of these schools who had a you tube video on capturing someones likeness.  Frankly, it was a poor bit of teaching.

I’m not saying these types of education doesn’t help people fulfill their artistic potential – I just knew that they were not for me, that there was something missing from them, something fundamental. However, when I came across the classic atelier school approach, I knew, if money were no object, this would be my art education of choice, where you spend the first year just drawing from casts, and by the fourth year you’re allowed to use colour in your paintings.  By contrast to a BFA, this style of learning and art making is far more what I’d be looking for.

WRAPPING UP NOW, ALMOST DONE

In any event, none of these are an option for me.  When finances do allow, and especially as my youngest child gets older, I’d love to take atelier summer school or perhaps a distance learning atelier course, or even a workshop run by my favourite artists.  So it’s not that I don’t value education – it’s just I can’t afford it right now and so I had to get my knowledge in other ways. and this is what this blog post series is all about – useful resources and online classes that are either free or affordable.  Depending on what you want from your art, my suggestions may not be suitable.  Art is a generic term – there are various strains of it.  I’m interested in a classic foundation, leading towards impressionism and expressionism, even abstract, and chiefly painting, so my suggestions are based around that.

If you’re still reading all this – hurrah and well done!  It was lengthy and I can waffle sometimes, often for my own benefit so I can get my head clear!

So – part one will follow where I’ll discuss basics first: drawing resources.  I don’t want to just post a tedious list of links, so hopefully I’ll be able to write posts that have my own personal take on the subject, along with a list of resources I used.