Every day, I make sure to spend at least 5 minutes painting or drawing. Sometimes that time expands to more than an hour. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t even have time for that 5 minutes. But I always try to get that daily art practice in.
Now that I’ve added writing to that daily list of projects, it’s been interesting for me to see the differences and similarities between the two. When I write, I always knew that I would have a first draft that would need to be polished, possibly restructured, and edited before it was final.
Because art is so new to me, the process of moving through the early sketch phases to the final draft is something that I’m learning about every day. I had no idea that there was always going to be an ugly phrase that I needed to get through. I always had this idea in my head that you would splash some paint on your canvas and, voila, a masterpiece. Ok, maybe I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, but I didn’t think I would have phases where I’d just want to give up and throw the painting away.
Let’s go through these phases in the photo* I’ve posted above:
Sketch phase. This phase is the one where I’m learning to be freer and to work more on the large shapes and major shadows. When I first started out, I was so tempted to get all of the outlines exactly right with all of the major and minor details painted in. Learning about using an underpainting (I use burnt sienna for my underpainting color) has been very freeing. Here, I water my oils (they are Windsor & Newton Water Artisan Mixable Oil paints) down so that they are thin and loose. I then paint in my major shapes and all of the places where I think the darkest shadows will be.
I’ve really pushed myself to stay loose in this phase mostly because I know that I will make many changes in the…
Ugly phase. This phase is the phase where I’m always tempted to throw my painting against the wall. All the tutorial voices whisper, “trust the process, trust the process, trust the process.” Yeah, yeah, but why are my color choices off? Why are my eyes misaligned? Did I really pick this very hideous shirt color? What was I thinking?
But, I do trust the process. I keep painting. I don’t throw my canvas out. I fix mistakes and paint over others. Sometimes I redo the background color. And, miraculously, there is that gorgeous moment where the pieces all start to fall into place. Each painting stroke you add renders your art more fully, more wonderfully.
You can very easily fall back into the ugly phase if you don’t know when to stop. I can always see more places to “fix,” but at some point you have to stop and call it a day. And that moment is when you get to the…
Butterfly phase. Your beautiful piece of art has escaped its crinkly cocoon and is now ready to spread its wings and fly. This final phase is such a wonderful reward for your perseverance and your trust in the process.
Not to get too maudlin, but this is such good practice for viewing your entire life, really. There will always be ugly phases where you’ll want to give up. But don’t. Keep persevering. There are the bones of a masterpiece in all of your works, so just keep going.
*I put the image I uploaded through the Glaze tool. PhD students and computer science professors at the University of Chicago created a tool that aims to protect artists from AI that seeks to steal their style. I’ll write more about the tool and how I plan to use it in an upcoming blog post.
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