There are several different methods I use in my art making, but they all have common elements. All of them help to awaken your natural creativity, speeding up your evolution as an artist. After reading this, and with a bit of practice, you will be able to create art that will amaze your friends to say “Wow, I didn’t know you were THAT talented.” But the method is really easy.
Prerequisites
- To create any kind of beautiful thing, you need to have a sense of what is beautiful. If you can’t tell beautiful from ugly, quit now.
- You need to be able to look at something for more than three seconds before your attention wonders off.
- You need some imagination. Can you see faces in the clouds? Do you have vivid dreams? If you can at least see some things in my art, you’ll be OK.
Method 1
To get started, put aside about 30 to 60 minutes of time. Take a few pieces of paper and a pen or a pencil. Make marks on the paper in any way you like – this will give you a point of departure. Hint – see that the lines are balanced, or distributed somewhat equally among the page. Now look at it. What do you see?
Whatever you see, bring that out. Continue until finished.
Method 2
Take a paper and a marker. Start drawing anything you like in a miniature size. Whatever pleases you – flowers, birds, silhouettes of people, animals, trees, letters and words. Expand out from that spot, trying to make larger and larger pictures out of what you started small. You should see shapes emerging as the picture gets bigger and bigger. Continue until finished. It will probably take at least an hour.
Method 3
This method is for acrylic paint. Cover a canvas in a neutrally colored layer of paint. Make sure that the brush strokes are visible. Try to see a pattern in the paint, as in method one. If a pattern is not apparent, try turning the canvas at 90 degree increments, and look again. If you are still unable to see a pattern, add more brushstrokes to the surface and try again.
Once you are able to see an image, you can draw an outline for it using the hard end of a small paintbrush. Or you can continue to work with paint, now adding either brighter or darker tones to bring out the image you see.
Method 4
This method is for soft pastels, and it will teach composition and color balance.
Begin by taking and color and drawing any kind of line you like, in soft pastel on canvas. Thicken the line, giving it form where appropriate. Choose your next color based the color you just used. The two colors should be harmonious and look good together. With the second color, continue anywhere around the previous color. In this way, continue to expand with various colors, focusing attention on what looks good, what colors work together, and whether the image is balanced or not. You may feel the desire to use a particular color away from the others, on the other end of the canvas, or in a particular spot. Follow your intuition and continue filling the canvas in whatever way feels right. At the same time, look continuously for images, outlining any images you see in black pastel. Work until finished – it may take from 1 to 3 hours or longer, depending on how you work.
