By Team Mojarto
Tell people around you that you’re going to start painting and by the time their opinions end, you will have enough matter to write an encyclopaedia. The irony is that not even a professional painter/ artist would have those many opinions. Sadly, as amusing as the scenario sounds, it is unwelcome and often deceiving.
So, here I am to squash some of those unwanted opinions and bust myths about paintings.
1. Do not paint without a primer!
Primer is important but not compulsory. The reason this is followed is to protect the
fibres of the canvas. However, it is mostly required for oil paints. In the case of acrylics,
the paints itself protect the canvas and hence aren’t necessary.
2. Preparation paves perfection
Absolutely not! Sure, you can prepare. You can try techniques, your brush movements,
make mock paintings etc but if you keep prepping things up for the final product, it might
get in the way of your originality. So, prepare up to an extent but while painting, follow
what your mind says in the moment. It will take you to your original style of painting.
3. Drawings – Paintings; Potato – Po-tah-to…
Anybody who says if you can draw, you can paint is wrong. Drawing and painting are not
the same. Just because a person knows how to hold his pen does not mean he can do the
same with his paint brush. Both are extremely delicate categories of art and people need
to realise this.
4. Abstracts? Even I can make that…
If I had a penny for every time I heard that dialogue, I would be a millionaire.
Abstracts are not random splashes.
Abstracts are not meaningless.
Abstracts are not easy to make.
Now keep repeating this every time the comment is made. Abstracts are complex
paintings. At least with landscapes and portraits you have a subject to refer to; with
abstracts it’s a totally different ball game. The thought process, the ideology and the
means to achieve it, though it’s very enjoyable, it is no doubt exhausting.
At the end of the day, if you want to paint, you should paint regardless of what people
say. Only as you keep painting, you will achieve your style of art and what pleases you.
Art is very personal, so let’s not have a rule book for it.