Reading Time : 5 minutes
Hello Steemians !
Let's begin into the deep world of my Mentors and Inspiration advices I gathered over time.
These wise words come from the various events I went to, the mails I sent and artists I met along the road. These are my most cherished advices and I still go back to them regularly to check if I am on the right track. Each post will focus on a particular artist advice and my understanding of it so far (which is matter to discuss =)).
Hopefully, you will enjoy reading them as I loved gathering them.
This serie is a follow up from this post, I will stick to this post title to avoid any confusion (and I edited this one to make it more clear) :
@alcy/the-best-advice-my-mentor-told-me-ep-1
"Find Your Way"
Jeremy Mann (http://redrabbit7.com/)
This is one of the most influential advice I ever received as it works in almost every field.
The way he manages to do so is by constantly looking for new experiences, new feelings as food for the soul. Because you can only output what you input , you need that library of inspiration to draw from it.
But how do you build it ?
Experiment !
*Test ! Let your mind go wild ! Try new things and ways of thinking ! That way you will be able to learn what works, what doesn't, what excites you, what bother you.
To give you an example, some of his paintings were done using a windscreen wiper, a banana peel or anything (really) he can find. And the result is stunning.
These tests will also open your mind in many ways about the possibilities you have and you will rarely end up stuck before beginning a painting.
Following this path of Experimentations, that you should try as much as possible, comes with another great advice, too often forgotten but still relevant :
"Get a Life !"
You read that well ! Get up, pack your things and go get these experiences by Yourself instead of browsing these same experiences on Youtube. Get out ! Live ! Enjoy Life ! Put all your senses at play and be curious ! "Feeeel" Bruce Lee would say. Trust what excites you and go get it. You will never regret it and it will enrich you and your art.
Always look for an exciting Flow
Make everything you do exciting for you in the early stages. For a painting, make it as interesting for you as possible. If the foundations are boring, you will end up with an even more boring end artwork.
If you find your art too rigid, GO WILD. Go for the opposite ! Try to go for the extremes, you may find things interesting there ! Don't be too attached to your work and be free to redo on top of it with big brush strokes. This alleviate some auto-created self pressure.
Do not hesitate to bend rules and see if it works, Perspective, composition, Color theory....
At the end of all of this, you might find your way, the path that excites you, the path that gives you a Voice.
Here we are for this second episode, thank you for reading !
Have a great day,
Cheers !
Ressources to go a bit further if you want ^^ :
- http://redrabbit7.com/
- https://trojan-unicorn.com/
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwJheV30gHVOjBps2DU7k9A (Especially his video "Your Creative Bank Account)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
Header's picture : Spaceships orthographics for personal project