Month: January 2015

During my painting time over the next 3 months, I’m also going to be using what I am calling “Thought Gems”. Each day I will take an inspirational thought or quote, write it out, and keep it with me for the day. Everytime I change tasks, for example go from painting to lunch time, I will review that thought. Hopefully these gems will keep a sparkle in my day. Care to join me? 

How to start a creative day? Gesture drawings! These funny scribble drawings are to an artist what scales are to a pianist. They warm up the right side of the brain and start the creative juices flowing. They look like nothing much in themselves – but then a pianist doesn’t perform scales for people either. What a gesture drawing looks like hardly matters. It’s what is happening inside the gray matter when you take the time to do these – and it can help you make better art. Here is a sample… If you would like to try some of these, get yourself a whole lot of sports action photos. They need to show the whole person in action, head to toe. When you put your pencil down on the paper, in your imagination you are placing the pencil onto the person in the photo. Then move your hand very quickly as you try to capture the essense of that motion. Don’t think about the edges, but rather bounce your lines around inside of the figure. Where you feel more tension or bulk, scribble tighter. The whole drawing takes 20 to 30 seconds to complete. I will do about 10 of these as warm ups every day. And they are great for any time that you feel stuck during a creative process. Have fun!