Looking at the work on "inspiring" artists often made me want to make my own, but I sometimes felt their work was so far beyond me that I'd never be able to create anything as good, and in the end, I'd feel depressed instead of inspired. Or if I was able to attempt to do something "as good", whatever I made would be a pale imitation of the work I loved so much.
But the need to create persisted inside me, an intense buzzy feeling, like static building up in a system that would reach my fingertips and *pfft!* go out. I'd look at my hands and wonder why they weren't capable of creating the work I saw in my head, which left me sad and frustrated.
Then one day I was looking at the work on an artist I admired very much, and for some reason, I saw it much more clearly than ever before. I saw all the layers. I saw the composition. I saw *why* it was beautiful to me. Maybe this happened because I'd been looking at so intensively for so long, but whatever the reason, it made that urge to create surge up again and I faced my usual fear: even if I could create something, it would just be a pale imitation of the work.
And then I had a kind of breakthrough. I realized that if the artist himself walked into the room and gave me a "kit" of his own materials, whatever I created couldn't help but be unique because it HAD to come through my hands and my eyes. I realized that even though I loved what he created, I did have a vision of my own. Turns out what I lacked was SKILL.
Well, I've been learning skills all my life ~ walking, talking, reading, writing, cooking, riding a bicycle ~ there was a time in my life when I didn't know how to do any of those things, but I learned how didn't I? Of course, I did. And I could learn whatever art skills I needed as well.
How do you learn skills? By doing things, of course. How do you know what to do? By looking at things you already think are beautiful and learning how to make those things. Yes ~ you copy!
There are dangers, of course. If you get "good" at copying, you might really love what you create, but there won't be much of your DNA in the final work. But there are rewards, too. You can figure out certain materials work together (or not). You can learn the subtle balances of composition ~ what "works for you" and what doesn't.
One of the first "successful" imitations I did was of a piece by Nick Bantock. Now, I wasn't working with exactly his materials, but I felt in the end that my piece captured some of what I loved about his work. Other people said it was beautiful, too. But it wasn't 100% me. I always felt a little guilty for taking credit for it since so much of what made it beautiful was "borrowed".
In future works, I would do a TON of research about the artist I was interested in, and look at LOTS of their artwork to try and figure out exactly WHAT it was in their work that generated creative energy in me.
Below a few pictures to illustrate my point. The first one is my take on Nick Bantock's A Chymical Wedding (which was the cover for his book Sabine's Notebook). I got much of it "right" and I do love it, but put it side by side with Nick's and a few things are obvious. For one thing, it's obvious I "copied", and secondly, you can see how far I still am from understanding how to use the materials in the way he does. In the second picture, I tried working in a similar style to Sophie Munns. I looked at about 30 of her paintings, realized that her work, which is inspired by seed pod shapes layered on top of one another. I started to play with layering circle shapes on top of each other in my own way, and the final result is very different from Sophie's in both content and composition ~ but I know how I got there, and I was much more successful in learning how to use the materials, and paying homage to Sophie's work *without* copying it.
But something even more magical had taken place ~ I was no longer afraid to work with new materials in a new way. That flow of energy what had once stopped at my fingertips was now making its way onto the page in meaningful ways. I was starting to learn about what kind of artist I was.
In case you're wondering, these two pieces are part of a whole book I did where I chose an inspiring artist, studied their work and then created my own new work combined with an equally inspiring quote. You can view the whole book, Today I Am Inspired By online at the Sketchbook Project as well as some other sketchbooks I created as part of their ever-expanding library.
Here are pages 1 through 3 of your handouts for this week, with more thoughts about imitation and inspiration. Page 3 is some information I found posted online by Adam J. Kurtz about the difference between Inspiration and Imitation that I thought you might like to read. You can also find Adam's information online over at Design Sponge.
Next up, I talk about watching for inspiration is unlikely places and show you what I did with it ...
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