Lessons I’ve learned as an artist
Autumn is a season that encourages reflection; the nights drawing in and the arrival of cooler weather lends itself to a slower pace of working that is a little more insular and cosy compared to the wild creative energy of the spring and summer months. It therefore seems timely to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned as an artist, since picking up my set of pencils seven years ago.
Art is nothing like I thought it was …
The first and biggest lesson I’ve learned as an artist is that art is nothing like I thought it was. Apart from a few years of drawing as a teenager, until seven years ago, my experience of art was zero; it literally didn’t even register on the radar for me in terms of ‘having a go’ at art. Whilst I appreciated other people’s artwork and loved spending time going to art installations and visiting art galleries, I thought that artists simply picked up their medium of choice, merrily applied it onto their chosen surface in some kind of effortless, free-spirited way and hey presto, a masterpiece was born.
Whilst this may be the case for some, my own experience has been very different. Art for me has been about learning a new skill – figuring out how to render a texture in a believable way, for example, has taken trial and error. Drawing from life or from a reference photo takes thought and careful consideration when accurately depicting dimensions and relationships between objects, distances, etc.
As time has gone on, my ‘eye’ has improved no end and my understanding of the medium has become second nature, so that the effort I now have to put into the basics as such, is much less like hard work and more free-flowing than it used to be. However, I have only reached that point through hours, days, weeks, months and years of constant and regular practice.
This brings me onto the second lesson I’ve learned as an artist …
Art gets under your skin
The only way I have kept up the constant practice and persisted through the periodic frustrations is because I fell head over heels in love with drawing from the off (a continuation of how I felt when drawing in my teens).
The feel of using the material, the constant and varied discoveries and the ability to take a seemingly simple stick of graphite and create something on paper that looks three-dimensional and believable to me is a powerful and enduring magic.
Art got under my skin and has given me so much pleasure that I can’t ever see me not creating.
It can take time to find your ‘style’
It took a year or two of experimentation to find my ‘style’ in terms of the materials I prefer to use, the appearance of my artwork and the subject matter I like to depict. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy stepping away from that from time to time, but there are always a few constants in my art that I can’t see changing: working in monochrome, working with graphite and occasionally bringing in ink and charcoal to my drawings.
Art for me, constantly evolves and adapts to where I am in my life at that time. It is intensely personal and is the one area in life that I hold onto loosely, allowing it to transpire in its own way. It’s an area of freedom that is a rare pleasure amongst the usual demands of everyday existence.
Art as a mentor
Drawing has taught me so much about myself that has been truly transformative.
I’ve discovered that working on my drawings soothes my mind in a way that nothing else does. I can get lost in drawing for hours at a time. Drawing makes me feel at peace, reconnects me with myself, energises me and makes me feel at ease – it has been a great antidote to a fast-paced, frequently pressurised, science-based career in ecology.
Drawing has also taught me a huge amount of other skills involved in running a small business: designing, building and running a website and shop, photographing my art, running social media pages, mounting and framing art, selling art to the public and working on commissions for people are just some of the skills that art has taught me.
Persistence is crucial
Persistence is a vital approach for me when drawing. I’m naturally inclined to not give up easily on things I set my mind to and I've learned that there are moments in pretty much every drawing I have ever worked on where it feels like it has all gone wrong, that there is no way I can turn it around, that my drawing skills just aren't good enough, that it will never look right etc... in those moments, I’ve learned to take a deep breath and keep going! Persistence has paid off for me time and again, and through that I’ve been able to turn the artwork around into something that I’ve felt at least vaguely pleased with. Through that process, the lessons learned are always invaluable.
Entry to a new world
Last but not least, art has opened up a new world to me in terms of a different appreciation of and greater interest in art itself in all its myriad of forms. It has introduced me to a community of like-minded people that are endlessly encouraging, welcoming, inspiring and authentic; and has enabled me to connect with others through my art. When I hear that my drawings have brought pleasure to people who follow my social pages, buy and commission my drawings it is the icing on the cake and beyond anything I ever thought I’d be able to achieve. Quite simply, my life is richer for it.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about some of the lessons I’ve learned as an artist. When I set out to write this post I wasn’t entirely sure where it would lead me or how I would answer it, so, in truth it’s been an enlightening exercise in the best possible sense.
Many thanks as always for your support and interest.