Thumb Nail Sketching

 Today while watching an art show on PBS I realized a useful tool I'd been neglecting for my painting compositions. A simply little tool it is but none the less one that would keep my artworks on the right track. Before beginning the painting the artist had completed a thumbnail sketch.

 Sometimes I would hit a road block during the middle of a painting. I'd be half way brushing on the paint colors and then the question pops to my mind and asks, "Ok, where am I going with this artwork?" Oh, I hate that! What I needed is a road map to tell me what the finished artwork should look like. Then I'd know which direction to continue in before getting off the exit.

 So out of my artistic library shelving I pulled out an eleven by eight and half inch sketch diary with seventy sheets of drawing paper. With a ruler I started dividing and making square boxes about the size of four by six inches to a page. Now when an artistic idea for a composition comes to mind I can sketch it out and adjust it to my liking before beginning the actual artwork. What I now have is a reference or artistic road map to complete my paintings by.   

Got to Keep it Straight

As each days activities is so busy it seems necessary to invoke a simple little tool to keep one aware of the must do things so that they just don't slip away. A little reminder at the proper time is good to keep things in order and on tract so as not to force a comment like, "Man, that was suppose to be done a while ago and now I'm in deep water!"

Need a calendar. Yep. Organization. I've got to setup a system to remind me to make timely entries to my twitter, Facebook, blog, website and future articles? First thought that comes to mind is how many times should one make an entry to each account in a reasonable timely fashion? Second thought is how should each one be used in communicating which types of messages? This is getting pretty heavy cause one needs to use these wonderful tools in a proper way.

Any of these tools used to much or to little can be a bad thing but used at just the right way and with the right message can be great for just about anything. You know there's a lot of books on this stuff but surely there's got to be a condensed, simplified version some place compacted for easy reading. Hey, maybe after I've got it figured out I write a little summary on my findings?