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My Most Important Art Discovery This Year

Margaret-William Bobb

Blog #10 of 12

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February 24th, 2011 - 12:11 PM

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My Most Important Art Discovery This Year

The most important thing I learned this year is that I don’t spend enough time actually painting in my studio. Oh, I do all sorts of art-related things, which makes me feel like I’m working on art, and I guess I am. But I’ve realized that I’m not painting enough.

I love spending time learning new things…especially anything that has to do with art. Being part of an online community of artists is a lot of fun, but it can take up a lot of time. Reading other artist’s blogs is also helpful and fun, but that, too, takes up the clock. I get an online artist newsletter filled with great information on all manner of things related to being a professional artist. In and of itself, it doesn’t seem like it takes that much time to read… But, when you add all of the above items together—a significant chunk of time each day is spent on art-related stuff; however, the time was not spent on painting.

In our society today, computers have become such an important part of our lives. I know that I would feel totally out of touch without our computer. It’s how we get a lot of our news, information, and entertainment. Sometimes my entertainment consists of manipulating the color, brightness, and contrast of photographs that I took, so that I will have a great reference from which to create a painting. I have thousands and thousands of photographs that I would like to paint “one day” stored in my digital files. In addition to that, I’ve ordered many art supplies online. Plus, I also take an online course in Children’s Illustration. Besides the lessons, it includes daily email with great informative links, and it also includes a monthly webcall.

Email is a major form of communication with my art buddies (and family, too). Yet my husband sometimes asks me if we should just unplug the computer! I know that I spend too much time sitting at the desk and not enough time behind my easel. Perhaps I need to make and follow a rigid schedule.

One fellow I follow, Robert Genn, suggests squirting out paint each day before that magical morning cup o’ joe. Well, I drink tea, but I think the advice is still the same. I think he’s onto something! Just the act of starting the creative process would keep me away from the computer screen during my most productive time of day—and I’d be painting!

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