Watching rich colours being swirled together on YouTube can send you into a trance-like state but ask any serious artist and they will tell you that creating a piece of art can be teeth-gnashingly, mind-bendingly stressful!
While the initial daydream about the concept might be relaxing – drafting the sketch, ensuring the critical elements of tone, line and colour are working, considering the logical placement of objects, interpreting the idea and actually being satisfied with what’s in front of you require a whole brain workout.
Then wait – where did that colour go? Which ones will I choose for maximum impact? Hey how come that colour just create that optical illusion? Woah, that’s not what I was planning – hang on I can fix this.
Finally, after hours and hours and more hours and wondering if you might be more suited to a career in leaflet delivery, the artwork takes shape and either a sense of gradual satisfaction or overwhelming despair sets in.
Then comes the questioning stage: would anyone hang this on their wall? Yes – proceed to framer. Have I overworked or underworked it? Yes – back to the drawing board!
Relaxing – heck no! Rewarding – hopefully yes by the end of the journey. A learning experience? Absolutely – particularly the ones that end up in the recycling bin.
So next time you look at a piece of art and think: ‘I could do that!’ I truly encourage you to have a go. It will change the way you think about art as a ‘relaxing past time’ forever.
The Galah home painting took well over 50 hours of planning, agonising, execution, soul searching and revision before we both became comfortable with each other – you be the judge