​Maybe for someone starting out the goal is “I want to learn to paint”. So the student goes out and buys paints, canvas, and brushes and begins to paint. But their goal is too broad and general, and they’ve failed to invest in themselves by building a solid foundation first. They haven’t identified where they want to go in their own work, or how they can get there.

For me, my investment in self takes many forms. There are the books – not technique based books though – those get put aside and forgotten quicker than yesterday’s failed canvas. But books about ideas, theories, and the thought processes of other artists. There are a few workshops. All carefully vetted to make sure it meets with my long (or short) term goals. I have a short list of artists I want to study with and I don’t sign up for a workshop just because it’s offered, but because it matches my goals. If you take every workshop ever offered all these different styles and techniques end up on your canvas, with the result that your work may lack focus and intent.

Not every investment is so serious. The biggest investment is a commitment to daily practice and play. For this I turn to the sketchbook. I occasionally look for fun workshops or lessons that are totally unrelated to the work I do on canvas, such as children's illustration. This is at once frivolous, but there is a more serious underside to this work. It is exercising the visual muscles – kind of like yoga for the hand and eye. One of the common threads I have identified in almost every contemporary artist I admire is that they came to painting through a career in illustration first. Every time I find a new artist I love their bio invariably says “illustrator”.
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Informal study (or even a formal study if one was so inclined) into an unrelated style or discipline offers an artist the opportunity to learn a different way of expressing yourself visually. This kind of no pressure play can lead to surprise discoveries which can be used in your more formal work, and opens doors for your own unique voice of personal expression. 

My artistic ‘yoga’ practice had taken the form of daily portrait doodles for most of the year in 2016. Why the human face when I’m focused on landscape paintings? The face offers the opportunity to easily judge accuracy and allows me to explore a variety of methods for creative expression. In this exercise I was not looking to produce laboured or artistic drawings. I know I can do good charcoal drawings of people. What I wanted was quick sketches to capture an expression, emotion, or characteristic of a person. My parameters were that a) they had to be quick b) small – just a few inches c) at least one a day. But I usually ended up doing several a day. I drew faces from a variety of sources; a couple of online portrait groups, vintage mugshots (my favourites), myself, family…. I drew happy faces, sad faces, goofy faces, young faces, old faces…. Some were good, some were downright horrible.

The investment of time and energy doesn’t really offer a clear progression of improved ability. That’s not the goal of this type of exercise. It’s to explore expression and to find out what factors contribute to likeness in an illustrative sketch or caricature. It also continues my exploration of the power of line. This year I am focusing my illustration and sketches more on the landscape and figure, working out ideas for expressing concepts and abstraction within a representational realm. It is a little more focused and serious than the portrait sketches of last year, but still offers some frivolity in that I can explore different ideas, styles, and methods of mark making within a small format that I can (hopefully) transform into poetry on canvas. 
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The artist's ego is a tricky thing. It tends to live at either end of the spectrum between "my work is garbage" or "my work is brilliant" - often it's both at the same time. It's no wonder artist's are often portrayed as flamboyant, flaky, and just a little bit crazy. 

While in the process of building this website, I was combing through some older works. Works like "Lead Thee Weeping" and "Song Sparrow" which have long since left the studio. I didn't have the confidence back then to know these were really good paintings. I kept working to create better paintings, taking the advice of many different peers, which steered my works towards different styles. More control, better or more accurate representation of the subject. Better composition. On and on....... But in my quest for betterment, I lost my voice. I lost the quality that made these paintings special. 

I look at these paintings, and many of my other earlier works today, and wonder what the heck I was thinking, and why I didn't have the confidence to just stay the course in this more impressionistic, or expressive, style. I love these early works now and wish I could paint like that today. 

The opposite is also true though. I look at some of my work that I thought was brilliant at the time, and wonder what the heck I was thinking. Some of those works are truly cringe worthy. So now, when I've finished a painting which I think I've done a really good job with, I wonder if it's just my artist ego. Is it truly a good painting? Why is it good? Maybe it isn't. I second guess and overthink my thoughts.

I hear so many artists expressing the same things, so I know this must be a common phenomenon within the arts world. I hear very accomplished artists, who I admire, express doubt in their own work. It's no wonder though. We artists can do a dozen really good paintings, and then the turkeys come out one after another, and we feel like somehow, overnight, we've completely lost our ability to paint. 

I think part of the lack of confidence in ones art stems from outside influences. How often do we observe ugly work being given high praise, and beautiful work being totally ignored? Family and friends will (usually) always like what you do, even if it isn't very good. Art instructors often offer lots of praise and encouragement rather than kind honesty, so it is very hard to have an unbiased, outside opinion of your work. How do we know if our ego is being over or under confidence? How do we know when it's telling us the truth? Does it even matter?

I have reposted an old blog post written at the time I made "A Dream Of Joy And Sadness".  See the previous post "Telling Stories". 

Last night we attended a Home Routes house concert with Kev Corbett, who is a folk singer and storyteller. There was a line in one of his songs which made reference to "a bunch of Group Of Seven trees on the shore". I instantly knew the image his song was trying to paint and how that tied into his story. The expressiveness of Corbett's songs and stories have a certain quality I want in my paintings. Some of his songs were able to reach down inside me to grab hold of my soul and give it a good shake....wake it up. At one point, I had a well of tears building in my eyes. If a story can do that to me in a living room full of strangers, you know it has real depth....serious expression.

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