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ART SKILLS I APPLIED TO WRITING

  • Learn the fundamentals
    As an artist, you have to learn the fundamentals of anatomy, composition, lighting and perspectives. You can’t skip these fundamentals. However, once you learn the fundamentals you can break the ‘rules’ quite confidently and still produce a pleasing image. Don’t skip on the fundamentals of plot, pacing and characterisation. It might seem boring right now but once you master it you’ll be more confident in your story and you’ll produce better work.
  • Perfection is boring
We all heard the story about someone who wanted to produce a perfect piece of work and never finished it. Perfection is not achievable. It’s only through attempting something and producing failures can we produce great work. Besides, none of the great works of art or literature is perfect.
  • Start small by sketching and then work up to produce a bigger image
This is going to be controversial as I know each artist is different. However, before starting a large work we usually sketch the scene out. Confident that we’re on the right track, can we then produce the final image. If you’re really struggling to finish a novel, perhaps the best option is outlining. Drawing parallels to the artist, outlining is our ‘sketch’ to make sure that the bigger work, the novel makes sense. You’ll save a lot of time this way further down the line.
  • Practice, Practice, Practice to improve!
Self-explanatory enough. You can’t just rest on your laurels. Even if you got talent, the only way to make it shine is to practice and hone your craft. Any endeavour worth undertaking will involve some sort of investment into it.
  • Always learn new techniques
I have been on a journey of discovery quite recently. I learnt computer art and then 3d art on a programme called Blender. I am always learning and I believe that infuses a richness into my work. To prove my point, the French artist Gaugin changed his painting style after visiting Tahiti. Likewise, before Picasso ventured into surrealism style that he would eventually become famous for, his work was actually realistic. So many times, we create artificial boundaries of how our work should be like. As a writer, it is important to read around your genre. There are thousands of literary techniques that could be utilised in your work. The world is an enormous space and it would be a shame for an artist’s work to go stale because they refused to open their minds and hearts…

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