Are They Mistakes or a Matter of Style?
You’ve probably seen it happen: halfway through an art lesson a child breaks down in tears because they have made a #@terrible&! mistake. They want a new paper so they can start over.
It’s for this reason that every ArtAchieve art lesson begins with this rule:
Unfortunately, the rule tells only half of the story; it deals with mistakes as a negative thing. You might restate the rule this way: “If you make a mistake, just cover it up and you won’t feel bad.”
The good news is that there is a really positive side to making mistakes. In fact, one could argue that making “mistakes” is necessary for gaining
• A creative voice,
• An individual artistic style,
• A unique approach, etc., etc.
The POSITIVE side of making mistakes - a reason we NEED to make them - works like this.
1. Pretend
To learn a creative skill like drawing or painting, you have to start by “pretending you have the skill,” to use the words of Austin Kleon. You just have to start doing art. Pretend you’re an artist, and eventually you’ll BECOME one.
2. Copy
How do you do this pretending? You copy others. Beginning to make art is just like beginning to play piano: you learn by playing scales and playing the first tiny song so often you have it memorized. It’s like the basketball player who watches videos of great players in order to copy their moves. Likewise, beginning actors imitate great actors; comedians imitate great comedians. In the same way, beginning art students:
• Copy art works by famous artists.
• Copy art techniques from their teachers, and
• Copy styles from the defining periods of art - from the impressionists, the constructivists, and Dutch masters, etc.
As Salvador Dali once said, “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” (Kleon) In fact, the more artists/techniques/styles a person copies, the better they become.
Digest Many Styles
Eventually, the style or the technique we copy becomes part of us. That’s why it’s so important to copy from many sources. It’s also the reason it’s important to copy the best stuff we can find. As we copy, all these skills and viewpoints we copy get churned together in our creative “stomach,” and they become the foundation of our art. But our art is never simply the sum of the things we’ve copied.
We Always Digest With Mistakes
One big reason we can never be the sum of what we copy is that it’s almost impossible for us to make perfect copies of an art work. I once visited an art school in Ukraine where the walls of room after room was filled with copies of famous paintings. A given wall usually held the student-made copies of just one painting. In every case there was the almost-perfect copy, and in every case there were deviations. The same was true if a group painted a person who had posed for them.
Celebrate Your Mistakes
So while we may TRY to make copies, we will always do so with our own mistakes/twists. Each of us has a can’t-help-yourself kind of twist. I personally tend to exaggerate things like curves. Once you notice what habitual twists seem to be YOURS, celebrate them, exploit them, and use them. After you’ve digested all you can from others, it’s these twists that make you YOU, and your art YOUR art.
Okay. That’s the adult explanation. Now try explain this to the third grader who insists on making the perfect copy!
Practice explaining while you use some free art lessons!
For more about this, read Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist.
You’ve probably seen it happen: halfway through an art lesson a child breaks down in tears because they have made a #@terrible&! mistake. They want a new paper so they can start over.
It’s for this reason that every ArtAchieve art lesson begins with this rule:
Unfortunately, the rule tells only half of the story; it deals with mistakes as a negative thing. You might restate the rule this way: “If you make a mistake, just cover it up and you won’t feel bad.”
The good news is that there is a really positive side to making mistakes. In fact, one could argue that making “mistakes” is necessary for gaining
• A creative voice,
• An individual artistic style,
• A unique approach, etc., etc.
The POSITIVE side of making mistakes - a reason we NEED to make them - works like this.
1. Pretend
To learn a creative skill like drawing or painting, you have to start by “pretending you have the skill,” to use the words of Austin Kleon. You just have to start doing art. Pretend you’re an artist, and eventually you’ll BECOME one.
2. Copy
How do you do this pretending? You copy others. Beginning to make art is just like beginning to play piano: you learn by playing scales and playing the first tiny song so often you have it memorized. It’s like the basketball player who watches videos of great players in order to copy their moves. Likewise, beginning actors imitate great actors; comedians imitate great comedians. In the same way, beginning art students:
• Copy art works by famous artists.
• Copy art techniques from their teachers, and
• Copy styles from the defining periods of art - from the impressionists, the constructivists, and Dutch masters, etc.
As Salvador Dali once said, “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” (Kleon) In fact, the more artists/techniques/styles a person copies, the better they become.
Digest Many Styles
Eventually, the style or the technique we copy becomes part of us. That’s why it’s so important to copy from many sources. It’s also the reason it’s important to copy the best stuff we can find. As we copy, all these skills and viewpoints we copy get churned together in our creative “stomach,” and they become the foundation of our art. But our art is never simply the sum of the things we’ve copied.
We Always Digest With Mistakes
One big reason we can never be the sum of what we copy is that it’s almost impossible for us to make perfect copies of an art work. I once visited an art school in Ukraine where the walls of room after room was filled with copies of famous paintings. A given wall usually held the student-made copies of just one painting. In every case there was the almost-perfect copy, and in every case there were deviations. The same was true if a group painted a person who had posed for them.
Celebrate Your Mistakes
So while we may TRY to make copies, we will always do so with our own mistakes/twists. Each of us has a can’t-help-yourself kind of twist. I personally tend to exaggerate things like curves. Once you notice what habitual twists seem to be YOURS, celebrate them, exploit them, and use them. After you’ve digested all you can from others, it’s these twists that make you YOU, and your art YOUR art.
Okay. That’s the adult explanation. Now try explain this to the third grader who insists on making the perfect copy!
Practice explaining while you use some free art lessons!
For more about this, read Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist.
You’ve probably seen it happen: halfway through an art lesson a child breaks down in tears because they have made a #@terrible&! mistake. They want a new paper so they can start over.
It’s for this reason that every ArtAchieve art lesson begins with this rule:
Unfortunately, the rule tells only half of the story; it deals with mistakes as a negative thing. You might restate the rule this way: “If you make a mistake, just cover it up and you won’t feel bad.”
The good news is that there is a really positive side to making mistakes. In fact, one could argue that making “mistakes” is necessary for gaining
• A creative voice,
• An individual artistic style,
• A unique approach, etc., etc.
The POSITIVE side of making mistakes - a reason we NEED to make them - works like this.
1. Pretend
To learn a creative skill like drawing or painting, you have to start by “pretending you have the skill,” to use the words of Austin Kleon. You just have to start doing art. Pretend you’re an artist, and eventually you’ll BECOME one.
2. Copy
How do you do this pretending? You copy others. Beginning to make art is just like beginning to play piano: you learn by playing scales and playing the first tiny song so often you have it memorized. It’s like the basketball player who watches videos of great players in order to copy their moves. Likewise, beginning actors imitate great actors; comedians imitate great comedians. In the same way, beginning art students:
• Copy art works by famous artists.
• Copy art techniques from their teachers, and
• Copy styles from the defining periods of art - from the impressionists, the constructivists, and Dutch masters, etc.
As Salvador Dali once said, “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” (Kleon) In fact, the more artists/techniques/styles a person copies, the better they become.
Digest Many Styles
Eventually, the style or the technique we copy becomes part of us. That’s why it’s so important to copy from many sources. It’s also the reason it’s important to copy the best stuff we can find. As we copy, all these skills and viewpoints we copy get churned together in our creative “stomach,” and they become the foundation of our art. But our art is never simply the sum of the things we’ve copied.
We Always Digest With Mistakes
One big reason we can never be the sum of what we copy is that it’s almost impossible for us to make perfect copies of an art work. I once visited an art school in Ukraine where the walls of room after room was filled with copies of famous paintings. A given wall usually held the student-made copies of just one painting. In every case there was the almost-perfect copy, and in every case there were deviations. The same was true if a group painted a person who had posed for them.
Celebrate Your Mistakes
So while we may TRY to make copies, we will always do so with our own mistakes/twists. Each of us has a can’t-help-yourself kind of twist. I personally tend to exaggerate things like curves. Once you notice what habitual twists seem to be YOURS, celebrate them, exploit them, and use them. After you’ve digested all you can from others, it’s these twists that make you YOU, and your art YOUR art.
Okay. That’s the adult explanation. Now try explain this to the third grader who insists on making the perfect copy!
Practice explaining while you use some free art lessons!
For more about this, read Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist.
