When I first started art school – exactly 21 years ago this month! – I remember telling my instructor, “I just want to learn how to draw.” (In fact, since childhood, I had “just” wanted to learn how to draw.) Now that the opportunity to do so was miraculously offering itself to me, I didn’t stop to ask myself what it was that I had wanted to be able to draw all of those years. In contrast, many of my beginning students come to my studio & say something like: “I’ve always dreamed of being able to draw portraits of my children.” Or, “I’ve always loved animals; I want to learn how to draw them.”
Having a specific goal in mind from the very beginning can be helpful, but it is far from essential. After all, there is a lot to learn & master before original subject matter becomes an issue. Nonetheless, as we discussed in the previous blog, there will undoubtedly come a point in every art student’s journey where the next logical step is to start producing one’s own original art. Deciding on the nature of that original art can be a daunting prospect.
As it turned out, the transition from copying to creating original art happened rather seamlessly for me. After achieving some proficiency with soft pastels by copying from the Impressionists, I chose one of my photos from an earlier trip to Monet’s gardens in Giverny, France as the reference for my first original painting. Other original paintings based on photos from our travels followed. Soon the trips themselves became, at least in part, photo shoots. The things I had always loved to look at – flowers, ocean waves, the sky – & the places I had always loved to visit – the California coastline, any public garden – now provided inspiration for my artwork. Of course, Tom & I also discovered fruitful locations close to home: The Chicago Botanic Gardens are vast & rich; sunsets on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan are eerily reminiscent of those on the Pacific coast. And now, our own backyard has evolved, over the years, into a treasured source of subject matter for my paintings.
Here are some suggestions for uncovering your own sources of inspiration:
1- Go to an art museum (or the art section of the library, if need be) & scrutinize the paintings. Which ones delight your eye? Why? What specific colors, values & shapes attract you? Do you prefer paintings of people, scenes, or things? Or do you prefer abstract or non-representational paintings? Buy postcards of your favorite paintings so you can continue to analyze them at home.
2- What fascinated you visually as a child? Faces? Trees? Clouds? Trains? Horses?
3- What were your favorite places to visit as a child? The zoo? The seaside? The mountains?
4- Start taking a camera with you everywhere you go. In fact, you probably already take one with you now – in your cell phone. Or, find a digital camera that’s small enough to fit in your pocket. Vow to never miss documenting an unusual cloud again!
5- Here’s a quick hint for taking more dynamic photos: Mentally divide the view through the camera into thirds, both horizontally & vertically. This creates 4 intersections where the imaginary vertical & horizontal lines cross. Place your image’s center of interest at one of those intersections. This avoids that static look when the center of interest is in the center of your photo.
6- Thanks to digital camera technology, we no longer have to worry about film processing costs or storage concerns. So when you encounter something that catches your eye, feel free to take lots of photos of it from different angles. The more visual information you capture, the easier it will be to compose your painting later. Zoom in, zoom out, crouch down & shoot upwards, shoot downwards from above… you get the idea.
7- For maximum shadow interest, schedule photo shoots for morning or mid- to late afternoon.
Once you discover your muse, you are well on the way to creating your own unique art…The art that you – & you alone – can create…The art that will never exist, unless you create it!