Soul to Series: Step 3
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Welcome to Step 3!
By the end of this step you’ll pick what skills, techniques and visual vocabulary you will use in your series. You’ll also decide how much or how little planning you’ll do so you don’t kill your creativity. |
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Key Points
- Artists often struggle with balancing mastery and craftsmanship with flexibility and spontaneity. They may feel insecure about their art due to learned rules and critiques, leading to perfectionism and tightness in their work. Finding a balance between using mastery and staying true to oneself is crucial when deciding what to do in a series.
- Avoid over-planning
- There are two main approaches to planning a series: the "outliner" approach, which involves detailed planning and a focus on mastery and craftsmanship, and the "pantser" approach, which relies on setting limits and parameters while allowing for spontaneity and discovery. Each approach has its own risks and rewards, and the choice depends on the artist's values, purpose, and preferred way of working.
- Defining one's visual vocabulary and deciding which skills and techniques to use can provide sufficient structure for "pantsers" to create coherence in their work.
Skills and Design: Mastery
The area we are focusing on today is the stuff we’re taught in art or design classes. This is the realm of mastery and craftsmanship. While as artists a lot of it comes naturally and intuitively, often our inner critique comes in, and there are a lot of opinions and “shoulds”. This might be where you feel the most insecure about your art and so you might get tight and perfectionist - remembering all the rules you learned in school about the “right” way to make art. As we decide what we want to do in our series, we have to find a balance between using our mastery while still being flexible and spontaneous and true to ourselves.
In Step 1, I defined what a series is and what a collection is. Knowing which way you want to work is critical for how you plan, and how you plan will help you see whether you are better suited to a series or a collection.
Imagine a passionate conversation where two people are trying to understand each other during a disagreement. What if it is a play, with a script, and many hours of rehearsal and direction to perfect the emotional resonance of the scene? How is that different from a real life discussion between you and someone you are close to, where you might not know what you're going to say next and you’re balancing your emotions and wild thoughts with your need to express yourself in a way the other can process? Or an improvised performance where the actors are given a premise and make it up as they go? It might end up being brilliant, or it might fall flat. That is the risk they take, and it can be thrilling. In your art, are you creating the play? Or engaging in a real life discussion? Or improvising? This example highlights some of the differences in process I was explaining when discussing the difference between a series and a collection. Those differences are relevant when it comes to planning your series.
In Step 1, I defined what a series is and what a collection is. Knowing which way you want to work is critical for how you plan, and how you plan will help you see whether you are better suited to a series or a collection.
Imagine a passionate conversation where two people are trying to understand each other during a disagreement. What if it is a play, with a script, and many hours of rehearsal and direction to perfect the emotional resonance of the scene? How is that different from a real life discussion between you and someone you are close to, where you might not know what you're going to say next and you’re balancing your emotions and wild thoughts with your need to express yourself in a way the other can process? Or an improvised performance where the actors are given a premise and make it up as they go? It might end up being brilliant, or it might fall flat. That is the risk they take, and it can be thrilling. In your art, are you creating the play? Or engaging in a real life discussion? Or improvising? This example highlights some of the differences in process I was explaining when discussing the difference between a series and a collection. Those differences are relevant when it comes to planning your series.
Align Your Approach to Planning with Your Goals and Values
If you don’t plan the right way, you will get bored or lost. Over-planning is a common response to creative anxiety. We don’t know what we are going to create, and we want assurance it is worth the risk, so we try to minimize the risk with planning. But we also want to discover. It’s contradictory! We flow best when we are right on the edge of what we have mastered and it's hard to balance there. We have to let go of control and trust our body memory. A series is an excellent way to play on that edge.
For some of us there is a joy in planning, but for others planning feels like a vibe killer - we just want to jump in! So we do, and chaos ensues. Is there a way to plan without actually planning?
Mystery author Bonnie MacBird, in talking about whether a novelist should plan out their book and know the ending ahead of time says “...outliners often will outline everything, even the conclusion of the book. Pantsers (those who fly by the seat of their pants) often don’t. For them, the end can even come as a surprise… I decide in advance who dunnit. But I don’t know all the details… it’s partly planned, and partly a discovery.”
For those who enjoy planning, creativity thrives in the preparation stage. Sketching, researching, and working out the composition builds confidence and refines ideas. The resulting series showcases mastery and craftsmanship, with the artist's focus on skillfully rendering their vision, and they find a lot of pleasure in using craft to fulfill their vision. This classical approach prioritizes expertise over spontaneity, with decisions centered on executing the plan. This is the approach of creating a collection. The downside of this approach is perfectionism, overworking your art, and losing interest or stamina in your plan.
If you don’t relish the idea of rendering your planned ideas, you might be a “pantser.” For intuitive artists, planning involves setting limits and parameters to create unity in the series - that’s all the planning you need to do. Spontaneity doesn't mean lacking intention, but it does involve uncertainty and risk. Over-planning can kill interest and joy. The danger with this approach is that success comes from the quantity of work produced, and discomfort with mistakes may lead to reverting to familiar styles, chasing new ideas, or getting precious about the parts that work.
When in your art practice do you want to be the most free and creative and where do you want to use your expertise? How much of your process do you want people to see? How important is it to showcase your mastery of the craft? When it comes to planning, you will need to claim for yourself which approach works, and whether you are working in a series or creating a collection. Align your preferred way of planning with your artistic values and purpose (something we’ll talk about more tomorrow). Each approach has its risks and rewards but neither is wrong. It is intrinsic to the work you will be creating and is for you to decide.
It’s time to decide which skills and techniques you want to use, and define your visual vocabulary to create coherence in your work. If you are a “pantser” then defining your visual voice might be all the planning you need to do - you’ll explore your subject using your visual voice and become more fluent and confident in your style.
In Step 4 you will choose your subject and theme. By the end of Step 4, you will have a plan and will be ready to take action and start your series.
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For some of us there is a joy in planning, but for others planning feels like a vibe killer - we just want to jump in! So we do, and chaos ensues. Is there a way to plan without actually planning?
Mystery author Bonnie MacBird, in talking about whether a novelist should plan out their book and know the ending ahead of time says “...outliners often will outline everything, even the conclusion of the book. Pantsers (those who fly by the seat of their pants) often don’t. For them, the end can even come as a surprise… I decide in advance who dunnit. But I don’t know all the details… it’s partly planned, and partly a discovery.”
For those who enjoy planning, creativity thrives in the preparation stage. Sketching, researching, and working out the composition builds confidence and refines ideas. The resulting series showcases mastery and craftsmanship, with the artist's focus on skillfully rendering their vision, and they find a lot of pleasure in using craft to fulfill their vision. This classical approach prioritizes expertise over spontaneity, with decisions centered on executing the plan. This is the approach of creating a collection. The downside of this approach is perfectionism, overworking your art, and losing interest or stamina in your plan.
If you don’t relish the idea of rendering your planned ideas, you might be a “pantser.” For intuitive artists, planning involves setting limits and parameters to create unity in the series - that’s all the planning you need to do. Spontaneity doesn't mean lacking intention, but it does involve uncertainty and risk. Over-planning can kill interest and joy. The danger with this approach is that success comes from the quantity of work produced, and discomfort with mistakes may lead to reverting to familiar styles, chasing new ideas, or getting precious about the parts that work.
When in your art practice do you want to be the most free and creative and where do you want to use your expertise? How much of your process do you want people to see? How important is it to showcase your mastery of the craft? When it comes to planning, you will need to claim for yourself which approach works, and whether you are working in a series or creating a collection. Align your preferred way of planning with your artistic values and purpose (something we’ll talk about more tomorrow). Each approach has its risks and rewards but neither is wrong. It is intrinsic to the work you will be creating and is for you to decide.
It’s time to decide which skills and techniques you want to use, and define your visual vocabulary to create coherence in your work. If you are a “pantser” then defining your visual voice might be all the planning you need to do - you’ll explore your subject using your visual voice and become more fluent and confident in your style.
In Step 4 you will choose your subject and theme. By the end of Step 4, you will have a plan and will be ready to take action and start your series.
Go to the activity