I'm going to paint

I really don't have an artistic bone in my body. I SO envy anyone who can take a blank canvas and create art. I can't draw a picture of a dog that a 5 year old could recognize. In spite of all that I've decided that I am going to spend some cash at an art store and get some paints, brushes and a canvas or two...or ten. I have a cabin in the mountains where I'm going to do this dastardly deed and the result will remain there ... forever. Just gotta do it.

 

Do it. Then hide it or burn it.

 

I had a similar thought recently. Probably would not go too far, but you never know until you try.

 

Not trying to stop the hot dialog on this thread, but here's an update. Bought paints, canvas, brushes and other tools and have been scouring the internet to learn about what I do to get started. Whoa, there is a lot to learn. Going to do it though. Just returned from a trip to the cabin in the mountains and it now set up as a studio. Now I've got to figure out a studio at home. And maybe I'll even paint something. I think I'll need a model.

 

You can paint "man being strangled by woman". Lure the_jazz with some kind of excuse and offer ZombieSquirrel a mini-vacation at a rustic cabin with an added bonus.

 

Believe it or not, there are other men I'd rather strangle than the_jazz. Manlier men with not so scrawny, wimpy necks.

 

After living my life telling myself (and others) that I have no artistic ability, I will spend the rest of my life being an artist...

 

wow! just paint the love.....

 

Ashland, don't listen to that inner voice. Just start putting some paint to canvas and don't stop. I am totally jealous.

 

I have done it and I love it. Learning each more with each piece I do. Most fun I've had in a long time. Finished one last night and hope to do another tonight.

Wasted a lot of years admiring what artists do and believing I couldn't do it. When I made the decision to just do it, it changed the rest of my life.

 

You know, a lot of people will just snatch up old useless hard cover books, take them apart and use the covers as canvases. Just a suggestion for something cheap to practice on. There are always some thrift stores somewhere selling useless outdated books to practice on. Heck, I have even seen some artists on ebay selling their practice(book cover) art. If you don't like your work, paint over it and try again.

 

The key is not to paint anything recognizable. Successful artists have been doing it for years. No reason the rest of us can't get in on the action.

No horses, dogs, faces or bodies. Go for the abstract. Raw emotion in a childlike display of color. When you're dead, they'll claim you were an undiscovered genius.

 

There's the Jackson Pollock method. Lean large canvas against the wall. Drink to excess. Throw paint at canvas.

Instant art.

 

That would probably be my method as well.

 

Well Craven Morehead it is my method of painting, but the canvas's are much smaller.
Add some mediation music and I'm on my way.

 

Can you post some samples of your work, Freetofly ?

 

I recommend using an easel.

My art teacher always got on us for sitting down. You have to be able to stand back and get close and then stand back and see the big picture again.

There's also the grid method when you have problems learning proportion. I always drew hands out of proportion for some reason.

Don't look at the object as whatever it is, but look at the lines that make it up. I don't really mean the symbols, I mean where the individual lines are. That probably doesn't make sense.....

 

It makes perfect sense. Don't see a person (or whatever you are drawing); see lines and angles and ellipses and negative spaces.

 

makes sense to me too.

i came first in my school for my artworks, but sadly its fallen to the wayside in the last decade or two.

Totally envious of being able to chillax with a canvas and nothing else.