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Hi,
These topics are fun because they are so abstract. An artist friend of mine always advised "learn craft first and the art will come". It would be frustrating to have the soul of an artist, which most of you probably have in some fashion, but not the means to express it. This is where craft comes in and "talent" is really no more than the ability to learn "skill". Skills can be learned with practice and persistence and a "talented" person might just have the ability to acquire a skill faster and more completely. Once you have skills, you can express the artistic ideas in your brain. But there is at least one more step, learning how to "see" rather than merely "observe". Everyone observes from birth but it takes time and training to see. Seeing is identifying patterns, color, texture, and shape and placing them into a context that has meaning and/or emotion. Seeing is learned but some have "talent" and learn faster and more completely. For example, I do several demos on gun building at Dixon's and one demo is forming the wrist and lock panels. I shape the wrist and lock panel of a still squared stock blank to almost finished shape in 20 minutes using only a pattern maker's rasp. I do this quickly and deliberately because I can "see" the proper shapes and contours in my mind and on the wood. One gentleman saw my demo one year and then brought me a rifle he built at the next year's fair. He made all the classic errors of design usually expressed by new gun builders, not because he hadn't learned from me how to use his tools but he still did not "see" how the curves of the stock at the wrist and lock panels blend and connect to make a pleasing and elegant gun. In time, he will, particularly if he examines the good work of others who know what they are doing. This brings me to my final point. You can learn to see by examining the work of others and copying that work. There is no shame in copying and you may learn much faster. There is a reason why budding painters sit for hours in museums copying the work of masters. There are a few true artistic geniuses who create new things but most artists have acquired a library in their brains of designs and images inspired by others. They create "their" art by mining that library and simply rearranging the "furniture" so to speak. For most of us, the artistic process really is not all that mysterious.
dave
These topics are fun because they are so abstract. An artist friend of mine always advised "learn craft first and the art will come". It would be frustrating to have the soul of an artist, which most of you probably have in some fashion, but not the means to express it. This is where craft comes in and "talent" is really no more than the ability to learn "skill". Skills can be learned with practice and persistence and a "talented" person might just have the ability to acquire a skill faster and more completely. Once you have skills, you can express the artistic ideas in your brain. But there is at least one more step, learning how to "see" rather than merely "observe". Everyone observes from birth but it takes time and training to see. Seeing is identifying patterns, color, texture, and shape and placing them into a context that has meaning and/or emotion. Seeing is learned but some have "talent" and learn faster and more completely. For example, I do several demos on gun building at Dixon's and one demo is forming the wrist and lock panels. I shape the wrist and lock panel of a still squared stock blank to almost finished shape in 20 minutes using only a pattern maker's rasp. I do this quickly and deliberately because I can "see" the proper shapes and contours in my mind and on the wood. One gentleman saw my demo one year and then brought me a rifle he built at the next year's fair. He made all the classic errors of design usually expressed by new gun builders, not because he hadn't learned from me how to use his tools but he still did not "see" how the curves of the stock at the wrist and lock panels blend and connect to make a pleasing and elegant gun. In time, he will, particularly if he examines the good work of others who know what they are doing. This brings me to my final point. You can learn to see by examining the work of others and copying that work. There is no shame in copying and you may learn much faster. There is a reason why budding painters sit for hours in museums copying the work of masters. There are a few true artistic geniuses who create new things but most artists have acquired a library in their brains of designs and images inspired by others. They create "their" art by mining that library and simply rearranging the "furniture" so to speak. For most of us, the artistic process really is not all that mysterious.
dave
) end up with a thing folks look at and say "what is it?". That visual skill is just not part of me.
