"Knowing and Doing"

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"Doing comes before knowing." I still find myself and others thinking we can know something before doing it. More often than not, I may not be thinking I am trying something and expecting to know it before doing it, but it seems to sneak up on me. Practicing and doing are mandatory before knowing anything.

It is always a good thing to experiment and see where the experimentation takes you. But even when experimenting with new things, there are stubborn facts that will stop you in your tracks. Those stubborn facts are the elements and principles of design. Things work or don't work for a reason. It can be terribly frustrating and liberating at the same time.

One item in your studio will help you more than any other. That one item is removable tape. If you are in a quandary about where an element of your design should go, tape it in the place that seems the most logical and then look at it from across the room. Then try taping it in several other places and compare. If it doesn't look good anywhere, then it probably doesn't belong on that particular piece.

Save yourself some heart aches and head aches by making a quick decision to exclude that element and move on to what does work. It's the constant indecision that hangs up a lot of artists. I can tell you from experience that placing a time limit on yourself will assist you in making those kind of decisions quickly...i.e....working on your work every day, even when you don't feel like it.

Fear and your internal critic are getting some of you "hamstrung". I know that because I've watched you work through your process in some of my classes. If you go through all of the elements and principles of design as you look at your piece and ask a few questions. you will soon figure out the problem. Let me help you out a bit. Color values are the "sneakiest" of all of the elements of design that you will most likely overlook, so check that out first. Make a black and white c opy of your entire piece or just a portion (if it's too large) and you will know right away if you have a value issue. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.