Lively Blossoms, Original Watercolor, Marcia Carole
While painting my red tulips, I have been reading a book entitled, Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon. I’ll let you in on a secret. Artists take breaks from making art to read, eat, get snacks, walk, doodle, dream, pray, wash dishes and laundry, procrastinate, fume, and then get back to making their art. It is all part of the process. So, yes, I was reading the above mentioned book about making art while making my art.
The book is not really about stealing artwork off walls, but incorporating other’s ideas or process into your work. Let’s just say, it’s borrowing ideas, styles, concepts, use of color and light. Permanently. As Kleon says, “Stealing like an artist is about taking the inspiration you steal and turning it into something new and better—transforming it into something that’s your own, that’s barely recognizable from its original state.”
In Steal Like An Artist, one suggestion Austin Kleon makes is to approach one’s art with the adage, “less is more” or “Choose what to leave out.” It goes along with one of my art professor’s suggestions that I don’t throw away a whole piece of work; just save what is good, and throw the rest in the trash bin. He’d give me a little cropping tool to see through when looking at a piece of art. Where is the best? Discard the rest.
So, I did that with my tulips above. Half the painting went; the clay pot the tulips were in, seemed lifeless and a drag on the whole piece. Off it went into the trash. Hmmm. It reminds me of the cancer battle I am in, yet again, today. Yuck. I hate that it keeps going on day after day, just like this Seattle rain, with no end in sight. I am praying my body keeps all the best cells and junks the bad cancer cells in the trash bins God has set up in my body. Permanently.
My verse of encouragement for today: But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. Col 1:22
If you are interested, the Steal Like An Artist’s website is here: Steal Like An Artist
