Three Concerns of Creating

When I think about making my art, I often think about three main things—three main concerns about the work that I am going to make. These concerns are the materials and techniques that I am going to use, the composition and layout of the piece, and the concept and meaning that I am going to explore in the piece. Together these three ideas combine to give the artwork a lot of depth, and helps me be very intentional when I am making and creating. But it has taken me years to get to this, and I see that a lot of young or beginning artists often don’t consider what they are making as deeply.

Many folks naturally begin exploring artmaking by focusing on materials and techniques. It’s not uncommon for these artists to be attracted to a certain material and then want to get good at using it. Whether they’re drawing or painting or collaging, they focus on using the materials and developing their technique—developing their craft. Unfortunately, they may not concern themselves too much with how the piece fills up space, or what the meaning or message is behind their piece.

I certainly was like that when I was in middle and high school. I loved drawing, and I drew all the time. I wanted to get better at it. The content of my art was really secondary, and the idea of composition and layout weren’t even a consideration back then. I focused much of those teenage years, and even my early 20s, on portraiture. I loved drawing people, but I really focused on the technical aspect of portraits. I wanted to get the proportions right and the shading right. Other than it being a portrait of someone, I didn’t focus much on what the meaning or message was. I really didn’t have a concept other than, “Oh here’s an accurate portrait of someone.” And I never focused on composition and layout, mostly because I didn’t really understand it. So, my approach to making art was very lopsided toward the technical side.

And I think a lot of young artists are like that. They want to learn how to make things better technically, and often they have a subject that they like to explore with very specific materials and techniques. But they rarely think about how their work fills the space and rarely go deeply into the meaning and messaging of their art. It seems to be more about showing off their technical skills. I think that’s in part because progress in technique is so noticeable, and it feels good to learn how to do something and in some small way begin to master it. But that approach results in work that looks great technically, but lacks a lot. I can’t help but think of those viral social media posts of ultra-photorealistic images. Yes, they are impressive with their mastery of skill and how realistic they look, but to me they lack so much and don’t keep me engaged. I quickly scroll by because they have no depth.

I say all of this to encourage you to think more specifically about what you focus on when you create. If you haven’t given much time and thought into one or more of those three concerns that I mentioned, think about how you can become more intentional in the work you make by leaning into the materials and techniques that you use, the layout and the composition of your work, and/or the concepts and meaning of your work so that your work has more depth to it.

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Happy Creating!

Eric