spinningmytires
Confident
When a piece of artwork greatly excites me, it isn’t the artwork itself that contains this energy. The artwork itself is actually only an external inanimate physical object or perhaps, vibrating pattern, if music, or whatever. This ‘wow factor’ is actually only me experiencing myself. And if, I’m correct, this feeling is similar to what the artist was feeling when they created it.
During my early 20s while on Valium and an antidepressant for 4 years, I couldn’t express myself when painting though I tried. Perhaps these drugs had been preventing me from accessing my deeper feelings which, I greatly needed to paint from my imagination. However, I was able to draw a few copied photographs while taking these drugs — yet here, I was merely following the dictates or recording the photo's image onto another sheet of paper.
I know artists who laboriously paint copies of their own photos. They can spent hours trying to match the photo image using paint. Technically their ‘copywork’ might be amazing but when finished it’s nearly impossible to know which artist painted it. What I've noticed is that, when the artist does this copywork, they’ll often be very relaxed. Some even tell me that they paint because it relaxes them.
But then for me, I often feel stressed when painting — not often technically stressed, but stressed because I’ll be making decision, after decision, while, continuiosly destroying my previous decision every time I apply a new brush mark over my prior decision. On the other hand, 'copy artists’ rarely need to make these stressful decisions beyond their chosen technical applications of paint. And when they need to make a correction they know, they can resolve it by more precisely following the photo. Yet when painting from imagination, as I often do, all that I’ll have to guide me will be my intuition, my gut feelings, prior knowledge plus trial and error.
And because I’ll be lacking a set goal in creating a duplicate copy, I won’t have a comparison in which, to judge my accomplishments. Rather, my gut feeling will likely be my only means of determining my painting’s successful completion. The end satisfaction is very different.
Of those who write and compose their own music, they too, have only their gut feelings, prior knowledge plus trial and error in completing their work. Same thing for writers, poets, novelists, etc, etc. — those who create using their gut feelings rather than by following a particular dictate. There’s a huge different here yet, not every artist seems to recognize it.
During my early 20s while on Valium and an antidepressant for 4 years, I couldn’t express myself when painting though I tried. Perhaps these drugs had been preventing me from accessing my deeper feelings which, I greatly needed to paint from my imagination. However, I was able to draw a few copied photographs while taking these drugs — yet here, I was merely following the dictates or recording the photo's image onto another sheet of paper.
I know artists who laboriously paint copies of their own photos. They can spent hours trying to match the photo image using paint. Technically their ‘copywork’ might be amazing but when finished it’s nearly impossible to know which artist painted it. What I've noticed is that, when the artist does this copywork, they’ll often be very relaxed. Some even tell me that they paint because it relaxes them.
But then for me, I often feel stressed when painting — not often technically stressed, but stressed because I’ll be making decision, after decision, while, continuiosly destroying my previous decision every time I apply a new brush mark over my prior decision. On the other hand, 'copy artists’ rarely need to make these stressful decisions beyond their chosen technical applications of paint. And when they need to make a correction they know, they can resolve it by more precisely following the photo. Yet when painting from imagination, as I often do, all that I’ll have to guide me will be my intuition, my gut feelings, prior knowledge plus trial and error.
And because I’ll be lacking a set goal in creating a duplicate copy, I won’t have a comparison in which, to judge my accomplishments. Rather, my gut feeling will likely be my only means of determining my painting’s successful completion. The end satisfaction is very different.
Of those who write and compose their own music, they too, have only their gut feelings, prior knowledge plus trial and error in completing their work. Same thing for writers, poets, novelists, etc, etc. — those who create using their gut feelings rather than by following a particular dictate. There’s a huge different here yet, not every artist seems to recognize it.