Research

I love this weather but the down side to it is having my car windows open.  It doesn't make sense does it?  Let me explain.  Right about lunch time I found myself driving around town with my windows open.  I passed a restaurant and BAM!  I smelled the delicious food cooking inside.  That is the downfall to this weather, I can smell all the wonderful cooking going on.  We have a rule in our house.  We can only watch cooking shows while we are eating.  If we are watching a food show about burgers and have not had dinner yet....we want burgers.  It has happened so many times that this rule we made went into effect.  I hope you have better self-control then we do when it comes to food.

Have you ever thought about what an artist does before they sit down and paint?  Or do you think they can just pop something out like it is nothing because they are an artist?  Many times people just write off my art like I can just create something at the drop of a hat.  It really is not that simple.  One of my favorite paintings I have created took months to do.  That does not just include the painting process.  I have to do studies.  Studies being pictures of the subject I want to paint, sketching over and over again to get the subject done just right, and thumbnail sketches to prepare the whole image before I put it on canvas.  A thumbnail sketch is pretty much what it sounds like, a small sketch of the intended finished product.  A lot of the time I will scale down the image's intended size so I can create the proper ratios in the image.  So, when I scale the image back up to the intended size, the dimensions and ratios look correct.  (Who would have thought an artist can sound all technical?).  Artists are problem solvers.  That is why art is so important for children to experience.  I find myself trying to solve problems in my art all the time.  How can I make this look right?  Why is that color not looking bright enough?  I need more space in this image, how can I achieve that?  This is why researching your painting before you paint it is so important.  I find myself thinking and working through an idea for months sometimes before I even sketch it out.  That is what I have been doing lately.  I find myself thinking of exactly what I want to do and how I am going to do it.  No artist starts a painting without some sort of planning and research first.  Do you have an idea?  Plan it out.  Research the subject.  Sketch.  Sketch some more.  When you think you sketched enough, sketch some more.  Then, start you painting.

I wish you luck in your research, and remember to be the best artist you can be!