Painting Outside the Lines

The Tried & True

While sticking to the ‘tried & true’ is often a good thing, when making art it can lead to blah artwork. For me, creativity is all about shaking things up, testing, experimenting and ‘painting outside the lines.’

It’s easy to become complacent, though. At times, it’s even advisable to slow down especially after an intense period of growth and development. We all need time to absorb and internalize what we have learned and accomplished.

For me, though, the time has come to shake things up, to push myself in some new directions, which is why I’ve set Challenge No. 2 for 2024.

Using Up All my Painting Supplies in my Studio before Buying More

At first this may not seem like much of a challenge, but here’s the catch. Over the years I’ve purchased lots of different kinds of mediums to play with, but ultimately didn’t use them. For example, I’ve got acrylic and oil pens, all kinds of pastels and charcoal, crayons and coloured pencils and so on. Check out my YouTube short to see what I mean.

Now I’ll have to use them and in doing so hopefully discover some new ways of creating. Here’s what I predict will happen:

1. my artwork will become more mixed media
2. my palette will change as I use up all my favourite colours
3. my substrate will change as I run out of the usual canvasses and papers
4. Last, my painting process will change as I adapt to using different mediums

Will I be a better artist as a result? I have no idea. I’ll leave that to you to judge. Regardless I’m going to have fun and undoubtedly a few frustrations.

Watch for my next post on my last and third Art challenge for 2024.