Let me get straight to the point: most aspiring artists never achieve what they set out to originally.
Most start with a very primal, pure desire to create…
But as they progress deeper into their craft – whichever it may be – they fall into one of many traps.
I find the common theme of these traps to be – anything that wasn’t there when they first felt the desire to create:
Self-imposed rules…
The need to become “disciplined”…
Opinions of others…
The NEED to get a specific result…
Instead of letting the creation arise on its own, they try to “manufacture” a result to serve a purpose.
Putting Techniques on a Pedestal
Techniques are merely a means to an end. They are a natural byproduct of an artists’s creative vision.
Many aspiring painters use techniques as rigid steps in the painting process. They view them as the driving force of a painting. This is the equivalent of putting the cart in front of the horse.
If one is looking to paint a masterpiece, one may want to ask themselves:
Have I ever produced a masterpiece by strictly following a pre-planned, technique based process?
Or perhaps by following a YouTube tutorial and painting along?
Most likely, the magic happened for you when you were fully immersed in the painting process, not even thinking about what techniques you’re using.
In fact, there was no need to even label things as techniques.
Instead, you let the painting paint itself, and whichever “way” it took to get there was irrelevant.
Such a superior process CANNOT be recreated, because it’s of that particular moment in time.
The Role of Techniques?
To me techniques are about undertanding the nature of your art medium. It’s about mastering the ins and outs of how it behaves and what it does.
Not so that this knowledge can be called upon when necessary. But rather to have even more freedom. To be able to simply paint, and get the exact result you want.
It’s not so much about doing anything, but rather – SEEING everything.
The Moment of Creation
During the making of your art, perhaps you’ve experienced a moment of complete freedom, when everything felt right and the creation was completely effortless.
While there, perhaps you felt like you could even MAKE A MISTAKE – and it would still be perfect.
This is the power of complete freedom.
There’s nothing one can do to find this moment. It appears of its own accord, when an artist abandons everything they don’t need.
When they come to the painting process with what they had when they first wanted to create…
And with nothing more.
