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Treat It Like a Business

Whether you make art to sell or just to have fun the best way to get better at it is to:

Treat It Like a Business

Now when I say treat it like a business I don’t necessarily mean going to a lawyer and a CPA. You don’t necessarily need an LLC or bookkeeper, but you DO need a business ethic. What do I mean?

Let’s start with one of the biggest challenges new, and even seasoned, artists have…time.

We all want to paint, draw, sketch, whatever, but finding TIME to practice our craft can be a bit dicey at times. If you work a fulltime job, care for loved ones, volunteer, etc. we’re always faced with a time crunch. What to do?

Bring It With You

First and foremost, bring your art with you…if you can. Pretty much every artist sketches whether your medium is oil, acrylic, watercolor…doesdon’t matter. What matters is building the muscle memory for sketching and you can do that anywhere with merely a pencil and a piece of paper.

 

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Inspiration

Mama’s View

What’s your inspiration they ask. Where do you get your ideas? I don’t think there’s an artist who has lived who hasn’t been asked those questions. In fact, even artists ask each other where they get their inspiration; why?

Let’s face it, coming up with ideas day after day can be a bit of a challenge for some. As artists, we take what we see around us, process that information in our brainpans based upon our life experience then try to pass along our interpretation based on our abilities and experience. Continue reading “Inspiration”

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Lust for Life

A Studio Photo

The first film on painters and painting I believe I ever saw, other than the Agony and the Ecstasy, was Lust for Life. Lust for Life was about the Dutch impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh and his journey to becoming an artist and starred the recently passed actor Kirk Douglas.

My biggest impression from the film was how once Van Gogh, played by Douglas, let loose his talent he was totally driven. Bob Ross is quoted as saying, “Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you’re willing to practice, you can do.” I know many people argue with this and feel artists like Van Gogh were “born” with talent, but I disagree that we are either born with or without talent. Continue reading “Lust for Life”

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In Between

Monastery Ruins

I’m in between World Watercolor Month and Inktober now so what to do, what to do? As those of you who follow me on a regular basis have seen, July was devoted to watercolor and I’ve pretty much kept up a routine working with watercolor this month as well.

What you haven’t seen, since I haven’t posted anything about it, is my pen & ink work with a new pen I recently purchased. The Koh-I-Noor Radiograph pen is actually technical pen used by draftsmen and artists. I wanted to try this little gem because October is also Inktober. That’s a challenge of 31 days of pen & ink, and watercolor.

Once again I’ll be shooting for quantity over quality…for the most part in this competition. Continue reading “In Between”