"To Draw Like Da Vinci"

"Roses & Blue Vase"
Graphite 20"x16"

Do you draw? Do you play? Do you make mistakes? Do you have favorite quotes?

A Couple of Favorite Quotes

To draw like Da Vinci, you need to follow his advice. “Train your visual mind to understand the shapes of forms and spaces, to recognize angles and directions of lines, to appreciate proportion, to understand perspective, to recognize gradations in tone and, above all, to be inspired by imagination. Without these, all the technical skills in the world will not produce a work of art.”

And
this one I keep by my easel!

“If you aren’t willing to make mistakes, you will never do anything creative!”

I love the first one, but the one just above is one of my favorite quotes to tell my students. It teaches me what I don’t want to do, and I remember it much better than if someone told me not to do a certain thing. Learning by making the mistake remains in the mind so much better than what someone tells you!

A pastel I brushed off part!

When working in pastel, the mistake … or let’s call it a path that I decide is not going to work … just gets brushed off with a stiff bristle brush that I cut the bristles down about halfway and at a slight angle. This leaves a ghost image but gets rid of the excess pastel on the board and allows me to add more layers of pastel. So, a little about a technique here, but this is to explain something very important about being an artist.

Being an artist is not totally about mastery of your medium. Medium means what the tools are you use to create your art. It could be anything from painting or drawing, in any of the “mediums” such as oil, acrylic, pastel, watercolor, etc. It could be that you are a sculptor, a mixed media specialist, builder of three-dimensional art, fine art craftsman building furniture or found object art … many ways of using that creative spirit of yours … being an artistic person with a vision. I believe that is being an artist! And, if we make mistakes, it is part of the process of learning, so why not embrace that part as well as all the other tools we use?

I heard a young man a few days ago mention he did art. I said, “so you are an artist?” He answered not he was not an artist. I tried to tell him that being an artist is doing something creative, no matter your level of experience. There are artists that are beginners, intermediate, advanced and professional. So if he does something creative, and he showed me a couple of his paintings, then he should say he is an artist. It would be okay to say he is a beginner … to clarify the statement.

So, make those mistakes, and try again. And, if you are doing something creative that could possibly be called art, then call yourself an artist. I do believe it might make you “own” the title and try a little harder to be an authentic you, an artist!