It Must Be Meaningful to YOU: Mark Mehaffey on Learning and Goal Setting
This is part of the end of year advice series. Guests from the show offer suggestions on how to use an hour a day to get better at painting and share some of their own goals (and how they set them) for the year ahead.
Watermedia artist Mark Mehaffey works across what he calls his compartments. You may find the artist painting plein air (acrylics or watercolor) or working through a mixed media non objective studio piece just to name a few.
On an Hour a Day:
If a student (and we are all or should be students/lifelong learners) had (just) an hour a day to commit to art what would I advise? and Why?
The first thing I'd advise is a deep soul searching about the concepts and content that is important to YOU. It is always a good time to stop doing what you think others expect (or that might sell) and start doing what you REALLY want to do.
“Honestly, the new year comes and goes. My goals are always the same....make the next painting a bit better and more meaningful than the last one.” - Mark Mehaffey
The risk is that you will narrow your audience. But if the work you are doing is meaningful to YOU, then others (maybe not a wide audience depending) will also love it. Be honest about what you do and why. This will show in what you produce.
If you work in a representational way, then spend an hour everyday drawing. Drawing (representing our three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface) is a LEARNED activity. The more you do it, the better you get. It becomes a matter of training your hand and eye (minds eye really) to work together. Learn to see shapes instead of things. Learn to link shapes and manipulate them to your purpose. Practice. Draw everything, especially what is important to YOU.
Setting Art Goals:
Honestly, the new year comes and goes. My goals are always the same....make the next painting a bit better and more meaningful than the last one. Continue to paint those IDEAs that interest me. Let myself follow creative solutions to problems (both problems I give myself to solve and problems that arise) so that my studio practice is about being CREATIVE, not just productive.
Allow myself to follow tangents to work already in progress. Allow myself to get bored enough to get creative. Work, then work some more. And, although it seems a bit macabre...I shall paint and paint and paint, until I die. Hopefully it will be a long journey.
You can learn more about Mark Mehaffey at:
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