4 Art Play Tips to Make Strong Art

4 Art Play Tips to make strong art starts with sitting with the object, the scene, or the image for awhile. Making a cloud or water from ‘Thinking Mind’ is nothing compared to seeing it with ‘Artist’s Mind’. See as an artist sees. How does it move? If you can get your body moving in sync with it when you paint, your art will be magical! Body gets into the rhythm of the object, the nature, soul, and beauty of its essence. Take photos of it. Gaze at it. Give it time so you feel into it and your body ‘gets’ it. This alone will flood you with ideas, inspiration, and sudden motivation that fills and restores your focus.

Secondly, to make Art Play, consider your media. If you feel pressure to make a masterpiece with every canvas you use, then switch to paper. Paper is forgiving. Art Play is experimenting, taking risks, seeing what happens. On Paper, you can play easily as you mix colors, try new brands, and blend it all together.

The above painting was done in my good art media sketchbook. I wanted to capture the flowing colors of water in some organic shapes, with no real objects in mind.

The one problem with this is that you may actually make a masterpiece that you wish were on canvas! I’ve done this twice. But I had each printed on wrap around canvas and they turned out great.

Thirdly, make deliberate strokes. Once you really ‘feel’ the water, trees, flowers, or land, then make your marks with confidence, style, and bold color. It will show in your work. Plus, people will feel the essence of the thing. Let your lines and colors flow pure and strong.

Lastly, the 4th art play tip to try is to stick to a limited palette of about 3 colors. Mix in white and something dark like Prussian blue or Payne’s grey for different tones. As a result, mixing colors to create your own unique tones creates harmony in a painting. Everything works together. Another idea is to use burnt sienna, a unique brown, adding just a dot to a color, to make it deeper, richer, and more vibrant.

So experiment with these 4 art play tips and let me know how they work for you. Take a step back from your usual process and try something different to be more aware of each step of the process. Do this in all aspects of our new normal life. Be aware, be conscious of each choice. Check out our offerings at the Dragonfly Art Program for free stuff, videos, and encouragement along the way. Art is made to be played, enjoyed, and expanded. Join us today.