Heartsong Studio

“Forget the touchy-feely woo-woo spiritual stuff, just tell me how to make art !” declares a beginning artist. The strange thing is, the same person who thinks this, knows deep in their heart that emotional responses are directly related to the expression of deep feelings in their art.

I know, because I’ve watched lots of people try the “paint-by-numbers” approach to applying nuts-and-bolts to get their art making skills going and still the juices don’t flow.

Don’t get me wrong; you need nuts and bolts.

Effective art of any kind is not just the absence of chaos, but the presence of organized inspiration. The artist needs an organizing principle to do justice to an inspired expression before it can really come to life.

With deep feeling as a motivating force, you’ve got a reason for the nuts and bolts. You cannot make good art with just the strong feelings either. You need some sort of discipline to back up the feelings.

A balance between heart and control.

When either the feeling or the technical side of things is overweight, it seems to push you away, and feels chaotic or contrived. When the delicate balance point is neared, the impact lands and fills us with personal response and meaning. That’s what making art is all about — delivering an impact with meaning.

The balance is quite easy to observe in this artist.

Lea Salonga sings: “I’ve never been in love before” on YouTube here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO65KQhCuAc

There’s a delicate blend of control and emotion. You can clearly hear the control, yet it doesn’t push you away with stiffness. Instead, her voice control draws you in. It’s all for the purpose of delivering the impact.

Which comes first ?

What sets a work of art apart from a diagram is the spirit inside it. Whether you think your feelings for the subject come first or the how-to techniques, both factors must be alive and working together before any impact can come about.

The technical parts of art making can frighten people too, just as the spiritual connection can. But techniques can be learned at any time they’re needed. When you’re motivated with feeling, a little technical learning has a real purpose and isn’t so scary.

Spiritual connection is a simple, universal way to connect with the inner feelings that can motivate your work. It doesn’t require you to make any woo-woo sacrifices or be untrue to your convictions in any way. It’s your own emotions you’re after to fuel your work.

The hard work comes in being vigilant about the ego mind. The ego mind is a crafty sucker, always trying to get control, impersonating God, and a variety of other slippery things.

It’s not a question of either-or.

Discipline is required, but not blind, unthinking discipline. It’s the discipline related to learning, to being a disciple. And this learning is about being able to discern the voice of the ego from the voice of your heart.

Effective art has both to be sure when they are in a fine tuned balance. If the technical know-how takes charge at the start, the feelings tend to get pinched out. That’s why many who have studied art formally, eventually run dry for lack of inner motivation.

No one can teach you just the perfect technique to render the feelings you need to express. You must become the expert on your feelings for a subject, and then the work becomes the joy of discovering the appropriate technique to express it.