When I talk to artists, at parties especially, one of the main conversation topics that come up is about an artist not producing enough art. I hear, “No, not really getting much done!” “Why?,” I ask, and I hear various answers, many of them valid, from work to money problems to health issues to lack of inspiration to time constraints.
Now, as I just said, these are valid problems. But often one hears the same artists saying the same things a year or two later. No doubt our life problems do not disappear and so we still have to deal with them. But there is hope!
I have some suggestions, not rules, that may be helpful. I am prolific. I am, in fact, very prolific. Professor Dennis Corrigan recently wrote that he thinks I am possibly one of the most prolific artists in history. Sounds arrogant or insane, right? I don’t think it’s arrogant, because I have done it. This is why my suggestions might hold some water.
Picasso is considered to be the most prolific modern artist with around 50,000 works, and Paul Klee is thought to be the third most prolific with around 9,000. I don’t know who the second most prolific is thought to be. I have created about 50,000 works I am not ashamed of, but not are all great works, of course.
They are very fast works that I then go back and recombine into collages and in other ways on the computer. Without the computer I wouldn’t have done this many. However, I did do 2,000 paintings and more than 35,000 actual hand drawings that many artists and teachers have witnessed.
Now, one must compare apples to apples, and I am not comparing myself to Picasso directly, but we both worked similarly — I have seen films of him working.
Does being the most prolific make one the “best” artists in history or at present? Definitely not!
Vermeer and Wols only did 40-some paintings, and both in their own types of work are at the very top of the greatest artists list. But don’t we wish that Vermeer had done more and saved his sketches?
However, I am thought to be a pretty good artist, and I do think that working this fast and continuously has made me a better artist and a more creative artist. You can check out my Web site and make up your own mind.
But now that I have your attention and maybe even your trust, at least on this one issue of how to become more prolific, I will just put forth my suggestions. They are not rules and are definitely made to be broken. But if at least half doesn’t ring true to you, I’m willing to bet that you are not in fact a prolific artist.
Not in any order of importance:
1. Pray or meditate or just center yourself before working.
2. Art is an expression of soul, even if you do realistic work. We don’t need another photographic painting of a flower — God made plenty of them. But the art world does need your expression of a flower! You can work faster, I believe, if you think expressionistically, even if you are a realist. I am not one but greatly admire such work.
3. Art is fun — it’s not work! OK, I exaggerate, it is work, too, but it must be fun or not worth it probably, and probably not that good of work if done in that spirit. So work at play and play at work!
4. Work often and regularly. Take breaks for long working periods, and don’t let every problem in the world stop you. You still watch TV, don’t you, when things are tough? De Kooning used to draw almost every night in his later years while watching television, sometimes not even looking down at the paper. Try it sometime.
5. Work at more than one type of art at one time and on more than one example of a type of work at once. Work on four paintings at once. Do a background while touching up some details on another. Look at all the different types of work that Picasso did — sometimes he even hid his work like his sculpture for decades. He didn’t want to confuse people, I think.
6. Work fast at times at least! Sometimes really fast. And don’t judge yourself all the time and don’t throw work out — maybe five years later. You’d be surprised at how much of the stuff you’d throw out is your best work.
7. Experiment. If you always paint expressionistically, try realism, and vice versa! Maybe it will still suck as a realistic painting but be a unique and different — for you — type of expressionistic painting.
8. Screw the whole body of work and “signature” style limitation thing! Sort it out later into great and lively bodies of work, maybe have four or more signatures ala Picasso.
9. Take classes and seminars and share your work with professors and teachers and artist friends.
10. Listening to music, or lighting a candle and incense, or having a coffee or tea, or a glass or two of wine — if you don’t abuse it! — can keep you going or keep you company even. I do different types of work while listening to Bach or The Beatles or Green Day or Miles Davis. Some people say that they love working in silence, and I do that too, but if you’re going to try to work 14 hours like I have some days, then some music can revive ones creative spirit. A lot can be done in just an hour or even less but continuously. I think about an hour and a half is great.
11. Look at books and magazines and movies and TV shows on art and on other stuff too — it’s all grist for the mill. Get a stack of art books at random — not just your favorites — and in a minute or so, draw everything you see that you like. You might be surprised the next day how good some of it is and how different it looks from your usual work. Netflix is awesome for art documentaries. For a first, try the three-disc “Art City.”
12. Compete with yourself. Make it a game. Do series of works — do a painting a week, a day, an hour, in five minutes, I’ve done it all. You can throw the bad stuff out five years later — just try it!
13. Enter contests, send your work out to reviewers — to me, even — and have shows!
14. Get response from others regularly, but get largely supportive response and only a few times a year ask the tough critic — he or she might be right but probably isn’t an artist themselves or very prolific themselves. All art is not equally good, but all artists are deserving of respect and support, and all are capable of getting better with a little help.
My suggestion for you to try is to do what I have done just for a week. Buy some cardstock — Walmart has some nice ones — and get some 7, 8, 9B pencils (or what works for you, but to work fast soft is better, I think; I like Derwents from England, the thinner ones with the orange stripes.) Also a bunch of Sharpies — all three sizes.
Then get that stack of books and let her go — really let lose. One drawing a minute, one, two, 300 drawings a night, for a week or so. Just try it. Many artists tell me that they do draw fast sometimes, but I don’t think that they draw this fast. A local art teacher who supports my work told me that I have “some kind of wild line.” Well, I didn’t have that kind of wild line for the first year or so, I believe. I have a strong “gesture now,” and I do work fast.
I’m trying something different of late, though — working slower, at least for me slower. Maybe only 25 drawings a night!
I hope my comments help and don’t offend anyone. I didn’t go to art school and learned this way on my own. But I think that if you adapt some of these ideas to your own creative nature that you will become a more prolific artist.
Try it. What do you have to lose except a lot of art — some of it maybe great art?
w
Send Woods your artwork, two-three at a time only, as well as arts event information, to sp1noza@ezaccess.net. He will try to put some of this work in his column where he can.
