Do You Actually Decide
What to Paint?

Part 1 of a series.

If you are like I was in my beginning years, you probably work a lot from photographs, and you may also follow my bad example and not consciously decide what to paint and what not to paint.

The big trouble with that, I was finally forced to admit, is that most photographs are not well designed. And even when they are, just copying what you see in them doesn't guarantee good art.

If art were that simple, everyone would be a great artist or photographer.

I witnessed proof of this truth many years ago when I stopped in to see an old friend on my way to visit my parents.

Being a junior high school teacher, I knew he usually took an extended trip during each summer vacation. Over the course of my visit I noticed he had boxes and boxes of slides from those trips piled in his closet.

I thought, hey, I like viewing other people's photographs; I enjoy seeing new and interesting places. So I asked if he would show me one of his trips.

My mistake.

Out came the slide projector and I endured an excruciating hour of torment. I found it incredible that Hawaii could be made to seem that boring.

And the worst of the ordeal was that every fourth or fifth slide was my friend standing in front of some landmark staring glumly into the camera, followed by a slide of his mother in front of the same landmark.

It's hard to believe two people could be that glum while visiting Hawaii.

I mention this story not to ridicule my friend, but to illustrate that just reproducing what we see, either in a painting or in a photograph isn't enough.

We need to make conscious decisions about what we paint, what we include in our art and what we choose not to include. And we need to consciously decide where to place everything we draw or paint.

In other words, we need to learn to design.

We must consciously create a composition in our art or we end up with work that's as boring and repetitive as my friend's slides.

I speak with some experience on this subject, because I have certainly produced enough work over the years that made the quick trip from my drawing table to the garbage can underneath it.

At one point in my career I had to admit that too many of my creations were taking that down elevator to oblivion. It was demoralizing.

That was when I started making myself take the time to work out a design before I began painting. I began to decide what to paint in my paintings and what to not paint. I began to decide what to include and where each element should be in order to produce art worth keeping.

This whole subject of consciously designing your artwork flies in the face of the enthusiasm to just jump in and start painting.

But if you ever hope to progress beyond the level of beginning artist, it is something you must learn to do.

And to help you do that, over the coming weeks, I'm going to talk about and hopefully simplify this subject of design, of deciding what to paint.

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