Creating Dynamic Art: First Vital Steps

Creating dynamic art is not a mysterious process.

But creating dynamic art, interesting art is a process that takes practice – every time you do art – to become embedded in your mind.

(Note: This is the second blog post in this series on creating dynamic art. Click here to read the first post in this series)

Step 1— find (or think of) a scene that interests you, that you feel has the potential to become dynamic art.

Step 2 – look at that scene and engage your imagination. Imagine what you could add or change to make it more exciting.

Remember: seldom does Mother Nature create a composition that only needs to be copied. If she did everyone would be an artist.

In my example above two problems that need to be addressed are:

1. Is the boat interesting enough to be the star of a piece of art? If it isn't, how do you make it more interesting?

2. How can you somehow connect the two separated, but important, elements of this photograph – the boat tied to its little knot of earth and the background hills?

This is where creating dynamic art needs your imagination.

Finding a way to overcome both those potential problems. And that begins with putting your thinking cap on.

For Creating Dynamic Art, Ask Yourself: "What if I.."

It's hard to reliably go from an idea in your mind to a finished piece of art. The picture in your mind is always too perfect.

You only learn about its hidden problems after you begin to draw or paint it.

In order to test whether your idea will work you need to get out your pencils or charcoal or whatever your preferred medium is and…

…sketch it.

In this sketch I've started the process by asking myself what I could add or change that would fit with my subject.

One thing I could do is make the boat a sailboat.

The mast helps connect the foreground and the background. I could also enlarge the spit of land just beyond my star so part of it seems to join part of the boat.

I could also create a little story and balance the composition by placing a couple other sailboats out in the water.

Then, because the first idea is seldom the best one, I could try enlarging the boat a bit and adding a person getting it ready to sail.

Instead of only the little knot of earth the boat is tied to, what if I created more of a shoreline?

These first two ideas seem only okay.

To create dynamic art, what I'm really looking for is an idea that genuinely begins to excite me.

So I ask myself what else I could change or add that would fit this subject.

What if I create a different story and combine a family with the boat?

(What did I do in this idea to help connect the foreground and background?)

What ideas of your own spring to mind from these sketches?

Best Wishes,
Gary Gumble
Founder of BeginningArtist.com
Without art the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. (George Bernard Shaw

P.S. Now not everyone is like me and wants to create dynamic art with people in it.

So, what else could you do to keep this scene more purely a landscape? What if you added a mountain in the background?

What if you made the knot of earth bigger?

What if you added a tree?

What if you imagined the tree in fall colors and had those colors reflect in the water?

Or what if you only used this boat as a jumping off point to a completely different idea?

One of my subscribers did.

I'll show you that another time.

(Click here to read the third blog post in this series where final art is revealed)