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Tag: personal development

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Monday Morning Art School: what are your artistic goals for the next twelve months?

Forsythia at Three Chimneys, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

As I ask you this series of Big Questions About Art (starting here), I’m trying to answer them myself. This one is hard, because for too long, my main goal has been to finish today’s work and get a start on tomorrow’s. I’m a kinesthetic thinker, meaning I figure things out by doing them. The more physical that is, the happier I am. That’s not bad for a painter, since our work is essentially tactile. However, it doesn’t always lend itself to advance planning.

Early Spring on Beech Hill, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas, 12X16, $1449 framed includes shipping in continental US.

My artistic goals (as of right now)

  1. To develop a broader range of surface-scribing skills. By that I mean more varied brushwork, with the ability to float between ambiguity and detail without overworking the surface. That includes scumbling, impasto and fine line work.
  2. Add more figure and contemporary structures into my landscape paintings. One of the things I most admire about Childe Hassam, George Bellows and other 19th century painters is that they didn’t shy away from their own times. I’m drawn to old things but not everything old is beautiful, and not everything beautiful is old.
  3. I want more time to paint. I love teaching, and I learn a great deal from it, but I need more time with my own brushes.
  4. I must finish building out my new gallery space. I’d hoped to get this done by Memorial Day, but it won’t happen until I get back from Britain in June. What does carpentry have to do with painting? Just about everything.
  5. It’s summer; can I have some time to recharge? I can’t blame this on anyone else; I’m my own worst taskmaster.
Spring Greens, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, $652 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

How would you like to develop your artistic goals?

Here are some ideas:

  1. Continuously improve your technical abilities. That could be paint handling, drawing, or composition, to name just a few possibilities.
  2. Push the boundaries of your creativity by experimenting with new ideas, techniques, or mediums. (See last Wednesday’s post.)
  3. Focus on expressing your own values, ideals and emotions instead of producing merely-pleasant art.
  4. Spend some time in museums looking at art that moves you.
  5. Read about art and artists.
  6. Build a coherent portfolio: The best way to mount a cohesive body of work is to do a lot of it, and then look at it as a unit. Objective critique from trusted peers or a teacher sometimes points out themes you’ve never noticed in your own work.
  7. Show your work: Displaying your work in public not only gives you the potential for exposure, it pushes you to work very hard. This doesn’t have to be in a gallery; it could be a coffee shop, library, or a show in your own home.
  8. Take classes—iron sharpens iron.
  9. Enter competitive shows. I hate doing this too, especially when the entry fees are high. But set the goal of applying for a few each year. You might be pleasantly surprised!
  10. Fail gloriously. You aren’t really pushing your boundaries unless you occasionally muck up. Embrace that. Failure is a sign of growth; you were willing to take risks and try new things.
Spring Allee, oil on archival canvasboard, 14X18, $1594.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

These goals are just suggestions; none of us can do them all, at least not right away. What can you take from my brainstorming, and how can you make these ideas your own artistic goals for the coming year?

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Your success does not diminish me

Watercolor and gouache painting by student Mark Gale.

Your success doesn’t diminish me is a lesson that’s taken me a long time to learn. It’s why I can now celebrate my peers’ triumphs without being consumed with envy. It hasn’t always been that way.

Constantly measuring myself against others was depressing. The downside of being a competitive person is that one seldom appreciates one’s own successes. Get a second-place award in a show and you’re simmering because the grand prize eluded you. Hit a benchmark in sales and you immediately start clawing toward the next benchmark. While that spurs you on to achievement, it’s not much fun.

Oil painting by student Lynda Mussen.

Jealousy is rooted in the lie that there’s only so much success out there, and if you take a chunk of it, there’s that much less for me. In the short run, that’s true. After all, there’s only one First Place ribbon in any art show. In the long run, the possibilities for success are nearly limitless. The trick is in starting to see beyond the lockstep track that every other artist seems to be following.

That shift to an abundance mindset has made me, ironically, feel more successful. It’s also helped me become more generous. That ability to give something away fosters more of the abundance mindset – in me. Sharing time and talent creates a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. That synergy is what gives rise to schools of painting, by the way.

The flip side of this is gratitude. Our intellect, our talents, and the place and time in which we were born all contribute to success, and they are an accident of birth. My great-grandfather was a talented landscape designer, but he was also an immigrant. My grandmother wrote and my father was an excellent artist and photographer. But that was the Great Depression and they were very poor, which prevented them from taking the risks necessary to be full-time artists. As my mother (also the child of immigrants) used to say, “In my day, we didn’t have time to self-actualize.”

Acrylic painting by student Patricia Harrington.

One way in which that Great Depression generation was hampered was in having no models for entrepreneurship. That’s just as true for anyone whose parent has worked in a 9-5 corporate job, and it’s what gives rise to the canard that you can’t make a living in art. Everyone’s path to success is different, but lots of people have been very successful in the arts: as visual artists, actors, filmmakers, animators, teachers, curators, etc.

Your path is fixed only by your ideas and determination, but it does help to have some idea of how to run a business. Beyond that, however, how anyone else achieves success is irrelevant. You’re the only person who matters in your own art career, and you make your own measuring stick.

Oil painting by student Beth Carr.

A person with an abundance mindset has much more patience for the process. That’s critical to developing top-notch artistic chops. Once you stop needing to win, there’s no motivation to produce a one-hit wonder. That in turn stops the painter from trapping himself in a schtick that sells, but which prohibits growth.

Above all, remember that your worth isn’t tied up in your art-it rests in you as a human being. Yes, it’s great to be a competent, successful artist, but that’s hardly the most important thing in life.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: