How Do I Decide What to Paint?
If your new to painting, one dimension you may encounter is the question…
But what should I paint?
In a world with limitless possibilities, how do you decide what to paint?
If you’ve encountered or been overwhelmed by this question I’m going to share with you some of what I’ve learnt during my 20+ years of creating art consistently and hopefully support you to move through any barriers you might’ve created in relation to this part of the painting process of simply deciding what it is you want to paint.
Keep in mind – if your’ not satisfied with your direction you can always adjust on the fly. I’d recommend not being to precious and if you come up with something you think could work to just go for it and see how it goes once you start making that idea physical
For now
I’m going to share how with my latest piece I walked through this eternal question thats caused a lot of unnecessary anxiety in the minds, bodies, and begins of artists and artists to be.
Before this painting I ‘came off’ what I consider to be three successful smaller paintings, but then I had a family vacation planned so couldn’t jump right into the next piece.
I had this STRONG urge to paint another lion head but this time larger.
This idea however would have to wait because I was leaving for about 10 days.
I wondered what would happen to this idea and even had some fear and anxiety that ‘it would go away’ or ‘i’d lose it’ and I would return to the studio feeling uninspired or aimless or unmotivated.
However I didn’t allow myself to worry about this too much – If anything I deliberately stood within a point of CURIOSITY towards this ‘IDEA’ to see if it would hold or morph or change into something else.
I had to let to go.
I didn’t want to be precious about this idea,
I allowed myself to just ‘see what would happen’
When I returned to my studio after my vacation wouldn’t you know it, the URGE to paint the lion was gone! and so I was faced with the blank canvas and the age old question…
What should I paint?
Here are the dimensions that I can see contributed to me eventually deciding to choose a deer head as the subject of my painting.
The previous three paintings where more portrait style animal heads and I like this theme so wanted to carry that over into this next piece.
I’ve painted so many subjects over the years and at this stage I feel like wildlife is something I enjoy painting and feel like there are a lot of potentials I could explore with this theme. This is important, that feeling of potential where there seems to be ‘a lot there’ when I consider the subject.
I also like that it’s fairly marketable and that it connects to my sculptural work that is also wildlife.
But what animal should I paint?
The LION is powerful and I liked this concept or idea of strength inherent in the subject.
I am a Canadian Artist and also like the alignment of painting animals that are going to speak to my audience whom are predominantly from North America and so an animal from this area of the world and something ‘in my back yard’ so to speak would be nice.
The shape of the canvas very much informed the decision to paint this dear. WHen I realizex I only had the vertical format canvas I was deterred from painting the lion.
I also considered I wanted a popular animal. Something a lot of people could relate to and something I could relate to. When I started considering a Deer It clicked right a way as a universal enough animal as well as something that would fit nicely on my canvas.
I find deers have a regality to them which I liked and with the antlers as part of the subject I felt I would still be able to Infuse into the painting those dimensions of strength and power that I liked so much about the lion.
And so here we are.
Those are a few considerations I had while decideing on the subject matter for my recent painting.
I look forward to exploring this subject matter more in future content.
