Wow, I never thought I would say that I have too much inspiration. Drowning in a sea of ideas, lacking enough hours in the day to devote to my art. If you're reading this as a fellow artist and are really mad that I'm inspired right now, I give you this token of advice: I remember in college being told to draw everyday in my sketchbook. I hated this idea partially because I didn't know what to draw and I dreaded showing my teacher my weekly sketches (only to find that the ones I liked he thought were stupid, and the ones he thought were cool were the ones I frantically did at 6:00 am to meet my quota.) I learned a lot of good things in college, but I don't think I learned how to make my art fully reflect myself until I graduated because I was too busy trying to please my teachers. I no longer have the skeptical college professor looking over my shoulder and then proceeding to call me a "sunday painter" or asking me what the meaning of my art is. I can draw whatever I want to for whatever reason I want to. That is freeing. Maybe to some I am not a real artist, but if I feel like I am and people like my work, I think thats good enough for me. Since my newfound freedom I have taken up sketching without fear and it has lead to inspiration. About a year ago I started to have my husband draw a scribble on a page that I would have to make into a picture. Probably a lot of people have played this game, but for me it stretched me to use line in a way that I wouldn't have usually. Here's one of those first sketches. My husband drew a few spikes and the horizon line to start. This image doesn't look a lot like what you see of my art but it was an experiment that lead me to new discoveries. Doing drawings on a regular basis without fear of them being something stupid has really helped me to get some momentum. It's kind of like the snowball effect, the more I draw or paint, the more I want to and the more ideas flow. So, there is truth to what people say about drawing everyday, its just much more beneficial when you don't have to take it so seriously.
Challenge: Force yourself to draw something that interests you, but in pen. This closes the door for fixing things and makes your hand be more honest with you about how well you really draw, and what your natural style is. When learning watercolor I was taught to trace the basic necessities of my picture before painting. This is good for portraits and the sake of learning, but it can become a crutch. I started to fear that maybe I was just making a paint-by-numbers for myself so I pushed myself to paint without pre-tracing my subject. That is how my animals a-z were birthed and thus they started a new era in my art and quite possibly the discovery of my true personal style. Give it a try for yourself, you might actually like what flows from your shaky hands!
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Samantha ClarkArtist and illustrator of all things wild and beautiful. Archives
April 2016
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