Artists: write about what interests you!

Whale Dream © Maud Guilfoyle, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 60 inches

My students are encouraged to paint and draw what interests them, and what they are passionate about. I also teach them to practice drawing what they see so that they can more easily draw from their imagination. If you are an artist who writes, it's also important to write about what you find exciting, not popular subject matter in current books or periodicals. Just as you might research a subject for a painting, organize your notes and sketches and write about it. Begin with just a paragraph a day, enough for a blog post. The more you practice writing, the more easily it will flow, just as attending life drawing sessions enables you to come to a blank canvas and jump right into your painting.

Artists writing e books, organizing text and image files

Dreaming of Whale © Maud Guilfoyle, Charcoal 5.25 x 7.5 inches

When I did my first e book I designed it as I had designed previous downloadable books for my website, pocketcards.net. I use Indesign and Photoshop CS3 and wrote the text around the images. Writing more than image-making was a challenge for me so I thought it would be easiest to place all the images in order then write around them, hoping to be inspired by the art. Well, then I realized writer's block was as much a challenge as artist's block. And in e books, no text wrap ... No nicely fitted in spot illustrations in a corner of a page or art zig zagging down a page meandering around text. So, I learned about paragraph styles instead of using tabs or space key, and how to lock graphics inline so that when you add text or edit the image stays with the text it is supposed to and doesn't float all around. The second book, Artist to Artist Handbook still had me playing with images before the text was written, I think to avoid writing. I was more confident with a brush than with words. Like all art forms, writing requires practice, practice, practice. By the third and fourth book, Artists and Money, and Art by Two, I had a system. My image file would have several folders in it that related to the sections of text. I write all the text, first, second and third drafts before I insert images.