Emerging artists
I've been terribly slack at writing my blog for the last few weeks but I am back, I promise!
Last week I completed my new photoshop painting 'Minty Madmoiselle'.
I was trying out some new tricks that I had learned through the Oatley academy Magic box course as well as ctrlpaint.com (if you're wanting to learn to paint in photoshop, I highly recommend both sites) and am more than pleased at the mood that I've been able to achieve with this piece.
Anyway, a lovely message that I received from an old facebook friend and client prompted me to write the following post and it had such a great response I thought I should share it here.
For all of the budding artists out there who find it hard to share/ show their work because they don't think they are good enough yet, I just wanted to say that you must believe in yourselves and put your work out there anyway.
If you wait to be 'good enough' you will never get there because artists are always, always critical of their own work.
I just had a lovely message from a client/ friend that commissioned a logo from me nearly 7 years ago telling me how much I had improved and this was very special for me as I have been making a big effort lately to push myself and teach myself new ways of making art, in both photoshop and oil painting.
The bar is always moving, I can't stand to look at my older work, it makes me cringe!! And I'll probably feel that way about the work I'm doing now every year or so. I always see faults in all of my work. There are things that I enjoy drawing and things that I struggle with but I don't give up and that's the key to improvement - persistence and dogged stubbornness!
Look to other artists for inspiration, don't get overwhelmed by how good they are because there are always going to be people out there who are better than us (I would give up completely if I compared to some of the amazing artists I follow if I compared my own work to theirs).
Use that awe to say 'I want to be able to do work like them'. You will make many, many mistakes but it's the only way to learn.
Be patient with yourselves, proud of what you can achieve at each level and look back at your old work to see how far you've come - that's your reward. Perfection is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you'll never reach it so just aim for improvement.
And one last thing - charge what you are worth! I spent a lot of years working for peanuts because I always felt apologetic about charging for my work (I still struggle with this aspect). When you charge too little you make it hard for yourself to charge properly later down the track. And it makes your life very, very difficult.
By undercharging you also make it hard for all artists to break the 'starving artist' mold. People need to know that art takes a lot of time and learned skill to create and we are not slaves and do not do it 'just for the love of it'.
I work damn hard for my money (yes, making art is mentally hard and not always fun) and it can take hours and hours (I'm no stranger to 60+ hours a week) to complete one piece and sometimes that is rushing and stressing that I'm not going to finish within the budget/ time frame. If you are looking to work full time as an artist you must not undervalue your time, whether you think you are 'good enough' or not, it's your time.
Keep going! Don't give up!
Thanks for reading, see you next monday, with bells on!!
isobel xxx
