The Word of the Day is Patience

…at least that’s what I said the day I went to the University of Indianapolis’ “Riveting” Workshop at which I learned the wonderful new skill of joining metal sheets. However, I’m finding patience to be an extremely common need in art in an even broader sense.

When you’re scrolling through Instagram art, you see finalized pieces, some staged process pics, or sometimes even a nice little sped-up version of the whole process. Some of these pieces take months to create, and all you see is the finished piece on this glorious post you decide is “something I could never do”. Wrong. Patience and practice can take you so much farther than you ever wait to realize.

Crayons are a wonderful medium, but their associated connotations are all wrong. The scribbilistic style of children’s art does not give justice the glorious application of wax art that is possible when used in a delicate and purposeful manner. Similar in a sense is the use of colored pencils. Due to the widespread and early introduction of these mediums to most artists, the materials are associated with art of beginners, not within their own right as an art supply. My conclusion is such that any medium is only able to reach its fullest potential with time.

Blending of colors when using the waxiness of crayons and colored pencil, or the ink of markers and pens takes layers. And layers take time. And time takes immense patience to endure. 

Some of my favorite art pieces on sites like Instagram are those completed with one medium. Of course I love multimedia art, but the simplicity of a ballpoint pen piece just gets to me. The incredible use of sometimes only three standard colors to create these incredible portraits is inspiring not just because it shows what patience and practice can do in such a magnificent manner, but it shows that any medium can have incredible results. A crayon piece done well can be just as incredible as an expensive copic piece, or far better depending on how practiced the artist’s copic skills are (mine are lacking).

The point is, patience is evident in so many areas of life, but especially art, that is if you choose to indulge yourself in the creative process. To achieve the insanely detailed results you can see in abundance on any social media platform ever, you have to put the equivalently inexplainable amount of effort into it.

(I’ll likely revisit this conversation soonish, I just needed to get something out there. Feedback is appreciated)