Setting Limits

The question of "What shall I paint?" has arisen so many times in my life I can't even count them. Sitting down to a blank piece of paper with paints, time and no constraints can be an overwhelming event.  I suspect the same holds true for writers and composers.  For example, sometimes, trying to paint in the great outdoors, I have driven around and around for hours looking for just the right subject and never made a brush stroke. I couldn't narrow down all that I saw and get to work.  I've learned that having no limits or goals can derail a creative person completely.

The assignment for this was a narrative of my life in shoes with crayon.  Although I hated it at the time, I learned huge lessons from this kind of work.

Several years ago, while attending college at Santa Fe Community College I took a color drawing class.  The teacher gave us assignments that nearly blew my mind. Things like: "Draw this knotted rope and vacuum hose in color 12 times, each time zeroing in more and more on the same part."  Or, "Use shoes as a narrative of your life with crayons on a 22" x 30" sheet of paper."  (I hated the class at the time)  Surprisingly, by the end of the semester I was drawing better than I ever had before.  I found I was more creative and generating more ideas.  I had begun to 'get' the good limits can do for me and my art.  That is probably the most valuable thing I learned in my years at college.

The first piece I imposed a limited palette on myself for- using only Pthalo Blue, Lemon Yellow and Madder Lake Deep.  

How can we use limits to our advantage?  Can narrow goals actually help move us out of a block and into productive time?  I believe so. Here are some ways I utilize limits regularly to keep me working and growing.  Maybe you already use some of these.

• Set a time limit.  I tell myself, "you have to crank something out in 30 seconds," or two days or whatever.  
• Choose one, two or three colors and only use them.  A limited palette is a hugely liberating tool and it makes more harmonious paintings.  Once I started using limited palettes, my work improved immediately.  
• Research compositional devices and choose one.  Compose your subject using that style.  
• Enlarge the subject as big as the surface will allow. Turn the drawing upside down and work that way; anything to change the way you see familiar things.  
• Use the same thing for a subject over and over again.  When we explore an idea repeatedly, we actually begin to see just how much we can do with that one thing.  Look at the paintings of Vermeer.  He turned out wonderful art in the same room with the same props for years.  Creating in a series is a profound and vision changing way to work within limits.  I promise!  

I keep saying I'm through with cacti, but another idea will pop into my brain and I'm off again.  They may stick around demanding to be painted the rest of my life, who knows?  What I do know is this- the more I use limitations in my work, the more I recognize them in the work of master painters.  This is, I believe, the way to reaching my potential as an artist.  The more narrow my focus becomes, the wider my abilities grow.  And isn't that the point of the whole thing?  

Thanks for stopping by!  Alice