Welcome to today’s art podcast episode. Today we’re going to chat about how sometimes the smallest things can make a big difference to our art. It’s those little aha moments that can thrust our art forward.

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Little things that can make a difference to your art

  • Using hard and soft edges
  • Drawing what you see rather than what you think you know
  • Squinting so you can see the lights and darks and making sure you have enough contrast in a piece
  • Using basic colour theory – eg. complementary colours to make a colour pop
  • Doing a little bit regularly rather than a lot in one go.
  • sketching with a pen to force you to commit
  • using the rule of thirds – I can remember how much this helped me when I first started painting again. Thinking about elements you can place on those thirds can really help a painting look good.
  • Balancing colours – don’t just put a colour in one place try and inject a little somewhere else to balance and create harmony
  • committing to one thing for a period of time – eg. 30 days to practice drawing hands or learn the basics of watercolour – this can really help you improve, rather than skipping around.
  • Using proper watercolour paper for watercolour and mixed media (less puddles)/sometimes using better materials helps.
  • Using a softer pencil for smoother shading – 2B and softer

Presenting your art

  • Giving your art a title
  • photographing your art in good light
  • Wrapping your art nicely before posting
  • Writing a handwritten message to say thank you when someone buys your art
  • writing something about your art or a story to go with it on Social media. It could be how you created it, why you created it or just a story that you can link to the art.
  • depending on the type of art considering a mount or border between your art and frame if you are framing it.
  • Use an app to show what your art could look like in a room scene Frame X is a cheap one and I also use Smartist. If you know how to use Photoshop you can also find some good royalty free frame images.

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This week’s creative question

Q. What topic would you like us to cover in a future episode and why?

What topic would you like us to cover in a future episode and why?

The best answers will be read out on a future podcast.

You can Tweet us your answers @KickCreatives or let us know in the Facebook Group, which by the way if you haven’t already joined, I highly recommend that you do! We will put the question up there and also on the Facebook page… and of course, on our Instagram page @kickinthecreatives.

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