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The great thing about being an artist is that the journey never ends. But some artists seem to hit a plateau and stop improving. 

There’s an old saying, “If you do what you always did, you get what you always got”. If we keep practicing the same errors, we remain stuck. We need a change of mindset…to view of ourselves as perpetual students. If most pieces are learning exercises rather than finished paintings we can experiment and continue to add new tools to our artistic toolkit. In a Zen sense we have no attachment. Musicians are very clear about separating practice from performance. They practice scales and arpeggios so that when they perform a solo they have the command of their instrument. 

We need to identify what we need to work on. As my friend Dan Gerhartz says, “Attack your weakness”. It’s usually: drawing (shapes), value, color temperature relationships, or edges. For example, I was dissatisfied with the way I was rendering hands, so I bought The Book of a Hundred Hands by George Bridgeman and copied every illustration into my sketchbook. By the time I had finished I not only understood the anatomy but also was able to capture the more expressive gestures of the hand. Here’s a detail of one of my paintings.

Bryan Mark Taylor calls this “chunking”. That is, identify one particular skill and practice that “chunk” until it is mastered. If you’re working on value structure, don’t worry about drawing, design, color, and narrative.  Believe it or not this is the fastest way to master of a new skill. Martial artists practice each block, strike, or kick in isolation, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. Finally they learn to chain them together into patterns or combinations (Katas). In a combat situation they don’t have to think of each movement, they rely on muscle memory.

Another good idea is to work in a series. That is, paint the same object or scene a number of times to try out different approaches. This works well if you ask yourself “what if “questions. “What if I painted it in a very low key? What if it was high key? What if it was all in shades of blue? What if I sprayed it with alcohol and let it run? What if I did it in 25 strokes?” Some of these experiments may be terrible, but some may send your work in a new and interesting direction.

A great idea is to copy masterworks. Sargent did; Zorn did. In fact virtually all the great artists have done this type of research. The goal is to figure out the master artists’ thought process. Why did they make the choices they did?  We all want to be original, but the more we learn from other artists the more tools we have to express our own personality. Again, think of musicians. Eric Clapton copied Robert Johnson and B.B King and other blues greats to develop his own style. A great idea is to copy a masterwork in a different medium. Here’s a Fechin oil painting copied in pastel.

Finally, we need to work as much as possible from life. The camera lies to us…especially about value, color, and edges. Working from life and squinting at the subject to simplify value, and edge relationships will help us grow. (working from photos will hold us back.)