This week, I talk about making weekly art and the feelings behind creating regularly.
I feel that although artists talk a lot about techniques and creative process, something gets left out. It’s a time perspective. I don’t mean how much time it takes to make one piece, but what it’s like to make art week after week. If you create art, you will surely recognize this: sometimes you feel excited, sometimes you don’t. People’s moods vary and you can’t always choose the best day.
Not the Ideal Mood
I felt nervous when I started doing this watercolor. The best part of the morning was already over and I was splashing color very fast. My weekly art session had a messy start.
I found an unopened bottle of granulating medium in my stash and thought it might speed things up.
But I found the medium a useless acquisition. Some of the pigments are naturally spreadable and the spray bottle works better for them. All this took time, and my nervousness was still present and there was a new feeling too: self-doubt.
Not Feeling Confident
When you make art week after week, success is based on self-confidence more than mood. It’s easier to be confident at the beginning than later.
I usually paint with intuition and don’t use any models, so I often end up feeling hopeless. All I can say then is something like: “Keep going!” with a fake smile, and I don’t know if that helps at all.
Different Mood – Different Ideas
But art doesn’t put one mood above the other. Different mood brings different ideas. For example, if I am feeling nervous, there is an opportunity to be less conventional and express something that I would not otherwise come to mind.
The idea of this painting culminated in the Finnish expression “alavilla mailla hallanvaara.” It means “the danger of frost in the lowlands” in English, but the beauty of the statement is not in its content, but in how it sounds in Finnish. While painting, I began to think about those lowlands that suffer from rain and cold. Similarly, as painters paint week after week, flowers bloom constantly there, also in bad weather.
For me, in art, it’s not important in which mood it’s started, but that the end result contains both a trigger and a solution. Here, wind and rain bend the grass and break flower petals, but at the same time they make room for light.
Who Are You Creating Art For?
Within time, the mood evens out and focus is on the finishing. Then I also change who I think as a recipient.
I often start the weekly art by saying that “this piece is for me,” but when I finish I try to reach “for us.” There “we” includes all who like my art, both old and new friends in art. I don’t want to make art only “for you”, because then I lose myself while doing it, and not ” for them”, because it’s hopeless to hope that maybe someone would like the work even if we wouldn’t.
So, weekly, this happens again: the wrong moment, the wrong mood, the choice of brushes and colors, calming down, “I’m just doing it for myself”, uncertainty, slowly emerging ideas, concentration, triggers and solutions, happiness, and a feeling of gratitude that I can do this again for us.
Do you too create art regularly?
