Art as I perceive it is a hobby worth investing your time in, it helps one forgets the hassle and bustle of life for a while, for a moment, all the troubles of your life seem to have vanished away, imagine the feeling you get when you create something out of nothing, even toddlers are usually very excited about the things they produce, they doodle many good things even before they learn to speak, I enjoy doing a few artworks whenever I get the time to do so, no one has to be called a professional artist so that they can hold the brush, just as no one has to be a professional club player in order to throw the basket, he can do fancy dribbles with his kids in the backyard whenever he’s at home, it’s the feeling you get out of it that keeps you going, nothing else, not for money and not for fame.
1-art in the hands of the beholder.
Some time back I visited an art class, where an instructor taught us to draw anything using simple lines, on my first assignment, I drew a mighty eagle with its wings spread out, and its feet were clutching on a gem, then took this first expression for marking. The instructor was not however very pleased as I had hoped and gave an average grading, some girls drew morning glory flowers wrapped red ribbons placed in a vase, they got excellent grading. Most boys who were sitting beside me were drawing fast cars, gears, robots, motor GPs, wrestlers, body builders, super heroes etc. they all got average. The girls who drew flowers, curtains, ponies, silhouettes, garments and jewellery got nearly excellent. We then had to ask Madame, “our drawings are nice too, don’t we deserve to get excellent also? Are you a fashion enthusiast?” “Your drawings are great of course,” she replies, “but they have no texture, please add some texture to make it more appealing to the eyes.”
I tell you ma-friend, to this day I still have not understood what that phrase meant, did she say they were not pleasing -to the eye- or -to my eyes-?
Anyways we have done numerous artworks before and there are many people who liked it, the most important person being the artists themselves, so one person not liking your doodling does not mean it’s terrible to everyone’s eyes. We will continue with our crazy aspirations and artwork. Then one day during the final test, I decided to get creative so as not to get low grades, I drew a gloomy cat sitting near a dustbin in a lonely alley, upon seeing the artwork she was instantly amazed. “Now that’s a masterpiece, she said, your drawing today is impressive,” thanks madam, I replied, I was very excited to get an excellent grade, for the first time in six weeks.
Then there was this old man whom we brushed shoulders with while painting. He insisted that I hold the pencil in a particular way while scribbling. He positions my hand into place and asks me to use that style, but once he’s looking away I am already back at my old formula, then he’d come back and force my hand into the same position again. This went on and on, again and again for several hours till he finally gave up upon realizing I was resistant to change, why should he be so concerned so much about how I am holding my pencil instead of what I am producing on paper?
2- struggle for realism.
The key purpose of making that sketch was to just bring out the general idea, not make an exact replica of its original appearance, now when you do that, it’s called creativity, people don’t enjoy real life paintings these days as they used to in the middle ages, the advent of film and digital camera nearly wiped out public interest in every skillful art or painting. It almost put all paintings out of production.
Viewers enjoy to watch a painting because they don’t know the source of idea, the materials, the techniques and artistic skills used by the artist, the more mysterious a painting is the more attraction its likely to draw from the crowds, they scrutinized the paintings so hard but don’t understand a thing, they use high tech gadgets and still don’t get a clue.
A kid once walked into my veranda one afternoon and saw a huge thirty inch painting I had done, it was the image of an exotic fruit. Acrylics on a simple cardboard. She was very excited to see it and asked me what kind of fruit it was, if it grows somewhere nearby so that she can go a pick it for eating. I pointed my hands slowly to the window and then slowly positioning away my hands towards the table, her eyes following. When she got to see it, she exclaimed, “urgh! So it’s that little thing on the table you have just drawn”, she frowned with disgust and ran back outside to play with her friends. This incident left me with one hour of thoughtful self-contemplation, I wondered whether I had done something wrong or the kid could also been doing that out of her own mischief.
Familiarity as we know it breeds contempt, had she not seen the empty acrylic bottles on the floor, the cardboard, on the chair and the citrus fruit on the table, she would probably be praising me up to today.
There was also some fellows who liked some of Jeremy’s silly paintings, they inquired where he got ideas for such huge magnificent artwork, carefully placed onto the walls of his wooden workshop located outside his house, but some two years later on, one of them uncovered an album in one of the drawers, with the photos in full colors, “so these are the photos you have been transferring onto the walls,” he said to him. “I can do that as well, they look pretty easy to replicate,” he added. Jeremy was an adventurer and whenever he went to any national park, he carried his camera with him and took plenty of photos, the best of the best he prints and carefully put away into a locker where no unauthorized hands will reach. Now everything is out in the open exposed, has made his efforts worthless.
Realistic drawings are only worth when you are planning to make the actual thing. It makes people find difficulty in identifying your work as an artwork or a photo-shoot.
3-lone worker
An artist often works alone, when a bunch of time killers pass by to check your work. “What are you doing?” they would ask. “Your drawings are ugly, I can draw better cartoons than those.”
Anyone who’s strong enough to pick a brush is capable of painting beautiful pictures, even those that are color blind can doodle up beautiful flowers, and those that see things in black and white can draw birds of paradise, the only thing they lack is the will to do so. A true artist works alone, art is sensitive complex and fragile. Are you still sure you want to work it out on your own?
Many successful/well known comic strips are produced by a team of artists numbering dozens to hundreds of them, yes hundreds indeed if you may have asked. Working on them for the time being of a few weeks to several months, depending on how much is to be accomplished. For example, a cut away drawing often done by a team of professional artists, a lot of investment is done on research and time. A careful examination and working process of the interior parts of the complicated machinery takes place. It’s often done with the help of the designers of that product but for a building, it’s much easier.
Doing any kind of artwork is a slow painful process, if you are that fellow who easily gets bored then you can as well forget about art. I am absolutely certain that you are going to have a hard time.
Just as there is no particular order of singing, there are no definite procedures in which artwork is produced, it depends on how you uniquely present your talent & skill,, like the way you see the so called music experts insist that for one to be a singer you need to have a soft voice with high pitch, but you get to find people who don’t have any of that surprisingly produce music that is more pleasant than the so called soft voiced vocalists.
4- rigid mind-set
There’s a lot of people who join fine arts colleges so that they can boost their artistic skills only to end up with their minds boggled up with thousands of rigid rules of, form, shape, color, line, value, rhythm, symmetry, your drawings must be positioned in a particular style and your artwork must convey a particular hidden message .These of course are fundamental elements and principals of art of which we cannot produce anything without them, to many aspiring artists the rigidity of the programs offered at the school of the arts end up vaporizing out the students enthusiasm they had from the beginning of their academic studies especially when one works very hard to produce an excellent masterpiece, then at their presentations, their supervisor tells them their work is not good enough, they must retry simply because they did not find what they were looking for in their paintings, the pre-determined concepts given beforehand end up discouraging them.
They entered the college premises wanting to be artists, by the time they are leaving they want to be something else. It is important to note that some of the prominent artists never had a formal training for their career, they simply pulled out old wooden planes out of their home garages, mixed some colors and did some creative staff that amazed many for generations, well as we all know it , there is a difference between arts and design, an artist is a totally different person from a designer, the artist acquires inspiration from deep within, then slowly digests that, transforms them into a visual representation by pouring color and ink onto a flat plane, the viewer, then gets to drive into the mind of the artist by just looking at the painting , he unravels the mysteries behind their thoughts, their feelings, fears, motivation and motives. Art is more of an emotional connection rather than the physical representations/appeal.
A designer on the other hand draws his inspiration from his surrounding and then transform that knowledge into new ideas to use to make basic things used by many, everything we ever use, tools, wear (clothing plus footwear), housing & automobile is designed, learners are also able grasp the ability to create something that is usable, comfortable, easy to understand/ operate and safe. Design therefore is for building learners with the most important requirements for their profession. It gets them ready for the current competitive job market. A designer can work any project whereas an artist works only with their internal sole theme, so students who join art schools as artists and come out as designers should not lament about their experiences, for it is in design are they able to stretch and expand their expertise and future enterprises, fine arts is a hobby profession anyway, so no one should dunk a few canvases in an oil or paint barrel and then hope to make tones of money from it.
I am really disappointed by some of the way art is taught in schools. Aren’t these common sense topics that we can do without, great artists didn’t go through such kind of training before they produced their masterpieces, did they? Though art isn’t as prestigious as it used to be.
5- I kidnapped Mona Lisa.
I once kidnapped that beautiful woman that sits behind a walled glass in the Louvre, I tell you mafriend the experience was great, if you spend long time enough with me, I could also teach you to do the same, I kidnapped her once and took her on a vacation, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences in my life.
I kidnapped Mona Lisa, tied her to the back of my Van and took her to my secret sanctuary behind the mountains. It was the most memorable day of my life, she did not complain neither did she cry for help. She just sat there in the back seat of my van smiling all day, never showing any fear or sadness on her face. We spent many good days together, when I looked back I saw gloom everywhere, then I said to her, Look Mona Lisa, the world is in grief, they are weeping your lose, they think something bad has happened to you, but tell them not to worry, you will be back in your conclave soon. Please calm down ma lady, I have no evil intentions against you, I just need some inspiration from your face, soon you will be back in the safety of your Bonnet.
Next time I will break into the Louvre, grab her hard and throw her onto my shoulders, I won’t let her people take her back without my consent, she will remain there with me in my mansion. So that even in my old age she can keep smiling at me, and hopefully keep me happy till the last days of my life.
6- Myths about Arts
Here is a list of myths about art that people have harbored for centuries, but are necessarily not true,
An artist knows how to draw everything. Pictures are easily sketched that quickly formed in their minds.
An artist can draw wonderful pictures without having to look at anything or copy from different sources, artwork is all piled up in their heads.
Art/painting/drawing/sketching is a natural inborn talent that cannot be learned, only those born without it do succeed.
7-fortune galleries.
What makes people have great desire for your doodling long after you are gone? Why won’t they buy them when you are presently alive so they’d at least speak to you saying thank you for your marvelous work. Keep holding your brush.
Long after the artist is gone a huge buzz creates around his work, people surround his paint shop, grab every painting they could get their hands onto with the hope of making a great fortune with it. The power of popular galleries drive in tourists that boost the economies of major cities, the value and price of such painting thus skyrockets in turn and the artists who created them if they are still alive and kicking get super wealthy. The paintings are positioned with double guards who take turns when tired. In addition to that, the highest level laser technology protects the display section, together with an alarm that goes off when the object is disrupted and a nearby security post that responds speedily in case of an emergency. The security wall is so strong and excellent that no ant can bore its way through.
Some city dwellers begin to wonder why pieces of wood and color are being protected more than human beings, if the security of these towns protected the lives of their citizens this way, then crime rate would go down dramatically. But remember the paintings are currently the highest paying goods for the town, you won’t dare let anything happen to them.
I went into a gallery and saw artworks that were super expensive, many were more expensive than the house I was living in, prices so high some cost more than the price of a train, yet people were still buying them, I asked the guard, “what was so special about these artworks that there are people willing to sell an arm and a leg to get them, was it some renaissance cult spirit driving them to do such insane things? Imagine oneself squandering your fortune on a piece of wood and ink, so ridiculous to the untrained eye and the ordinary folk.”
The Above Text contains an excerpt from the book named… “Can You Colour a Rainbow?”
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