YES - First, I have to say that I am not a professional artist. My main and only revenu is from a job as a janitor in a school district here in New-Brunswick, Canada. During Covid, my interest in art has increased not only in quality but also in quantity. At about the same time, I was diagnosed as being in the autistic spectrum. I had started an introduction course in drawing, following advice from my therapsist. From the first course, I knew that my future was sealed into art making. Since then, learning is at warp speed. I cannot feed my brain enough.
Every morning I wake up, brew a cup of coffee, get into my studio, a 9 x 11 feet room, and immerse myself in my artsy universe for a certain amount of time, undetermined, but enough to give me a satisfying enjoyable time.
2-Continuing to learn
YES - For me, since I was at elementary school, I loved to ‘..take a line for a walk..’. At ten years old, I made my first portrait of a family member. Fifty years later, that family member, my uncle, gave me that drawing I made of him, saying that it belonged to to me, in a way, giving me an encouragement, a motivation for the path I had started. There is not a single day since my ‘come back’ to drawing that I haven’t feed that brain of mine of even a single piece of information about art, whether in books or YouTube videos. It is hard to explain how I really feel about acquiring information about a topic that has become exponancial in the learning diagram. The best explaination I came up with, has to do with Dr. Who. If you are familiar with Dr. Who’s surroundings, you must have a knowledge of the tardis. That blue telephone booth, small looking from the outside but once inside, has the space of a small house. My brain is like the tardis. Small in comparison of the space it can withold. Sometimes I believe that the universe could fit inside. I know, impossible right ? But the comparison is the best one I can give. That continuing insatiable need to learn is real. My Kindle library is a proof of that afirmation. Yes, learning for me is at warp speed and my brain is insatiable.
3- Focussing on a consistant body of work
YES and NO - Yes in a sense that I am aware of what I have to do and no, because my every day obligations are in a parallel universe…
4- Staying present on social media
A big NO. I am sometimes present and comment on the YouTube subscribed channels of mine but otherwise, social media has wounded me too much that I avoid it as plague.
Thank you for doing what have done and are doing for artists and art lovers! I will be back as at 66yrs. old I am back to painting regularly and with intent. Seems I have several projects ahead including repainting a 4ft. X 12ft. That you highlighted for me at one point this last year. "Hope" was the title. It was hanging in a youth outreach center for about 20yrs. That was before uv blocking varnishes came along. What I did not know was it was hung under direct flourescent lighting. The brilliant colors all faded. Now I will be attempting to repainting it on fresh canvas. That Would take less time than varnish removal and redoing it that in direction.
The original was done on a canvas I had prestretch months before and never used until shortly after my mother passed away. My father and older sister had passed many yrs. before. By the point my mom passed I was married, had 5 children, at 38yrs. and just finished my second yr. for my fine arts degree in college. It was the 4th of July. My wife took her to the ER hospital the night before. They said it was bronchitis and sent her home with some medicine. My brother's wife was just home from having their 4th child and started bleeding badly that morning. So we had his children with us for the 4th so he could stay with her at the er. When the parade was over my mom called my wife( she was a nurse). Said she felt worse than the night before. I had 8 children with me while my wife got mom and drove to the hospital close to us. She passing from a massive heart attack within hour. A couple of weeks later we were still selling her stuff from her full house. I found a collection of shells she save that I collected when I was young. It just fired up emotions.... my wife said I should just go downstairs to where I waited and paint something. So I went and looked at this 4ft. x 12ft. canvas I had stretched and gessoed yrs before and never painted . I put it up and took a cookie sheet and squirted a bunch of oil paint on it, took a 3in. House panting brush and painted "Hope" in 3 1/2hrs. It was done. I came back upstairs and told my wife it was done and she should go and see it. My oldest daughter had been sitting on a couch reading a book an saw the whole thing. My wife and daughter both came up and said it was perfect and finished. It was a center piece in my solo senior show before graduation. It was a Christian College. I had also finished a 5ft x 10ft. Painting done while listening to Handel's Messiah over and over while I painted "Rough Places Plane". That was also cental to my senior show which the board of directors of the college decide to have a luncheon in the center of the gallery during the show.
Thank you Karl for reading and sharing. What a lot you have going on. I’m glad you have art and all the beauty in this space. I too find it an amazing comfort and interesting in such a priceless way. Welcome to the journey.
I would like to have more of a disciplined approach to the business process. I think I need an accountability system or someone to handle the social media aspect because I can go on tangents and lose track of time. As far as my painting process goes, I am more spontaneous and I pretty much paint every day. I don’t really want to change much about that because I need to be in a certain zone and it could be 3am or 1pm when I have to paint. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about this topic and enjoy your weekend!👍✌️🍁
I thank you for your comment. I don’t know if it would work for you, but I once opened a separate instagram account to hold myself accountable to do a 15 min sketch each day and post. It worked. Maybe you could do something similar. Maybe not. Wishing you the best as you find that accountability TheoSpirit
Thanks. Very handy checklists. They're on the wall.
You are so welcome!
Much needed advice!
Thanks for reading and commenting Andrea!
1- Showing up every day
YES - First, I have to say that I am not a professional artist. My main and only revenu is from a job as a janitor in a school district here in New-Brunswick, Canada. During Covid, my interest in art has increased not only in quality but also in quantity. At about the same time, I was diagnosed as being in the autistic spectrum. I had started an introduction course in drawing, following advice from my therapsist. From the first course, I knew that my future was sealed into art making. Since then, learning is at warp speed. I cannot feed my brain enough.
Every morning I wake up, brew a cup of coffee, get into my studio, a 9 x 11 feet room, and immerse myself in my artsy universe for a certain amount of time, undetermined, but enough to give me a satisfying enjoyable time.
2-Continuing to learn
YES - For me, since I was at elementary school, I loved to ‘..take a line for a walk..’. At ten years old, I made my first portrait of a family member. Fifty years later, that family member, my uncle, gave me that drawing I made of him, saying that it belonged to to me, in a way, giving me an encouragement, a motivation for the path I had started. There is not a single day since my ‘come back’ to drawing that I haven’t feed that brain of mine of even a single piece of information about art, whether in books or YouTube videos. It is hard to explain how I really feel about acquiring information about a topic that has become exponancial in the learning diagram. The best explaination I came up with, has to do with Dr. Who. If you are familiar with Dr. Who’s surroundings, you must have a knowledge of the tardis. That blue telephone booth, small looking from the outside but once inside, has the space of a small house. My brain is like the tardis. Small in comparison of the space it can withold. Sometimes I believe that the universe could fit inside. I know, impossible right ? But the comparison is the best one I can give. That continuing insatiable need to learn is real. My Kindle library is a proof of that afirmation. Yes, learning for me is at warp speed and my brain is insatiable.
3- Focussing on a consistant body of work
YES and NO - Yes in a sense that I am aware of what I have to do and no, because my every day obligations are in a parallel universe…
4- Staying present on social media
A big NO. I am sometimes present and comment on the YouTube subscribed channels of mine but otherwise, social media has wounded me too much that I avoid it as plague.
lol… I know the feeling on #4! Thanks so much for sharing, and welcome to this art journey.
Thank you for doing what have done and are doing for artists and art lovers! I will be back as at 66yrs. old I am back to painting regularly and with intent. Seems I have several projects ahead including repainting a 4ft. X 12ft. That you highlighted for me at one point this last year. "Hope" was the title. It was hanging in a youth outreach center for about 20yrs. That was before uv blocking varnishes came along. What I did not know was it was hung under direct flourescent lighting. The brilliant colors all faded. Now I will be attempting to repainting it on fresh canvas. That Would take less time than varnish removal and redoing it that in direction.
The original was done on a canvas I had prestretch months before and never used until shortly after my mother passed away. My father and older sister had passed many yrs. before. By the point my mom passed I was married, had 5 children, at 38yrs. and just finished my second yr. for my fine arts degree in college. It was the 4th of July. My wife took her to the ER hospital the night before. They said it was bronchitis and sent her home with some medicine. My brother's wife was just home from having their 4th child and started bleeding badly that morning. So we had his children with us for the 4th so he could stay with her at the er. When the parade was over my mom called my wife( she was a nurse). Said she felt worse than the night before. I had 8 children with me while my wife got mom and drove to the hospital close to us. She passing from a massive heart attack within hour. A couple of weeks later we were still selling her stuff from her full house. I found a collection of shells she save that I collected when I was young. It just fired up emotions.... my wife said I should just go downstairs to where I waited and paint something. So I went and looked at this 4ft. x 12ft. canvas I had stretched and gessoed yrs before and never painted . I put it up and took a cookie sheet and squirted a bunch of oil paint on it, took a 3in. House panting brush and painted "Hope" in 3 1/2hrs. It was done. I came back upstairs and told my wife it was done and she should go and see it. My oldest daughter had been sitting on a couch reading a book an saw the whole thing. My wife and daughter both came up and said it was perfect and finished. It was a center piece in my solo senior show before graduation. It was a Christian College. I had also finished a 5ft x 10ft. Painting done while listening to Handel's Messiah over and over while I painted "Rough Places Plane". That was also cental to my senior show which the board of directors of the college decide to have a luncheon in the center of the gallery during the show.
Sorry for going on and on.
Please keep up your good work also.
Thanks for reading,
Karl A. Ylvisaker
Thank you Karl for reading and sharing. What a lot you have going on. I’m glad you have art and all the beauty in this space. I too find it an amazing comfort and interesting in such a priceless way. Welcome to the journey.
I would like to have more of a disciplined approach to the business process. I think I need an accountability system or someone to handle the social media aspect because I can go on tangents and lose track of time. As far as my painting process goes, I am more spontaneous and I pretty much paint every day. I don’t really want to change much about that because I need to be in a certain zone and it could be 3am or 1pm when I have to paint. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about this topic and enjoy your weekend!👍✌️🍁
I thank you for your comment. I don’t know if it would work for you, but I once opened a separate instagram account to hold myself accountable to do a 15 min sketch each day and post. It worked. Maybe you could do something similar. Maybe not. Wishing you the best as you find that accountability TheoSpirit