Why do artists create a study of a main artwork first?
Why do a study of an artwork first?
The reason I did a few studies are several:
-
- Good paper is expensive (and most artists are poor) and
smaller bits of paper are obviously much cheaper. - It’s a big financial and mental commitment to do a large artwork
(to a lesser extent you use less pigment too). - It’s much easier (faster) to draw or paint a smaller work first,
especially if one is unmotivated/depressed (and I was). - It allows one to check how various colours appear together,
to check the overall composition
and how big or small to draw each individual component.
- Good paper is expensive (and most artists are poor) and
I realised pretty quickly that I could not fit the detail that I wanted onto an A5-sized work, so I moved straight up to A3 in subsequent works. I’ll write some more about my artwork sizes in another update.