How To Make Better Art
Have you ever stepped foot into an art gallery, or followed an artist on Instagram and grudgingly thought to yourself, “ I couldn’t paint like that even to save my life ”. Or, did you paint and draw a lot as a child but seem to have now lost the ability to hold a pencil correctly?
I’ll let you in on a secret- there is no single correct way of holding a pencil.
I’ve made close to a hundred paintings this year and here’s what I’ve learned about creating art. My experiences are with traditional media, but these tips apply to any creative outlet or art form.
Find your medium
Find the medium that feels most natural to you, the one that feels almost like an extension of yourself. This was one of my motives as I embarked on a 100-day art challenge.
I went from brush pens and markers to pastel and pencils, fumbled through watercolour and acrylic paints. Frustrated, I turned to oil paints in a final attempt at redemption. I still haven’t gotten through a hundred, but I somehow don’t mind the extra time and cleanup required. Smooth, workable, forgiving oil paints. I’ve gladly embraced the lingering turpentine and linseed oil odour as part of the room decor and I’m churning out some of my best work ever.
Get inspired
YouTube is your best friend. Find an artist whose style you like, and follow a bunch of tutorials. It’s the best way to get past a blank canvas in the beginning. Create a playlist in advance so you don’t spend hours browsing for the perfect tutorial and get lost down that dangerous YouTube rabbit hole.
Visit art galleries, observe street artists, follow creators you find interesting on Instagram and Pinterest.
Take a bunch of pictures everywhere you go, try finding art in the most mundane daily scenes. Look for symmetry, repeating patterns and tricks of light.
Don’t be afraid to copy
“It might have been done before, but it hasn’t been done by you!”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
To be clear, I don’t mean trying to pass someone else’s work as your own. When you’re learning, it’s great training to try and recreate an existing piece. It also takes off the stress of creating something original out of thin air.
However, if you plan on selling your work, be sure to use references that are copyright-free. Unsplash, Pexels and Pixabay are great resources for high-quality images that are completely free to be used any way you like.
Shoot your own references for a more personal touch, or ask a photography enthusiast friend permission to recreate their captures.
The best tools are the ones you’ve got
A pencil and some printer paper are good enough to start pouring your brain’s ball of yarn onto paper.
You can always splurge on professional-grade supplies, but they won’t be worth the hole in your pocket unless you really learn how to use them. Start off with student grade paints and a few decent brushes. That being said, don’t buy extremely cheap, low-quality stuff which may just end up being downright unusable, and a huge waste.
The lure of art shop windows is real. I’ll admit I’m guilty of falling for it. For years, I couldn’t leave a stationery shop or art supplies store without buying a bunch of stuff I barely ended up using.
Upgrade when you realise that your current tools are hindering your progress. For example, Not being able to add as many layers to your painting as you’d like to, simply because your painting surface is too thin or absorbent. What you need is a more resilient surface, meant to withstand layers of paint. Make sure buying supplies solves your problems. You’ll learn better this way, rather than forcing yourself to use bucket loads of impulse-bought iridescent paint, simply because you feel guilty about having spent all that money.
Practice
Focus on techniques more than results. This is where detailed tutorials, step-by-step guides help. Don’t expect to create a masterpiece every time you pick up your tools. Set aside a separate sketchbook or canvas pad solely for practice. Understand the basics of colour, tone and value, since these are what ultimately distinguishes a good painting from a breathtaking painting. Open your mind and learn as much as you possibly can. Practice, more often than perfect, makes permanent. Find what you’d want to ingrain into that artistic muscle and work hard at it.
Find your style
An artistic style is a characteristic that makes your art easily recognizable in a sea of work.
This is always the hardest part. It certainly helps to let go of the idea that you need to have a unique stamp on your work. I’ve been painting and sketching practically all my life and I‘m still trying to ascertain a style of my own, a signature so to say. Knowing your medium really works wonders at this stage.
Look back at all of your artistic work till date. Identify elements or nuances that appear often. This could be a distinct colour palette you’ve always gravitated towards or bold brush strokes. Most established artists’ work is discernible even from a distance. One famous instance is Van Gogh. His paintings are easily distinguishable owing to the dramatic brushwork.
But hey, don’t limit yourself to one genre or one medium. Note that I say “discovering your medium” and not “deciding upon a medium”. You’ve got to spend enough exploring the possibilities.
Don’t forget to enjoy
Push past your comfort zone. Throw buckets of paint on a wall, pore over a tiny canvas with a 00000 brush, upcycle a bunch of old magazines. Do whatever it takes to get those creative juices flowing. If you’d rather try something new every day than stick with a single style, that’s great too.
Don’t be too serious about your art, focus on enjoying the process first. Picking a form of expression that brings you joy, and putting in the work, will in time, get you some fine results.
Turn on some music, let a TV show play in the background or listen to an audiobook. Brew a cup of tea, throw on some comfy pyjamas.
Let the time you use to create art be nothing short of a vacation in the middle of the day.
While these are some tips that could help someone who’s feeling stuck with their art, none of the above suggestions is supposed to hinder creativity. Feel free to make your own set of rules as you move forward.
