Turn a Good Painting Idea Into a Great One

I often get a good idea for my paintings, rush to start, and before I know it I am up to my eyeballs in problems that I could have avoided had I worked with my idea a bit.

There are several things to do before you begin painting that will help you to: 

• clarify your idea 

• identify problems before they arise

• and turn a good painting idea into a great one!

Our first ideas are not usually our best ones. A good idea is better than no idea, but it is usually only the beginning of a great idea.  A good idea needs some work before it can become a good painting.

(I have recently written about how to find good ideas for your paintings. You can read that series by clicking on these links: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.)

Transform your idea with thumbnail sketches.
Thumbnails are small, quick drawings that help develop the initial idea by examining important compositional elements like format (the size and shape of your paper or canvas), viewpoint (where you position yourself and how much you decide to see) and focal point.

The thumbnails help you to build on your initial idea, to develop it, and sometimes to grow several painting ideas from the first one.

To demonstrate, I have started here with onions in a bowl. It's a simple idea, but after doing some thumbnails, I realise that there are many ways that I can approach the subject matter, and many possible paintings that I could work on.

By playing with the format, viewpoint and focal points, I can see which composition may work best for a painting.

Transform your idea with a viewfinder
A viewfinder will block out visual distractions and focus your attention on the subject matter.  It is useful for visualising how the subject will fill the format and help you to come up with a strong composition.

A viewfinder can be paper or card with a rectangle cut out, (an empty slide mount also works well, particularly out in the field.)  I find it useful to cut my viewfinder into two "L" pieces, so that I can change the size and shape of the 'window' I am looking through.

Here is my set up.  I have placed my bowl of onions in a box to remove any background distractions.

Notice my viewfinders on top of my sketchbook.

Here I am using my viewfinders to explore composition and cropping.

There is a really nifty viewfinder that you can purchase at Artwork Essentials, if you don't fancy making your own!

Transform your idea with photographs

Use your camera to take photographs of your subject matter. This is a quick and easy way to experiment with different viewpoints and compositions. The camera has its own built in viewfinder.

Here is a sample of the many photos that I took of my bowl of onions.

Transform your idea with lighting

I have set up my angle-poise lamp and tried lighting my onions from different angles. Lighting can transform the shadows, highlight or details or bleach them out, and radically change the mood of a painting.

Transform you idea by looking at other paintings
Click here to see Van Gogh's painting of onions, Cezanne's onions, or Matisse's onions.

Here are many other onion paintings.

To see some fabulous onion paintings, go to Carol Marine's Painting a Day blog. I also watched the video of her painting the cups and apple - loved it!

Transform your idea in other ways
There are many other ways to turn your good idea into a great one.  You can change the colour, introduce texture, work in different mediums, but I think I have given you enough to think about for one day!

I Have a Good Idea!

So... I have trawled through my sketchbooks, looked carefully at the work of artists I admire, looked at nature and the world around me and searched my inner thoughts and feelings.  I have paged through my Picture Notebook, and my Trash Can Journal, and I have finally come up with a good idea for my painting. Clever me - can't wait to get the paints out and get going...

This is precisely how most of my paintings start - I look a bit, think a bit, get a good idea and before you can say "Leonardo Da Vinci", I have the basic design mapped out on my canvas, all my equipment set out and I'm up to my eyeballs in paint.

Let me tell you what happens next....

I paint with great gusto for 25 minutes

I stop to make a coffee

I prop the work up on my easel and stare at it while I drink my coffee

I wonder about the placement of one of the figures in the picture

I paint that figure for 10 minutes

I paint around that figure for 10 minutes

I go to the kitchen to make a sandwich

I eat my sandwich staring at the painting I have done so far

I take my plate back to the kitchen

I notice that there are dishes in the sink, I wash them

I go back to my easel and paint a bit of the background of my picture

I paint for another two minutes trying not to think 

I stand back and have a little think

I paint a bit more of the background

I worry that the background is not right for the figures

I rinse out the brush I was using

I clean three other brushes while I am at it...and my palette knife

I wipe my palette a bit

I take a deep breath and make myself paint for another 25 minutes

I can't resolve the background

I quickly wipe off the background (I am working in oils here)

I wipe off the figure that was worrying me earlier too

I feel much better

I wipe off another few centimetres of another section of the painting

I paint over everything for 45 minutes

I stop to make a coffee

I prop the painting up on my easel to stare at while I drink my coffee

I wipe off the whole picture

I take my cup back to the sink

I feel much worse

I wash my cup

I look at my watch and realise that I need to fetch my daughter from school

I dash off to school

6 hours later, when everyone is in bed, I clean up my paints and palette

I carefully wash my brushes, first with turps, then with soap and water and put them away

I put the canvas away and my easel

I take out my old sketchbooks, and my Trash Can journal, I open my Picture Notebooks 

I start looking through them

Looking for...a NEW idea

Wait a minute...

I had a good idea.  I liked my idea, it excited me, it had me running to my easel.  I could imagine it as a painting.  What happened?

What happened is this: I did not check to see if my good idea was a great idea. I did not go through any of the steps that I need to go through before I start to paint. I did not work on my good idea. Of course it could have been much worse. I could have been painting for several weeks before I wiped it all off. It would not have been the first time.

So...if you have a good idea like me, here is the very first thing you need to do before you start painting:

Do Nothing!

Live with your idea for a few days.

And when you have done that.  I will tell you what you have to do next to turn your good painting idea into a great one!

Find Great Ideas For Your Paintings - Day 3

This is the third day in the series on ideas, scratching around in our lives to find those sparks that get us working.
 
On Day 1, we considered our own art work and our sketchbooks in particular, as a possible source of ideas.
On Day 2, we looked at how the work of other artists can help us generate ideas for our own work.

Each of us has a unique approach to finding ideas and turning those ideas into paintings, drawings, sculptures or other creative works. There is no magic formula, ideas come from everywhere. As creative people, we need to be ready to jot down any new idea that comes to us by having a notebook or sketchbook on hand. 

Be intuitive – when something feels right – when it feels like a good idea – it probably is. Make a note, take a photo, do a quick thumbnail - don't let it go.

Ideas come from the world around us

There are as many ideas as there are things to look at. Artists are inspired by things that they see in the world around them.

Nature: landscapes, plants, stones, bones, seeds, shells, seascapes.
Countless artists look to nature for ideas like Constable, Turner, and Monet.

People: faces, groups, relationships, old people, children. Chuck Close, Lucien Freud, Ron Meurck, Carravagio,  Rubens, Adolphe-William Bouguereau, Henry Moore all have people as their subject matter.

Animals: ideas for paintings can come from wild animals, pets, farm animals, insects, fish, etc.
The Lascaux Cave paintings, Rosa Bonheur and George Stubbs are examples.

Objects: still life groupings, fruit, food, bottles, cups, cakes, flowers. Wayne Thiebaud, Cezanne, Juan Sanchez Cotan, Audrey Flack, are artists who have grouped objects to paint.

Man-made objects: buildings, interiors, mechanical objects, gadgets, clothes, jewellery, cars and vehicles Richard Estes, Claes Oldenburg, are examples.

Ideas come from our interior world


Our thoughts, feelings and emotions, intellectual ideas, imagination and sometimes moods are a rich source of ideas and subject matter.

Artist who look inside of themselves for ideas, include Heironymus Bosch, Paul Klee, the Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, Surrealists like Max Ernst and Salvador Dali, (who described his paintings as “hand painted dream photographs”), William Blake, Arthur Boyd, Wassily Kandinsky, to name just a few.

Ideas are everywhere - cultivate an open mind alert to the possibility of ideas in all environments and situations. 

4 Foolproof ways to capture that idea

1. Make a note.  Write down everything that comes to you as you think of it.  Be as detailed as the situation allows.  If you are too brief or cryptic, it may not jog your memory as you hoped when you come back to it in a few days.  Make your note legible!

2. Take a photo.  Take photos of the things that excite you visually when you are out and about. The photos may not become paintings, but they may give you ideas for backgrounds, moods, colours or compositions.

3. Do a quick thumbnail sketch. A tiny sketch should be sufficient, but if you are worried about details, take notes too.

4. Collect things. Postcards, pictures, clippings, ticket stubs, coins, stones, feathers, shells, bottle tops, cash slips, coasters, etc, can all become ideas for work or can be incorporated into the work.  They are also great reminders of mood, conversations and places.

“Ideas come when we do not expect them, and not when we are brooding and searching at our desks. Yet ideas would certainly not come to mind had we not brooded at our desks and searched for answers with passionate devotion."

Max Weber

Find Great Ideas For Your Paintings - Day 2

This is the second in the series where we find great ideas that get us hopping out of bed in the morning, eager to get painting.

On Day 1, we looked at our own sketchbooks as a possible source of ideas.  Looking at our own art work sparks new trains of thought, so does looking at the work of other artists.

Look at the work of other artists

This is a no brainer. Looking at art inspires us to make art! But don’t look passively, do an active search for clues. You may want have a notebook ready to catch those ideas as they come to you. It's always best to look at a painting in real life, but books and pictures or a Google image search will do.

Here are 5 ways to look at the work of other artists when you need ideas for your own.

1. Look at work that you really like: Figure out what it is that you like so much about the work. Is it the subject matter? The technique? The mood or feeling of the work? The use of colour? Try and answer this sentence: I like the work of (insert name of favourite artist) because … When you are able to articulate exactly what it is about the work that excites you, see if you can come up with ways to incorporate that into your own work. Artists have always looked to other artists for inspiration, but don’t be derivative. Looking and admiring does not mean copying.

2. Look at work that you really don’t like: This is less obvious than the first point. Find something that you really don’t like and figure out what it is that repels you. Ask yourself, how could I make this work better, what about it needs changing, can I use what I don’t like about this work to come up with some work of my own. Write down your answers! We are on a fact finding mission!

3. Find out something about the working process of an artist you admire: Some artists have interesting creative habits. Do your favourite artists have routines that help them to generate interesting ideas? Can you take some aspects of these routines and incorporate them into your own?

4. Read up about your artists’ working methods: Artists are often inspired by their materials and working process, can you find out more about those of the artists you admire? I will be elaborating on this as an excellent way to get good ideas later in this series.

5. Collect postcards, clippings and pictures of art work and stick it in your Trash Can Journal.


Now write down 10 painting ideas that have come to you from looking at the work of other artists. Don’t stop until you have 10. Some of these you may be able to work on right away, some may need a bit of incubation, and some you may never use.

'When truly creative people come up with a new idea, they do not reject it immediately because of its flaws. They play with it, looking for strengths and sliding over weaknesses." Dr David Campbell

Click here to go to: Find Great Ideas For Your Paintings Day 3