Creative Approaches to Painting: An Inspirational Resource for Artists

OTHER DOVER BOOKS BY MARJORIE SARNAT:

African Glamour Coloring Book

Beautiful Angels Coloring Book

Creative Cats Coloring Book

Creative Christmas Coloring Book

Creative Kittens Coloring Book

Dazzling Dogs Coloring Book

Fanciful Foxes Coloring Book

Fanciful Sea Life Coloring Book

Magical Fairies Coloring Book

Owls Coloring Book

Playful Puppies Coloring Book

Copyright

Copyright © 2013, 2018 by Marjorie Sarnat

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2018, is a slightly revised republication of the work published as 210 Imaginative Ideas for Painting: How to Find and Keep Your Inspiration and Advance Your Visual Style by Jr Imagination, Granada Hills, California, in 2013. Trademarks mentioned in this book are the property of their respective owners. All trademarks and product names identified in this book are used in editorial fashion only with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sarnat, Marjorie, author.

Title: Creative approaches to painting : an inspirational resource for artists / Marjorie Sarnat.

Other titles: 210 imaginative ideas for painting

Description: Mineola, New York : Dover Publications, 2018. | Series: Dover art instruction | This Dover edition, first published in 2018, is a slightly revised republication of the work published as 210 Imaginative Ideas for Painting: How to Find and Keep Your Inspiration and Advance Your Visual Style by Jr Imagination, Granada Hills, California, in 2013.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018028376| ISBN 9780486824567 (paperback) | ISBN 048682456X

Subjects: LCSH: Art—Psychology. | Inspiration. | BISAC: ART / Techniques / Painting.

Classification: LCC N71 .S19 2018 | DDC 750.28—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028376

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

82456X01 2018

www.doverpublications.com

This book is dedicated to all artists everywhere, at any level of experience, who feel the inherently human urge to paint a painting.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

PART 1 IDENTIFY WHAT INSPIRES YOU

CHAPTER 1 What Should You Paint?

PART 2 GATHER YOUR INSPIRATION

CHAPTER 2 Inspiration Therapy

CHAPTER 3 Your Art Journal: Keeper of Inspiration

CHAPTER 4 Picture Reference: Your Customized Guide

PART 3 210 PAINTING IDEAS

CHAPTER 5 Landscape Ideas

CHAPTER 6 Still-Life Ideas

CHAPTER 7 Figurative Ideas

CHAPTER 8 Creative Concepts

CHAPTER 9 Innovative Materials

CHAPTER 10 The Serious Series

CHAPTER 11 Developing a Signature Style

CHAPTER 12 Painterly Advice

Appendix

About the Author

Preface

This book is about painting ideas, not painting techniques. Any idea can be interpreted in any medium.

It’s for anyone who has ever had a desire to paint but wasn’t sure what to paint. It’s for artists who feel painted into a rut, and for artists who are searching for their true and natural style. And it’s for painters who wish to explore and expand their ideas and visions. The possibilities are infinite, of course, and no book could ever mention them all.

But I invite you to take an idea that appeals to you and reinvent it in the way that’s uniquely yours.

Introduction

As an artist, it’s your job to offer the world a new experience—the visual interpretation of life that only you can provide.

Here’s a compendium of ideas for finding subject matter that resonates with you, for exploring your creative potential, and for arousing your artistic imagination.

Whether you work in oils, acrylics, pastels, watercolor, hot wax, or whatever it is that makes a mark, the concepts in Creative Approaches to Painting apply to you.

As you read through these pages, ideas of your own will flow through your mind. Adapt my concepts to fit with your natural way of seeing or use them as springboards for forming entirely new concepts.

You’ll find that some entries contain similar concepts with a differing twist. Others stand alone. For visual examples, I reference art movements or particular artists whose work you can find to view for inspiration.

Creative Approaches to Painting is packed with artistic advice and encouragement. It has tips for naming paintings and for keeping the creative spark burning. Think of it as a tool for discovering your passion and developing your visual voice.

The Art Parts

Part 1, Identify What Inspires You, is a tour through the landscapes of our outer and inner worlds. It points out many of the signposts from which you can draw your own inspiration and potential subjects to paint. Ideas and inspirations are organized into categories to help you identify what truly calls to the artist in you.

Part 2, Gather Your Inspiration, offers ways to help you keep a fresh approach to your work, plus guidelines for creating and maintaining both a journal and a reference file tailored to your needs.

Part 3 contains Creative Approaches to Painting. Read these whether they’re listed in your favorite subject area or not, because ideas that appear in one chapter will apply to others as well. The entries are open-ended and allow for adaptations. With art, anything can work in as many ways as there are artists—and then some!

Make this book your own. Write in the margins, tag the pages, highlight the entries, and make notes on the pages designated for jotting down your own ideas.

Finally, in the Appendix is an article about naming your art, along with a Glossary. The Resources section of the Appendix lists useful books, artists, styles, and art supplies.

Let an idea point you in a direction. Then take off on your creative path . . . and leave a painted trail.

PART 1

Identify What Inspires You

THE WAY to make art is to move in the direction of the greatest pleasure and excitement.

—JERRY FRESIA

CHAPTER 1

What Should You Paint?

No particular subject matter is more valid than any other. It’s your love of the subject that makes it wonderful and worthy of your artistic expression. That which moves an artist to paint varies with each artist, of course, and often varies with each artist’s artwork as well. Our motivations are complex elixirs of visual attraction, emotions, thoughts and beliefs, cultural influences, experiences, and a host of other factors.

It’s important to know your personal preferences and natural artistic tendencies for choosing subject matter that will sustain your interest and support your personal expression. Consider the following categories to discover if any resonate with the artist in you. Use them as a guide to hone in on your artistic zone. You may need to try various approaches to painting as you learn more about your true artistic self.

Inspired by the Outer World

All you can see around you, from a breathtaking view of the Grand Canyon to an exquisite little ladybug in your garden, offers infinite possibilities for paintings.

Artists who paint tangible subject matter (what you can see and feel) derive their inspiration from the world outside themselves. Such painters work in a range of styles, from photorealistic portrayals to highly abstracted interpretations. Regardless of style, artists who are inspired to depict subjects others can recognize are called representational artists; their artwork represents what exists in our physical world.

Representational subjects fit into three broad categories:

Places—Landscapes: Landscape themes include all outdoor scenes, seascapes, cityscapes, ancient ruins, building structures, interiors, large inanimate objects in outdoor settings, flowers, trees, rocks, skies, astronomical imagery, and all representations of places and spaces on earth, water, or sky.

Things—Still-life Subjects: Still-life themes include man-made or inanimate objects, or small confined creatures such as birds in cages or fish in tanks. Anything that can be set up on a table or arranged in your studio (or elsewhere) is a fine still-life subject. Man-made objects like dishes, tools, and cowboy boots or natural items like rocks, flowers, and fruit fit the category. If it sits on a table, if it’s indoors, or if it can’t leave its place, it can be a still-life prop.

Figures—Human and Animal Subjects: Figurative themes include portraits, posed figures, nudes, costumed figures, and people in motion, such as dance, labor, and sports. Subjects include animals in natural surroundings, pets, and microscopic life.

Inspired by Your Inner World

Artists who paint the intangible (what is not visible to others) derive inspiration from their internal visions, ideas, beliefs, and emotions. Such painters work in a range of styles, using recognizable forms as metaphors, things that don’t exist in our physical world, portraying and using imagery solely from their inner eye. Regardless of style, such artists are called nonobjective or nonrepresentational artists; their artwork does not represent that which exists in the physical world and is visible to others. Rather, their artwork depicts the artists’ imagination, thoughts, and feelings about the world.

Subjects that nonrepresentational artists paint fall into myriad categories. Here are a few:

Beliefs: Your beliefs are your personal truths, opinions, worldviews, ideology, and strongly held convictions about life and beyond. Belief is associated with spiritual faith as well. Jessica LaPrade philosophizes, Artists are messengers of great responsibility. The artists of our age are the nomads with the guided path to the future.

Let your brushstrokes flow intuitively until shapes, colors, and abstracted inner imagery emerge as symbolic expressions of your belief system. Or use visual metaphors and symbols to portray your beliefs. Create artwork that others will contemplate.

Dreams: Dreams are an endless well of creative inspiration for artists. Dream art is any form of art directly based on content from one’s dreams or that relies on dream-like imagery. Paintings inspired by dreams illuminate the intangible.

References to dreams in art are as old as art itself. Either consciously or not, painters of dreams employ visual metaphors, symbolic imagery, and surrealist and expressionist techniques in their work.

Some artists use psychic energy derived from their dreams to express powerful emotions while others explore the true meaning of their dreams through art. Although each artist’s dreams are intensely personal, they can touch us all because of their universality—our shared human emotions.

Emotions: Emotions play a significant role in artmaking, whether consciously or not. Color choices, the directions of lines, the arrangements of shapes, textural effects, and more reflect emotion. Red, for example, can elicit love, excitement, or anger. You can portray your feelings about any subject or idea through the way you use the elements of art.

The energy you use in the physical act of painting expresses your emotions. For example, smooth blends display serenity, forceful dabs of paint show strong energy, and jagged brushstrokes reveal unrest. Allow your emotions to direct your application of paint.

Fantasy: Fantasy art refers to art that depicts images that are recognizable but don’t exist in our natural world.

Such images are derived from the artist’s imagination. The themes often include science fiction, mythology, mythological beings, mysticism, folklore, magic, spiritual themes, spirit beings, imaginary lands, speculative explanations of the universe, invented creatures, anthropomorphic objects, and a multitude of subjects from the artist’s inner eye. Fantasy artists are sometimes called visionary artists.

Realistically rendered imagery can mingle with abstract expressionistic techniques. Intangible ideas can be depicted along with representations of tangible things. Some artists create abstract expressionist works, then find imagery within the paintings to bring into view. Other artists will carefully plan a fantasy concept first, then express it in paint.

Humor: Humor is often used by artists to challenge public opinion about art and life. Humorous metaphors, wit, whimsy, parody, satire, stylish cartoons, visual puns, absurd portrayals, and silly nonsense have welcome places in art that’s made just for fun—and also in art that appears to be fun. As the proverb goes, Many a truth is told in jest.

Nonobjective Themes: Nonobjective art depicts things that do not represent people, places, or things in our natural world. The invisible is made visible. Nonobjective artists manipulate the elements of art in a broad range of styles to express intangible ideas such as beliefs, thoughts, and feelings.

Patterns and Decorative Imagery : A pattern is the repetition of specific visual elements or motifs. Every culture and era has a distinct set of patterns and repeated motifs. Patterns are used to decorate, tell stories, create moods, and reference history.

Many artists develop their own sets of patterns that occur in their artworks, sometimes subconsciously. They’re created by specific brushstrokes throughout a painting, the repetition of shapes, and applied surface designs. Patterns draw attention and can move a viewer’s eye through a composition. Paintings that rely on patterns can be as visually exciting as