Your art can take you many places. One moment you can be painting a home from the past, a home where you want to get the details right. The next moment you are painting from pure imagination, a cover for your next sketch book. Right before your eyes appears the seafaring crocodile.
The variety is part of the joy of art but you have to be careful not to be distracted by the squirrels all around you. You must have some idea of the paintings you want to do, how long they will take you. Do you have any looming deadlines that are coming up quickly and what are the long term details that you have to be working on now in order to be ready for them when they arrive. It can be a bit of a juggling act.
It helps me to make lists of the long term goals and pin them up on my board so I can see them from time to time and know what direction I’m heading. Then I decide which things have to be worked on today. The lists give me some direction and help to keep the things that are important at the front of my brain.
Then you have to work. You have to sit down and get the work done. Something that looks so complicated, like a picture book can look quite simple after the story board, book dummy and illustrations are finished. Everything seems to fall into place. So it is in working out the details that you arrive at the finished product. The details add story to your paintings. There is tension and story created in the sketch of the crocodile by adding the baby mice in the bag slung over his back. You immediately want to know what happens next.
Loved your pictures, as usual. Are you going to participate in the Bountiful “Plein Air” competition again this year? Look forward to seeing you at Beth’s.
Thanks Ina. I haven’t thought about the Bountiful Plein Air. I’ll have to find out when it is. I’m so glad you’re going to Beth’s. It should be great time.