Help! I Have Too Many Ideas!
Articles of interest: Finding Your Artistic Path
Hi all! This is a companion article to the one listed above, Finding Your Artistic Path. The emphasis of that article was trying to find the best way to express yourself artistically when you find you’re under the spell of creative compulsion.
In it I suggested trying all kinds of artistic mediums to find one that resonates with you all the while communing with yourself, really getting to know you to see what drives you persoanlly and artistically. This process will eventually lead to a partnership between medium and subject that will allow you to create great Art.
But what if one medium isn’t enough? What if you have so many interests and ideas that just one subject isn’t enough? They may be spilling out of you at such a rapid rate that one idea is intruding on the other. What then?
I received a great comment about that post from Olivia. In it she said that she suffers from an over abundance of ideas and finds herself jumping from one to another often before she’s even got a handle on the first one.
This is not a new developement. I too suffered from this, when I was younger, and to a degree I still do. I’d come up with the greatest idea on the planet, grab my pencil set, a ream of paper and set to work bringing that concept to life. Frequently, while in the throes of unbridled artistic expression my feverish brain would come up with an even more radical concept, and the first one would be abandoned for the new bigger, better idea. My first drawing would find its way into my art drawer, half-finished and unfulfilled waiting to be joined by my current artistic fascination which was also destined to be abandoned.
Because of this, I never really invested myself fully in what I was doing as a child and as a consequence I never had any finished artwork to show for all the time and effort I was putting into making it. I had sketchbooks and paper reams full of half realized ideas. Sad. Very sad. Good thing I’m not still doing that.
So what should you do if you’ve got an over abundance of ideas? Here’s a few things I’ve learned through the years to help me deal with this ‘problem’ that will hopefully aid you in your own practice.
number 1: Having too many ideas is NOT a problem!
Let’s change that thinking, shall we? Going into the Art Game with a negative attitude is only going to stunt your practice. Having too many ideas may seem like a hindrance at the moment but it’s really a blessing in disguise. Nothing’s worse than feeling compelled to engage in the production of Art and having no idea what to do. Artists suffer from ‘writers block’ too. It’s never happened to me though and I’ll tell you why — I catalogue my ideas.
This is what sketchbooks are for. If you find yourself cruising through a series of concepts that are bearing fruit, don’t fret. Get out your sketchbook and spend an afternoon or two getting those ideas down on paper. Don’t let them get away! Even jotting the ideas down in words is better than nothing at all. They will otherwise be lost. Your mind can only hang on to so much.
Some day you may be in a situation where you what to relieve some artistic tension, the compulsion upon you, but you don’t know what to paint/draw/sculpt. Break out that sketchbook you drew in two years ago and have a look at some of the concepts you came up with earlier. You’ll easily slip into bringing life to an idea you captured in a sketchbook years before. You won’t be disappointed.
Number 2: Tired of your current idea? Come back to it then.
If you find yourself halfway through a new painting/drawing/sculpture and your interest in it is waning, put it down. Nothing is worse than trying to labour through finalizing something that you don’t have any interest in finishing. It becomes a chore when it should be fun, and it’ll show in the finished work. Speaking from experience, you’ll end up hating it. Your work will probably end up on a junk pile rather than in a showroom where it deserves to be.
If you’re having difficulty completing a work because you’re just not that interested in it at the moment, put it down. You can come back to it at a later date. Nothing says you can’t. Have you ever noticed that many artworks in museums don’t have a date of completion with a single year but a range of years? Those artists put those pieces down for a while in favour of other projects and then came back to finish their original pieces off. It’s okay. Since the masters did it, you and I now have Carte Blanche. The rule has been set.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is patience. It has been a difficult struggle but I’ve become a better artist for it. I got into painting when I was sixteen and would often find myself again overwrought with so many ideas that I was moving from one to the next without finishing anything. This left me with a bunch of half finished paintings and very little to show for all my effort.
There was a positive side to this turn of events though. This situation gave me leeway to engage a series of ideas all at once. I was able to partially flesh out all those works, get their basic concepts out on canvas before they were lost to the pitfalls of memory loss. I then found myself going back to previously started works, picking them up again and finally finishing the concepts.
This went on for nine months but I was determined to get this picture finished — and I did. When it was complete, I entered the triptych into a juried competition at the Etobicoke Civic Centre and took home second place. All that effort really paid off. Instead of tossing that painting I was able to pad my C.V. with not one but two entries from the same show. One exhibition, one award. Not too shabby.
As far as I’m concerned you can never have too many ideas. You’ll always be working at something and that’s how good artists become great artists. Invest in a few sketchpads and get yourself some storage space. Learn a bit of patience. You can come back to half finished pieces another day when the concepts strike you afresh. You never know what might come from it!
Don’t throw that artwork out prematurely. You may be throwing away a masterpiece in disguise!
For now, that is all. Goodnight.
