How To Be An Artist
2009
Develops your creativity and grows the potential of your own artist.
ISBN-13: 978-0953107315
Paperback: 256 pages
Size: 180mm X 120mm
Shrink-wrap
Introduction
This is a book about how to develop your creativity.
If you want to tap into that unexplored part of yourself that gets bulldozed by work, commitments, lack of space, then this is the book for you.
I believe that you can grow your artist in a nurturing and supportive way, giving it the time and resources to develop and blossom.
This is a book that takes the inner artist seriously – the playful, the complicated, the difficult part – leading it on a journey that includes starting, building a practice and planning long term goals.
If you are an experienced practitioner, there is also much to discover in this book about getting in touch again with the key ideals that drew you to creativity in the first place.
For everyone, I suggest reading the book from page one onwards, or alternatively dipping into it, using your artist’s compass to recognise that wherever you begin, and on whatever page, wherever you find yourself, is exactly the right place for you.
Contents
PART 1 HOW TO START
Simple methods for overcoming the fear of beginning. Blank Paper / How To Start / Pen, Notepad, Eye / Sort It Out Later / Be Seen / Simplicity / Amplification / Mood Board / It Doesn’t Have To Be Perfect Now / ABBA / Dotted Line Technique / One Sentence / One Long Line / Working With Limitations / Voices Of Criticism
PART 2 DEVELOPING A PRACTICE
Building an artist’s vocabulary that’s distinctively your own. Invitation To Process / No Magical Manager / Developing A Vocabulary / Artist’s Compass / No boundaries / Scraps / Tell Us How It Feels / Ideas For Cash / Grow Your Own Artist / Curiosity / What’s Inside You / Time / Doing Nothing / Titles / Slogans / The Flower Is Red / The Child Part / Give Them Something For Free
PART 3 WORKING ON YOURSELF
Intuition and feedback as the basis for your ongoing process. Value Yourself / Work For Free / Parent And Child / Generosity / Go Where The Energy Is / The Us And Them Wall / A Day Without Money / Why Do You Do It? / Intuition / Feedback / Draw Your Day / How To EndSample
Blank Paper
The piece of paper is in front of you. You might feel afraid. But courage, my friend.
Pick up a pen and without thinking begin to write. It’s not important what it is, or what you say, simply write.
Within this automatism, these endless words, you will begin to see sentences and structures form. Perhaps they don’t mean anything yet, but that’s OK. You have got over the first hurdle – the emptiness of the white page.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that you will always meet this feeling. It’s part of being an artist, being creative. Your choice, your journey is to address this sense, each time you start. With practice, and with endless attempts, it will get easier.
The page starts to look inviting, open, challenging, even warm. It holds enrapture, magic, possibility. The energy that you feel when beginning to write will carry you forward, beyond the first page, into all your writing.
Follow the energy, follow the road, follow the words – let the sentences take you with them.