The Creative Toolbox

This guide is all text-based to make it easy for the aspiring artist to digest. It is all completely free, so come back as often as you would like and invite any friends who might find this useful. I also suggest that you bookmark this page so you can always return and reread the lessons as needed.

This is about what it takes to create beautiful artwork. This is about how someone can become a more confident and deliberate designer. But remember that learning to improve will not always pay dividends straight away. In fact, you may even get WORSE as you take a step back and fix bad habits. Take the time to understand and remember the fundamentals and use this knowledge to make informed decisions, rather than wild guesses.

Common Misconceptions

To get things started, it would be good to break down some of the most common mental roadblocks and misconceptions which might be holding you back.

Consider these common ideas:

"I am not creative."

If you say, think, or are told something enough, you might begin to believe it (even if it is not true). These false ideas can quietly permeate your life and lead to nothing but squandered opportunities and stories of "I wish I started earlier." This is your sign to begin now by acknowledging and working toward the truth that what you are is pure creativity.

"I do not have natural talent."

Only ever taking part in things which you feel you have a "natural" talent in will not allow you to make it past the growing pains of progress. This usually ends in a continually foolish search for always trying something else and never really improving at anything. If you feel you lack a natural talent for creating art, let me assure you that it does not matter! Talent does not exist—ideas, passion, and dedication do. It may come easy for you—it may not. You will never know until you jump in headfirst.

"I can build skills by creating more."

Do not get stuck around the "hobby" level by creating hundreds or even thousands of pieces of art without any noticeable improvements. Simply creating more will not result in reliable, consistent, and long-term improvements. You may get better in some areas but plateaus will come, and if all you are doing is aimlessly churning out piece after piece, you will eventually see yourself looking up at the greatest of all plateaus with no energy left for determination, drive, or passion to help you climb that mountain. So what you should be doing is meaningful practice in which constantly and systematically challenges you, improves your weaknesses, and pushes your strengths. Most humans completely overstate the importance of talent and understate the importance of commitment to meaningful practice. The humans who seem talented enough to get what they are after are often the ones that simply stick around long enough. Hard work and practice do not pay off at first but your work behind the scenes will gradually bring dividends and it will not be long before you surprise yourself.

"I am never going to be like them."

Compare yourself to no one else but your past self. The goal should not be to become a shining star but to be improved. You may never reach the levels of the so-called masters but you can always improve. Review what and how you have been practicing and learning. A few hours of planning and strategizing now could save you hundreds of aimless hours in the future. For example, if you are struggling with color, then spend a few pieces thinking only about color. Invest in the best books on color theory. Visit your favorite artwork in person and think about the colors used and why they work. Always be curious and ask questions. Do not just scrape the surface. Envelop yourself in it. Go deep. Follow the rabbit hole down.

"I am going to fail."

The chronic fear of failure is a natural resistance to an imagined future. You are not alone. Each of the greatest masters in any field experience times of doubt. It is just part of the journey in which we all share. It is up to you to allow fear to consume you or to be brave enough to find out for yourself if there is really anything to be afraid of. Hint: there is not!

"There is no point."

Art is a powerful tool for creating a visual representation of emotions, thoughts, and experiences. Through art, we can tell stories, whether they are personal, fictional, or based on historical events. It can also be a means of exploring personal or cultural identity by communicating traditions, beliefs, or values. Art can also convey strong messages of social commentary, challenging the status quo, and calling attention to issues in order to advocate for change. If you're having trouble finding purpose for your art, consider brainstorming archetypes, allegories, and symbols based on your passions and interests. Contemplate what issues matter to you and how you might be able to communicate those ideas through your art. Remember that your art has the power to make an impact, so don't be afraid to take risks and push boundaries!

Seeing Like an Artist

Creation is like a labyrinth, with endless possibilities. There are all kinds of rules, theories, principles, guidelines, and standards to help with navigating the practice of creation. However, creation is not like math where there is usually only one correct answer. Habitually following rules or theories can end up making the practice rigid and uninspired. It can turn the labyrinth into a maze with many dead ends. Make a habit out of creating art without rulers, no tracing, no color checkers, or any other guides. Make adjustments using only your best judgment. This will allow you to develop stronger skills for accurately mixing colors, drawing lines, and measuring shapes using nothing but your own eyes and perception.

There is nothing bad with the use of any particular tools or techniques to help with accuracy, but your best and most reliable weapon should be your own judgment. Guidelines can kill passion and intuition if there is no trust in yourself. Use the standards, rules, tools, techniques, and theories to guide your decisions, but always fall back to trusting your own judgment. How you use your tools is far more important than what tools you use. With that being said, quality does matter with your tools and materials, but your eyes are your single best asset as an artist in this labyrinth.

Studying art should be primarily about observation (around 80% of the time) and secondarily be about making marks on a surface (around 20% of the time). When in doubt—when you see something which seems to violate one of the "rules" or "laws" of art—trust your eyes! Fall back to observing. Nature is always right. Observe, observe, observe, observe, then commit.

Look at the world in terms of visual elements, rather than as representational things. Imagine a vast landscape with a lake surrounded by trees, mountains, grass, clouds, and sky as but a beautiful arrangement of values, colors, shapes, textures, lines, and edges. Notice the interesting way a shadow lays across the ground—how the light bounces off of the water—follow the angles and the sway of a tree branch—notice the subtle changes of color in the sky—notice any s-curves, figure 8s, straight lines, organic or rigid patterns, and so on. Do not assume that you correctly understand all the variables. You are never dealing with a controlled environment. You are dealing with nature—a world of possibilities, not certainties. Cut through the "noise" of the mind and narrow down on the pure essence of a subject by noticing the few details in which convey the most information.

Simplification

Simplify everything! Instead of many colors, crazy detail, and lots of “stuff,” a more effective approach is to simplify. Art and design work is best demonstrated when it is easy on the eyes—plain to understand. Ask yourself “what is the number one thing I am trying to capture in this piece?” Once you have your answer, then focus on that one thing. It does not have to be something deep and inspiring as long as it is something. Focus on the few things which are actually meaningful, then simplify the rest. You will get more done and create a larger impact. Not to mention, you will also save yourself loads of energy, time, and money.

As your knowledge of tools, mediums, and color develops you can introduce more tools, mediums, and colors as needed. Reduce the number of tools you use. Learn how to use a handful of tools well rather than trying to learn how to use every single type of tool. For now, simplify your supplies to intimately get to know how to use each tool and medium. Consider getting rid of tools that no longer serve you. Reduce the number of colors on your palette. The fewer the colors on your palette, the easier it is to control and master. Simplify the value structure of a piece. Reduce the number of strokes you make.

Simplify the whole routine. It will allow more room for being creative and staying inspired. Instead of considering what more you can be doing, try to think about what you can simplify, exclude, or stop doing altogether. Focus your energy on just a few core areas at a time. Try to truly understand something by paying special attention to it and what will really challenge you in that domain—you will learn faster. Mastering a handful of fundamental techniques is MUCH more effective than being average at many techniques.

Before anything, keep it simple. 

Values and Edges, Drawing, Color

Learning how to create without understanding the fundamentals is like building a house on sand. You might be able to get the framework established, maybe even some walls, but cracks will eventually form. The fundamentals of what we will do as artists should be the first things we are taught, not something we accidentally stumble upon. Rank your confidence in each of the following areas based on how comfortable you are with them. Are there any natural tendencies? What areas are you interested in or attracted to most? Consider where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Your strengths may end up being a key differentiator of your work. Push them! As for your weaknesses, try to bring them up a notch. Weaknesses do not need to become strengths, but you do not want them to remain as weaknesses either. These should all eventually become second nature. The less you have to actively think about the particular basics, the more you can rely on instinct.

Values and Edges

All artwork is simply contrast between one area compared to the surrounding areas. Value is how dark or light a color is and it is the primary structure for all visual artwork. Every color has an underlying value between pure white and pure black. Being able to translate value properly is surprisingly difficult, but essential for effective artwork. If you get your values and edges right, you will have more flexibility with your drawing and color—within reason. The key is not to try creating every single value you see (every single shift of light), but to simplify the values into general groups or masses. You will end up with a more clear and concise piece of art. The relationships between forms are defined with hard, soft, and lost edges. This is how quickly or abruptly the value and color changes from one edge to the next. Edges provide a substantial amount of information about a subject and the way we perceive how light wraps around the dimensions of an object. The relationship between edges is what matters—they define the shape and form of a subject—make sure you get them right! Hard edges (sharp transitions in value and/or color) tend to command attention when surrounded by soft edges (smooth or subtle transitions in value and/or color). Keep hard edges to a minimum and use them only to bring attention to a focal point. Start by identifying what the hardest edge is in a scene, then work back from there.

Drawing

Whatever medium you choose to explore or want to get better at will always build off of the basics of drawing. Drawing is all about the accuracy of lines, forms, shapes, and perspective. If you want to become a great artist, always make sure you are training your drawing skills in each of those areas. It is all about placing the right shapes in the right places. If you struggle with this, it does not matter how good you are in other areas, your work will probably appear awkward. Short, regular sketches will keep your mind, hands, and eyes coordinated.

Color

Value, hue, tone, saturation, temperature, tint, shade, highlight, and accent all describe how color works. Get comfortable with and curious about each of these terms and how they can create harmony in a piece. Whenever you start a new piece, ask yourself what type of light is illuminating your subject. Is it warm, cool, or balanced? Simple color mixing and charting exercises can go a long way in developing your understanding and application of color, no matter what your skill level is. Explore each of the color harmony principles to get a deeper understanding of how they work and what they can evoke: monochromatic, analogous, complimentary, split complimentary, triadic, and tetradic. If you are new to art, start with a limited palette of colors, then add more colors if needed. Many of the greatest pieces of art are created using minimal colors and limited palettes with only small bursts of saturated color to really make a statement or a focal point. Do not overcomplicate it.

Highlights and Shadows, Texture, Depth, Composition

You have a lot of room to play with your tools and materials, provided you are technically sound in most other areas. There are some areas in art, however, where you do not have that much room to play at all—areas that you need to focus on getting right, rather than on being inventive. Stay true to the following and you will have MUCH more flexibility to inject your creativity into other areas more intuitively.

Highlights and Shadows

The laws of highlights and shadows are about as infallible as they come. If you put a highlight or shadow in the wrong spot, not much can save you. Rounded forms have a gradual transition from highlights to shadows (soft edges). Rigid forms have a sharp transition from highlights to shadows (hard edges). Powerful statements can be portrayed by placing a strong highlight next to a strong shadow. Begin by recognizing the mid-tones and work from there toward other areas dealing with the lightest lights and the darkest darks. A good rule of thumb is that warm light generally casts cooler shadows and cool light generally casts warmer shadows—often with a neutral and darker core shadow in the transition. Be bold and dynamic with your highlights and shadows, but do not overstate them (consider Rembrandt lighting in portraiture). Basic psychology determines that "holy" can be achieved by lighting from above, "sinister" by lighting from below, and "transcendental" by lighting from within.

Texture

Texture is one of the core elements of rendering particular feelings and surfaces in art and design. Actual texture is defined by the literal application of mediums and planes of a piece—the true nature of all the ways marks and surfaces appear and interact. This can be a key feature in your art in and of itself. Implied texture is an illusion illustrating the surface of a subject within a piece. Experiment with the actual texture of your mediums and surfaces. Explore alternative subjects that have various properties such as leafy, viny, fleshy, hairy, scaly, spiky, fiery, watery, shiny, rocky, and so on. Try focusing on efficiency; before making any marks consider how much information can be conveyed with a single stroke of your tool.

Depth

Depth is demonstrated best with the use of a foreground, mid-ground, and background. The foreground, where a subject is usually placed, will often have deeper values and harder edges with more details and saturated colors. Higher contrast, darker darks, and warmer colors tend to jump into the foreground. In comparison, a background is usually where there are only subtle shifts in values, softer edges, less details, and lower saturation. Reduced contrast, grayer (mid-toned) values, and cooler colors tend to recede into the background. The mid-ground is, quite obviously, somewhere between these two extremes. To strengthen your understanding of depth, experiment with these principles while getting comfortable with and practicing each of the following concepts of perspective: 1-point, 2-point, 3-point, 4-point or curved.

Composition

Composition is all about how everything is arranged and framed around a focal point. A great composition should effortlessly direct the viewer to one main focal point then flow from one area to the next. All that really matters is that everything in an art piece should work together. If you get the “big-picture” relationships right, then you have much more room to play with the more intimate aspects and subtle nuances of the composition which should not be obvious at first glance. It is important to remember here that the rules and theories of composition are just guidelines—use them wisely but do not treat them like unbreakable laws. Practice designing your compositions by making several small thumbnail sketches exploring the following principles of design: positive versus negative space, centered, thirds, balance, and symmetry. Composition can be boiled down to two basic questions: 1. What do you want to say? 2. How are you going to say it? 

Common Mistakes

Making mistakes is okay! They will happen, no matter how experienced you are. Most aspiring artists seem to have this idea that a piece of art should be flawlessly executed from start to finish, without mistake or hesitation. That does not happen for anyone. What separates a master from a novice is the ability to identify and effortlessly work through mistakes with a calm and level head. It is about recognizing that a mistake was made, determining if it needs to be fixed, and finally implementing an effective solution. You cannot fix a problem that you do not know exists, so familiarize yourself with the following common mistakes before you begin your next piece. Refresh yourself often.

• Lack of preparation

• Incorrect values

• Lack of stroke variance or over blending

• Poor subject selection or awkward composition design

• Incorrect use of perspective or depth

• Too much focus on developing a personal style

• Lack of courage, confidence, faith, or trust

• Too much focus on detail or too much attention on unimportant areas

• Overworking a piece or leaving a piece unfinished

• Overuse of saturated (vivid) colors or an overuse of pure white or pure black

• Overuse of hard edges or lack of edge variance

• Too much medium or not enough

• Low-quality supplies or an incorrect use of supplies

• Guessing or relying on gimmicky techniques

• Creating too fast or creating too slow

Do not tip-toe through your next art piece trying to avoid every possible mistake. It is better to be passionate and to make mistakes than it is to be fearful and too particular. Just begin to recognize and identify mistakes as they happen. You do not need to fix every single mistake you make. You may decide to exercise your “artistic license” to leave a mistake as it is.

To really boost your skills and ability to see like an artist, explore plein air, life drawing, and regular timed sketches. Conduct a brief audit of every piece after you complete it and before you start the next one. Consider critiquing the values, edges, drawing, colors, highlights, shadows, texture, depth, and overall composition. What were your strengths? What were your weaknesses? Did anything surprise you? You do not need to go back and fix a piece of artwork. Just use the information gathered during a critique to calibrate your judgment for the next project. Do not get caught up using the same techniques over and over again. Mix it up. Try something new. Combine techniques. Always think of today as DAY ONE of your journey so do not let your past dictate your future—you can always change and improve.

Go over the lessons above once again. Let it all sink in. Print it out if you prefer. Then keep creating. Make sure you are enjoying the process and do not take yourself too seriously. Mistakes will happen. Art will fail. People will react. It is just part of the same journey we are all on. And it can really be a beautiful and fulfilling journey if you allow it.

With gratitude,

Jace Lee Anderson