“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.” ~ Salvador Dalí
Just picked up this book. ARTISTS WHO CHANGED HISTORY, Kindle version, at 96% off, on Amazon.
Features Manet, Botticelli, El Greco, Leonardo, Degas, Rodin, Bernini, Holbein, Van Eyck, Rubens, Klee, Cézanne, Vermeer, Hogarth, Titian, Michelangelo, Tiepolo, Chagall, Kandinsky, Constable, Cassatt, Mondrian, Raphael, Van Dyck, Goya, Bruegel, et al.
Amazon Canada: https://is.gd/Tuyw1q Amazon USA: https://is.gd/mOja94
“Anyone who stops learning is old. Whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” ~ Henry Ford
I recently purchased John Harrison’s excellent book: PEN and WASH – an artist’s guide to combining ink and watercolour.
Though I have worked in these mediums for years, I believe that we can always learn new techniques or ways of looking at creating, from others.
Like Mr. Harrison, I was also a graphic designer, and found that my design was influenced by the knowledge of scale and placement that I learned studying fine art. Check out this excellent guide: https://drawninyorkshire.com/pen-and-washthe-book/
The book is also available on Amazon and as Kindle and Kobo downloads.
All artwork and creative writing is Copyright ©️ of Patricia White. No use of this content or concept may be used without the express permission of the artist/author.
CHECK OUT THIS ARTICLE IN THE WASHINGTON POST. IT STATES SO MANY THINGS I BELIEVE ABOUT ART. For me, art is a ‘MUST’ do activity. It keeps me CENTRED, expresses concepts or thoughts that otherwise may disappear into the ether. It KEEPS my AGING HANDS and brain dexterous. I create EVERY DAY. It may be a sketch, painting or other VISUAL art; or WRITING a chapter in a story or development of a new character; it may be slapping together a COLLÁGE from found materials; or knitting a row or two on a NEEDLEWORK project; it might be FOOD preparation or INVENTING a new vegan dish to sustain our health. I create for the FULFILLMENT of creating SOMETHING from NOTHING .
The author states that “Art is NOT a LUXURY for our downtime, but an important CONTRIBUTOR to physical and mental WELL-BEING”, says Susan Magsamen, co-author of an upcoming book on the new field of neuroaesthetics, which studies the brain’s responses to art. Book: This is Your Brain on Art – Penguin Books.
To Magsamen, founder and executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, her artistic pursuits are ABOUT FAR MORE THAN HOBBIES. “I need it for my SOUL and my HEALTH and my SURVIVAL,” she says. “It’s not a NICE to have, it’s a HAVE to have.”
“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.”
~ Kurt Vonnegut
Years ago I purchased Veronica Lawlor’s book, One Drawing a Day – A 6-Week Course Exploring Creativity with Illustration and Mixed Media. Coming across it again recently, I thought it would be a good addition to my current daily art-making regimen.
The author opens her book with this quote:
“The important thing is to do,
and nothing else; be what it may.”
~ Pablo Picasso
Thinking about Picasso’s statement, I felt an easing of the grip of creative block that’s been haunting me for months. It’s not what I make that is the most important consideration. It is the action of creating, even something I might consider sub-par, that is at the heart of any habit we want to establish.
As Andy Warhol said, “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”
I never really got a solid start at Daily Painting a couple years back, but am giving it another try. I am slowly coming out of a creative slump and believe this practice will aid in my progress. Feel free to follow along, make your own daily art, write, sculpt, do woodwork, photography, create a recipe, make fibre art, sew—whatever floats your boat.
In her book DAILY PAINTING: Paint Small and Often to Become a More Creative, Productive, and Successful Artist, author Carol Marine noted that: “While the idea of painting every day may sound overwhelming, let me assure you, there are no specific rules or requirements. Really when I say you should paint “daily,” I mean you should paint “often”-but “Artists Who Paint Often” wasn’t catchy enough to jump-start a whole movement! Sure, the ideal might be that you paint every day, but not many of us can commit that much time to art, so we must settle for as often as we can. The daily-painting movement encompasses artists who paint daily, weekly, monthly, or intermittently. What ties these artists together, and qualifies them as “daily painters”? The simple fact that they strive to paint frequently, without getting bogged down by perfectionism, procrastination, or any of the myriad things that keep us out of the studio.‘
So. That is what I’ll endeavour to do—make art as often as possible on days where other daily concerns don’t get in the way. Will work mostly with analogue art materials (watercolour, gouache, acrylic, or oil paint, ink, pencil (graphite and/or coloured pencils), pastel (hard and/or soft), mixed media including collagé, et al, on canvas or paper). However, on days when time or arthritic pain is an issue, I will likely create digitally using my iPad Pro and Apple Pencil with apps like Procreate, Adobe, Affinity Photo for iPad and Mac and a some older apps such as Art Set, which I like for its realistic tools and for getting down concepts quickly.
Note: All original works posted in this blog are copyright Patricia White Creative.
A modern, inspirational guide to the to the art of the miniature by Karen Libecap
I’ve been reading a TON of art books these past months. This week it is THE BIG BOOK OF TINY ART by Karen Libecap.
CREATIVE EXPERIMENTS:
My 1st attempt at drawing MINIATURE ART.
Of course, it’s an APPLE, my subject of choice for the past few weeks, but this one is only 1” wide.
I generally work large so this was a unique challenge that forced me to pay attention to the smallest detail.
MATERIALS: Strathmore Mixed Media 300 Series sketchbook (https://is.gd/pJoFtf) using Derwent Coloursoft Pencils (https://is.gd/BKHilv).
Artwork Copyright Patricia White, 2022.
Trisha’s Daily Painting 