Unlock Your Creative Potential

9 Key Strategies for Aspiring Artists

1. Paint and draw from life

This will improve your ability to transfer a three-dimensional form onto a two-dimensional surface. In the classical and impressionistic method of painting, how you draw will dictate how you paint. Check out my previous post on, tips for drawing portraiture.

2. Start a thumbnail sketch before you paint

Whether it’s a figure drawing or landscape painting, a small sketch composed of making the subject matter into 3 uneven shapes light, medium, and dark. It will help define composition.

3. Keep a limited palette of colors

Start with warm and cool of red, yellow, and blue plus white and ivory black. Once you understand then experiment with other colors.

4. Do not use pure colors right out of the tube

Colors out of the tube never represent the natural colors of the environment.  For example, take the color orange in the trees all around us during Autumn. Cadmium orange is too strong and too warm a color to represent those trees. Mixing cadmium yellow pale and cad red or alizarin crimson will be a lot closer to the Autumn color you’re trying to communicate.

5. Work on a toned canvas

What’s the complement of green?  Red is.  So when green paint is laid on top of the red,  the green mixture has a tendency to be subdued in intensity making the color green in a tree more representational. I have had students try all different types of toned surfaces from gray to blazing pink. See what works best for the situation you’re attempting to communicate. I normally use a toned canvas of burnt sienna or sometimes alizarin crimson.

6. Pick a place that is your painting place.

North light is important since it is the most natural light there is. It could be an elaborate studio with a north light or the corner of the bedroom. I personally have a quiet studio at the end of my property. I get to work from home, but not in my home.

7. Get into social media

This alone can be a full-time job. Not having a website, Facebook page (as it relates to your studio or work) and others like LinkedIn and Instagram will hurt your chances in moving forward.

8. Find a high-quality art dealer and/or gallery to handle your work

It will take time to find one but it’s well worth the effort. Paintings don’t sell if they are stuck in some stack of work in the studio. Get them in front of the public with a knowledgeable and professional dealer.

9. Don’t price yourself out of the marketplace

And don’t just compare the square inches of a painting and attach some price to it. Go out in the marketplace and see comparable work in technique and style, record those prices, and determine your own dollar level. Try not to compare how long it took you to paint and then attach a price that a plumber or electrician would change for the same amount of effort. The art world doesn’t work that way.

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