How An Artist Emerges From A Beginner.

How will an artist emerge from the beginner that is you?

At this stage of your development you may or may not have any thoughts about acquiring the label artist.

Depending on your confidence level, you may or may not feel you could ever actually be an artist.

Well, there's something you need to realize. Everyone who is now an artist was once exactly where you are right now.

The difference is the people who have let the artist emerge continually look for ways to improve and grow their skills. They look for the ways they are different than other people and accentuate them.

That's how I would describe one of the subscribers to this blog, Alice Liou.

I first met Alice a few years ago when she attended a workshop of mine.

During that workshop I showed the participants some gorgeously illustrated children's books. The illustrations were all great lessons in good ideas expertly designed with wonderful use of color and value.

The first thing that impressed me was that by the end of the first day, Alice had ordered all of those same books. She still has them.

When she took my workshop, she admits, she was still at the stage of copying what she saw in her photograph.

In the intervening years Alice's work has changed and evolved. It has become more simplified, more thoughtfully designed.

(See more of her work at www.alicelioufineart.com.) She still uses photographs. But now the artist has emerged and they are the servants of her imagination. 

"It's more of a design issue. If a painting just looks like a photograph, it could be a very nice scene. But somehow you have to make it interesting, make it intriguing. Now I want to interpret the image, make a better design, rather than make a picture that looks like the real thing. For me it has to be poetry."

She gave me and this blog a lot of credit for her growth in creating that poetry.

When I asked how I helped, she replied, "Your articles are helpful to improve my thought-process in creating art. We can always make an okay painting, but there are ways to make it better or more interesting. It's a decision we make every time we do art. Your articles, exercises and examples are very helpful in making those decisions."

As she has progressed in her work, putting emotion in it has become more and more important. She describes her art as a communication tool to express her feelings to her audience.

Perhaps that's why she has begun to show her work and has sold a few pieces. That poetry she strives for has begun to touch others.

And an artist emerges from the beginner.

Best Wishes,
Gary Gumble
Founder of BeginningArtist.com
Without art the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. (George Bernard Shaw)

P.S. When I asked Alice if I could write a blog post about her, she thought for a moment and ventured, "That would be fine. But honestly, I feel like I am doing my internship. I'm still very new to this and still a student of art."

Well, we all are.

At every experience level.

We are all searching for the answer to a question that Alice asked me at the end of one of our conversations.

"How do you find your creativity?"

I think she used exactly the right word when she said "find" your creativity. That discovery truly let's the artist emerge.

And in the next blog post I will show you where some of that treasure is buried.