Step One on Becoming an Artist

What Does It Mean to be “Artistic?”

I often hear the comment “I am not artistic; I can’t create anything.” I have found throughout my life of teaching art this statement does not hold true. This feeling starts at a very young level and gets worse as we get older. It is the fear of failure or criticism you may have received at some time. Or it may be that you feel you can never achieve that level. But it is not about someone else’s abilities, it is about you.

Do you remember being in school and being bored? Do you remember picking up your pencil and starting to draw shapes, squares, circles, faces? Anything to keep you from fidgeting. Where you afraid to put those shapes on paper? NO.

I maintain that all those doodles you made are art and as you continue to do them in meetings or just because you are bored, you are making art. What if you took a large piece of paper and made those same doodles all over the paper, and what if you came back with crayons, markers, watercolors and started to fill them in? After a while you will notice you have relaxed, you have not thought of anything but what you are going to do in the next shape. No one is judging you, including that voice in your head. You are just having a good time. That is being artistic.

When you are finished get a cheap frame and frame it. Your reaction will be “WOW, I made that!” I guarantee that you will be so proud of what you have done. Study it as if it was in a museum. What shape did you like best? What stood out to you? How did you color it? Did you use monotone colors or bright colors? Perhaps you used all dark colors or light pastel colors. Do you think this was because of your mood that day, or are those the color tones you tend to go to? Think about the clothes you put on. What are you most comfortable in? This will also be a clue to acknowledging your own color palette.

Try doing these small doodles for a week, look at them and think about the mood you were in when you did them. Perhaps, write it at the bottom of the page. Get a notebook, doodle on the pages, or paste your pictures in. (You may have been at a meeting without your notebook), make sure you date them. Now you have the beginning of a journal.

Next blog we will talk about how to turn that notebook into an exciting journal. And for those of you that just want to doodle and not make a journal, I will have more steps for you to make art and prove you wrong that you are not artistic.

“Don’t worry about how you ‘should ‘draw. Just draw it the way you see it.”
Tim Burton