Becoming a More Fluid Artist: The Practice of Making Many Starts

It is so easy for artists to become tight and lose a sense of fluidity in their work. This can be especially common for those who are more established in their art practice. As your work can become more “precious” and the fear of ruining it sets in over time. However, it is exactly this that keeps you from moving ahead in your development as an artist.

It is a fact that we learn more when we allow ourselves to create without the pressure of making something great. It is absolutely essential to allow ourselves to fail in order to learn. Otherwise, we stay put in the same level of ability.

Far too often, artists are paralyzed by trying to make their work beautiful or “look good”. Instead the focus should be on learning and growing – especially during the student/ learning phase. And the best way to go about this, is to deliberately make many starts in your art practice.

So, in this article we will look at how to make many starts in the medium of painting. However, the principals you will learn can be applied to whatever medium you work in. Let’s get started by taking a closer look at what it means to make many starts!

What it Means to Make Many Starts

Making a lot of starts means to not have the focus be on ‘finishing’ a painting. But rather to be entirely involved in the process of placing one color spot next to another and stopping when you tire of it. As Charles Hawthorne says in his book, Hawthorne On Painting – “If you get it into your head that you do not have to finish a thing then you will be able to stop while it is still right… instead of your trying to finish it and then ruining it.”

When you do lots of and lots of paintings in this manner you will learn an astounding amount. This will allow you to then move forward in your painting in a very serious way.

Moreover, these ‘starts’ don’t come with the pressure to make a ‘perfect painting’. Rather, they allow you to explore and really learn. Which in turn propels you forward instead of keeping you paralyzed.

The Freedom (and Results) of this Practice in Your Art

Authors David Bayles and Ted Orland from the book “Art and Fear” share a story about a professor at the University of Florida who divided his photography classroom into two groups. One side of the class was going to be graded solely on the amount of work they produced. So, if they produced 100 photographs they would receive an ‘A’, ninety photos a ‘B’ and so on…

Now on the other side of the classroom, was the quality group and they would be graded solely on how excellent their work was. They were required to only produce a single photograph, but would need to make a close to perfect photograph to receive an ‘A’.

The Results of the Students Who Made Many Starts

By the end of the term the professor was surprised to see that the best photos were from the quantity group, that was graded on how many photographs they produced. Which is very interesting as the quality groups focus was supposed to be on producing something of the highest standard.

The reason why they did so much better than the quality group is because the students were essentially making a lot of starts and deliberately practicing. They weren’t paralyzed by the pressure to make one perfect photograph. Rather they were let lose to really learn and engage with their craft. With each photograph they took they developed their skills more and more along the way.

How to Incorporate Making Many Starts into Your Painting Process

It is always helpful to see real life practical examples of what it looks like to make a start in a painting. After all, painting is visual. So, below is the beginning stage of a painting, where you can see three spots of color values clearly placed. Notice that we have a dark, medium and light value with these three colors. Therefore, we have a sense of light in the painting right from the beginning.

The practice of placing one spot of color next to another continues as you build on to the painting. The emphasis here is not on the object of what you are painting but rather on the colors and values. When you focus on these things alone, eventually the painting will come together.

Building color spots into your art and practice of making many starts

Making lots of starts is the very best thing you can do to develop your eye as an artist. When you continue to do it again and again over time, you will gain valuable visual sensitivities.

Below you can see how the painting continues to be built upon with spots of color. There is no regard for ‘what’ the object is. But rather a pure fixation on observing and painting one color spot next to another.

As the painting develops, more dimension emerges from our subject. You can see how the process of simply placing keenly observed colors next to one another allows the painting to develop on its own. You don’t ever need to think about the end result. In fact the only way to truly arrive at a painting that has some significance, is to be deeply and fully enmeshed in the process. And the very best way to practice art in this way is to make lots of starts.

Moving Beyond Starts in the Practice of Your Art

After painting through yards and yards of starts you will become incredibly proficient with all of the fundamentals required to build a painting up from the beginning. As a direct result you will become much more fluid, both in your brushwork as well as in your forward movement and growth. It is only through allowing yourself as much time as possible in the stage of making lots of starts that you will gain profound painting skills. Even as an advanced painter, you want to return to this process time and time again. One should never discontinue the learning and growing process.

When ready, you can then naturally move beyond this initial starting stage of a painting and build on top of it. It can often take a little bit of time to know how to do a longer form painting. However, through understanding the fundamentals you will be able to navigate through the process. So, once you master the beginning stage of a painting you can tackle anything. This is why the fundamentals are the key to unlocking everything.

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