How Artists Should Think More Like Authors

I've been watching some Authortube videos from a woman named Kate Cavanaugh and I hear her talk a lot about "first drafts". That's a reference to the way authors write a first, second, sometimes even third draft of a story before the come up with the one they end up publishing. In other words, they don't put pressure on themselves to get things right the first time.

Contrast that with artists, who tend to think that whatever color, whatever stroke we put down, that's it. We have to get things right the first time because there's no changing things. This is a mindset that can hold us back from actually creating.

When I'm feeling indecisive about a piece, I tell myself to just put something, anything, on the page. There's a saying that goes, "The best decision is the right decision. The second best decision is the wrong one. The worst decision is no decision at all". This quote is about life in general, but we can apply it to art. Making any piece is a series of decsions and honestly, not all of them will be right.

I thought about this a lot while I was doing my dog eye painting, the last one of which I'm working on now. Here's an excerpt from my post about painting the golden retriever eye.

It was at this point that I my attention was drawn to what looked like some big white patches in the dog's fur.
I didn't want to add patches of pure white, but the leaving the fur as it was didn't feel right either. I mixed
burnt umber with a little bit of titanium white to see how that would look, and I was very pleased with the results.

I would like to move even more quickly in the future when it comes to making decisions about what to do in my pieces, even when I'm feeling unsure.
 and I was very pleased with the results. and I was very pleased with the results. and I was very pleased with the results. and I was very pleased with the results.