5 Tips to Loosen Up and Create More Expressive Art

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Have you reached a point in your art journey at which you feel relatively confident about your skills but are anxious to find your own style and voice? Are you stuck with your art and feel that your own perfectionism and/or fear of failure is keeping you from moving forward? 
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"Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others."
-Orson Welles

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There is a point in every artist's journey at which a substantial amount of time and effort has been dedicated to developing artistic skills, but the artist has yet to decide what ideas he/she wants to share with the world and what mediums, techniques and style will set him/her apart from others.

It takes an immense amount of work, exploration and introspection to push through this point, but it's important to keep on until the breakthrough happens. 

In my opinion, it's exactly this desire to push through the initial phase that differentiates a hobbyist from a pro. It's a point at which perfect rendering and technique becomes just as important as (or may even take back seat to) having an artwork transmit the ideas or feelings we are striving to transmit. 

In this blog post, I will be sharing five very useful tips that will help you loosen up and express more of yourself through your art. It's this exploration that will help you discover yourself as an artist. If you're at this point, it's time to experiment fearlessly and push your limits!
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I wrote a blog post several months ago in which I share an excellent method that you can apply to start discovering your own art style using other artists' work as inspiration. This strategy will be very useful for you in this stage, so make sure to check it out after this post. 

How to Effectively Use Other Artists' Work as Inspiration and a Great Method to Start Developing Your Own Artistic Style. 

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Currently, I'm doing a lot of exploratory work with oils on canvas. If you've been following my work for any amount of time, you probably already know that I love working on smaller-scale watercolor illustrations.

​However, I've had the pleasure of creating larger decorative fine art for local clients and have really enjoyed it! I'm making time for oil painting as much as I can and am planning on selling my artwork internationally in the near future.
 
I'm working on a series of five large landscape oil paintings. I will be sharing these with you throughout the upcoming weeks so stay tuned!
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Landscape oil painting by Erika Lancaster (90 x 70 cms.).

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If you enjoyed this video and found it helpful, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel. I share a brand new video every week with art tips, drawing and painting tutorials and mindset/productivity tips for artists. *Subscribe HERE*



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5 Tips That Will Help You Become More Loose and Expressive When Creating Art

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"Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art.
Irregularity is the basis of all art."
-Pierre-Auguste Renoir
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​1. Gain confidence in your skills by learning and practicing
Art Fundamentals 
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In order to draw or paint freely, you need to have a certain level of confidence in your skills and artistic knowledge. And the only way to truly gain confidence in anything, is by practicing first-handedly and delving deep into the fundamentals.

Knowing Art Fundamentals inside and out is going to help you immensely, and is the basis for everything else. 

Topics like composition, harmony, proportion, color, perspective, texture, value, etc., have to be engrained in your head so that you can apply this knowledge naturally and organically as you are creating your artwork. 

Over at my Patreon site, I have a library of classes that cover all the basic Art Fundamentals I learned about in school, in sequential order! All of my most helpful, exclusive content such as real-time drawing and watercolor painting tutorials with downloadables, weekly sketchbook prompts, feedback from me on your work, and much more can be accessed immediately upon joining. 

Learn more about everything I'm offering over on Patreon, here. 

Aside from knowing Art Fundamentals, it's also imperative for you to have some experience working with whatever medium and supplies you're thinking of using.

How are you going to paint or draw freely if you feel like you're constantly fighting with the medium, or have no idea how the substrate/medium/etc. is going to react throughout the process?

The saying "Learn the rules before you can break them" applies here.

In my blog post titled Why Sketchbooks Are Essential Tools for Artists and A Few Usage Tips I share how I personally use my sketchbooks on a daily basis to make sure I'm progressing continuously.




2. Prepare yourself mentally before you begin

It's absolutely essential to start a challenging piece in the right headspace. Once you have arrived at the idea of what you'll be creating, start with positivity and confidence. I've mentioned this before, but our minds are extremely powerful. Remember, if you think you're going to fail, you most likely will.

Now is the time to embrace experimentation and throw perfectionism out the window. Allow the magic to happen as you work with your medium and tools.

Do your best to give up some of your control and allow your medium to do some of the speaking for itself. 


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3. Paint with larger brushes and, if possible, on a larger substrate

Painting/drawing at a larger scale will not only encourage more arm movement (which in turn leads to more dynamic work), but allows you to focus on larger shapes.

Using a larger brush, or drawing tools like chalk or charcoal, also make it more difficult to obsess over tiny little details. This, in turn, challenges you to think about what is actually needed in your composition and what can be left out. 

Not to mention, larger pieces are also (usually) meant to be viewed from farther away. At the moment of drawing or painting, step back and continuously remind yourself that the piece is meant to be appreciated from a distance. 

If you're creating a painting, remember that your paintbrush is not meant to be held as a writing pencil or pen! Try holding it with your thumb and index finger, and keep the rest of your hand relaxed. Beginners have a tendency to hold brushes very close to the bristles to feel more in control.

Try holding your brush farther up the handle, anywhere from halfway up to the tip. 

Explore the different types of brush strokes your brushes are able to create, and the shapes and textures their bristles naturally leave behind.

​Load your paintbrushes with a good amount of paint so that there's more of a chance for interesting "natural" occurrences to happen. 

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4. Use music

Music can have such a deep impact on our mood and inspiration levels! I love creating a good, long playlist for myself prior to starting with a painting. Music helps keep my creativity flowing and my energy high for hours.

Our taste in music will vary from person to person, of course. Perhaps an artist looking to create an extremely dynamic abstract painting would be inspired by music with a faster/upbeat tempo. Whereas, another artist might find more relaxing, classical music more helpful. 

Regardless of your taste in music, create a playlist that will help you stay positive, inspired and motivated to continue. 




5. Practice leaving your brushstrokes alone
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Do your best to place your brushstrokes (or lines if your drawing) with intention and then leave them alone! Allow the organic occurrences to happen and think of how you can use these effects to your advantage instead of trying to correct them or blend them out. 

Stop yourself from pushing forward with actions that are really not really necessary. Try to do more with less and don't obsess over every tiny little accident or irregularity.

Let go of the need to control everything!

I hope that you found this post helpful and that it encouraged you to keep exploring and moving forward with your art.

​I wish you all the best and remember to enjoy the process!
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