Listen To Your Inner Artist

Hello Everyone:

I hope all of your are enjoying the beginning of your labor Day Holiday. I just wanted to take a moment and discuss a phenomena that changed my art forever. I like to refer to it as my "Inner Artist"

When you begin your journey of becoming an artist, the road is covered in obstacles. Those obstacles are sometimes the normal growing pains of learning something new, and sometimes those obstacles can be ourselves. In reality, we are normally the biggest obstacle we will ever face. For some reason, we as humans like to make things much more difficult they they need to be. This, in actuality, is not just with learning to be an artist, but in everything we will ever do in our life time.

As we grow as an artist, we begin to get more comfortable loading our brush with paint, with a basic sketch on canvas, with color, perspective and so on. We do not even realize that we are changing the pressure we are using from one stroke of our brush to another. It is as if we are on auto pilot. That auto pilot feeling is what I refer to as our inner artist.

Our inner artist, in my opinion is who actually creates the painting before us. We put in the time, we practiced for countless hours and we know the basic rules of perspective, color theory and values in our sleep. Our reward is our inner artist. Our conscious brain comes up with a composition, we start the painting process, and if we let go and allow our inner artist to take over, usually, a beautiful work of art ensues.

One of my biggest obstacles in my journey to become a professional artist was my willingness to let go and allow my inner artist to take control. Really, it was my arrogance which stunted my growth as an artist for awhile. Once I made the decision to let go, to let my inner artist do his work, my art improved immensely. I like to equate this phenomena to that of a professional musician. When they are playing, that person is not reading every note on the page. They are not concentrating on their fingers or the strings or anything like that. They are allowing their inner artist to create the music. Once we have put in the time, our inner artist will show themselves to us. If we, as artists, have the courage to let go and allow our inner artist to take the lead and create the art, you to will experience the unbelievable joy of what you can accomplish.

Have a Blessed Day