Artrists are funny people!

Artists are funny people! Well, I think we are. You may ask, funny peculiar or funny ha-ha, do I mean? Well, perhaps I mean that a lot of us don’t take ourselves as seriously as the “tortured artist” saying would have you believe. I base this on having quite a few fun people in my collection of artist friends. We laugh a lot at ourselves, each other, and our successes and failures. 

Most definitely for me the process of making my art into a business is a very serious endeavour. However, there is also a lot of joy in the creative process. We are taught that to study a scene or a still life before you paint you should squint to blur the subject. This simplifies what you are looking at and reduces the clutter so that you can more easily see the shapes and tonal values. But can you imagine what a class of painters looks like when all pulling ridiculous squinty faces at the same time? It reduces me to belly laughs every time. 

Sometimes artists can be perceived as nonconformists who embrace individuality and unconventional ideas. Perhaps that is true to an extent, and it can make some of us a bit quirky. I feel very blessed to have a bunch of like-minded people to paint with. They laugh if I dip my paintbrush into my tea or wine instead of the water jar, if I have a mishap of splattered paint where it shouldn’t be or if they see me with paint all over my face that I am unaware I have smudged everywhere.  

I think there should be a balance of seriousness and fun in art. The serious times lead to skill development, while playfulness leads to satisfaction in creativity. 

Have a joyful day in whatever you do today.