Why Travel more as an Artist?

Wherever you are a Painter, a Sculptor, a Musician, digital or traditional, you draw your resources from Life.

• Where are you the most exposed to this Life you need to create?
• What form does this Life takes?
• How much diversity do you need to evolve as an Artist?
• Do you need to travel very far to find Life?

Outline of the Article:

• Learning to work with limitations
• Compose a travel Diary
• Shopping for rare or discounted items
• Landmarks, the Soul of a Nation
• Parks, let your mind flow
• Restaurants & Cafes, refuel the Body & think
• Museums, Art Galleries, Ateliers & Artists Residencies
• Paint the 50, Paint the Union
• Unique Landscapes, acquire Artistic Awareness
• Rest, for real & Restart

Learning to work with limitations

• Limited Material & Tools
  • You don’t need a desk to be productive.
  • No internet is the best way to come up with new designs.
  • Paper and pencil are enough.
• Limited Time
  • Having less time to create your next project will force better result.
  • Less time means less time to hesitate.
  • Think crucial features through & implement.
• Focus on 1 project or have multiple one?
  • How long is your trip?
  • How many settings are you visiting? 1 piece = 1 setting?
  • Should you create a global composition for this City, this Country?

Compose a Travel Diary

• Get organized & Play more, with Mind Maps.
  • Mind maps are by far the easiest way to concentrate data.
  • After practicing for 4 years you could put 500 pages books onto 4 sheets of paper without losing any substantial information.
• The Process:
  • Take a piece of paper horizontally, separate it with 2 diagonals.
  • Trace 4 circles/ovals/squares/the shape your prefer with 4 different colors, (a 4-color Bic is the easy way to go).
  • Choose 4 topics you want to study.
  • Or the main 4 parts of your next project.

• Why not Paint & Draw postcards of the places you visit?
• Or compose your song & then record it.
• Your diary will become fuller & more diverse with every day passing.
• Develop a clear unique style.
• Produce a piece a day.
• Post daily.
• People may soon contact you to buy your content.

Shopping for rare or discounted items

• Looking for Rare Items?
• Antique shops will give you the inspiration you need.
• Look for Childhood memories.
• Look for foreign objects.
• Look for useless objects with great design.
• What’s that small box that can contain nothing?
• You could also go for Brocantes or Brokers.
• Both have uniques items to sell, if you are willing to ask?
  • What’s the most expensive item you have?
  • What’s the most useless item you have?
  • What’s the most ludicrous item you have?
  • Will you sell it to me?
  • Can I have 30% off of this SNES?
• Get in with your own stuff & see if you can trade.

• Visit Discount Art or Tech store.
• Buy Discounted items, in Bulk.
• You can buy your clothes online, but most of the time you can’t properly try them, even if your e-seller has a solid return policy.
• Same thing here with artistic material.
• Ask to try the items.
• Meet fellow artists.
• Ask for recommendations.

Landmarks, the Soul of a Nation

• What does the Monument looks like, from the outside?
• How does a Monument visit affect your vision of it?
• Observe people around you, are they happy to be there?
• Are they tourists or locals?
• Asking for the Landmark’s history is the best way to aggregate a little sack of knowledge about the place.
• Ask for a Guided tour to fill the blanks & you’re ready to go.
• Grab your tool & make.

• Make Art With a Sense Of Place, Make Contextual Art.
• Does your art belong to the location you’re in?
• Just ask to locals about the City/Town’s symbol or motto.
• Focusing on travel-related themes: Adventure, Exploration, Epics & Sagas.
• But also the Mundane, the Daily, the authentic.
• You can find a ballad on the shores of the sea, or a walk in national gardens.
• Do you prefer the Extravagant?
  • Go for it.

• Would you rather paint sailboats & seagulls?
• Would you compose your next song under cypresses at dusk?

Parks, let your mind flow

• Source of inspiration for artist over History, the parks are also 1 of the ideal location to rest & focus at the same time.

• Painter, train your eyes on animated subjects.
  • Train your animation skills by depicting those people moving around.
  • Train your speed by lashing drafts or sketches on paper/canvas.
• Musicians
  • Go around.
  • Record Background sounds, dialogues, conversations, take quick pictures of animals & people.
  • Do you have some experience with CGI or Video edition/SFX?
  • Why not capture some footage for a future clip?
• Sculptor.
  • Study the synergy between Living & Inert objects.
  • Take some photos for texture reference.
  • Mold textures?
  • Make some miniatures.
  • Do you have some Blender/Maya skills?
  • Do you have a 3D printer?
• Meet fellow artists
  • They will be here for similar reasons.
  • It’s a time as good as any to exchange a few words on your upcoming project & maybe contacts.

• Have you ever wondered why we feel at ease in Parks?

Restaurants & Cafes, refuel the Body & think

• Find inspiration in a restaurant?
• Do you have a favorite dish?
• An evergreen treat?
• Then, treat yourself plentifully.
• That’s part of the creation process.
• You need to refuel this jauge called motivation.
• By thinking about new projects?
• By imagining your next composition on that little piece of napkin.
• Or just by resting…

• Today was a journey, tomorrow will be too.
• What are the after effects of this journey?
• What have you acquired today?
• What will you do tomorrow?

Museums, Art Galleries, Ateliers & Artists Residencies

Too Obvious?

• Not exactly, as we may visit Museums & Art galleries only as consumers.
• In fact, if you’re in the animation/cinematography business do you analyse every movie/series you watch?

• Go for exhibitions with Travel themes.
• Look for expeditions driven exhibitions where are exposed multiple pieces of unusual material.
• Much like what you did for the Antique shops.

• Where else could you go to develop your foreign art senses?
• You’re Tuscany…
  • Have you planned to visit an Atelier?
• You don’t need to participate to group exercises or book for a course, just ask for a quick tour, not even guided.

• Another way to go is Artist Residencies.
• It is a lesser known practice but just as useful.
• These are places where you can enjoy the length of time passed away from home.
• Away from chores.
• Residencies may be occupied for a couple of weeks/months.
• Residencies offer housing for multiple people at once.
• All is in the hands of the owner.

Paint the 50, Paint the Union

• It’s cheaper to travel by car or by train?
• Maybe not always, but it’s easier if you don’t need a visa or have to learn a new language every time you move.
  • Though it could be a missed opportunity.

• If you are living in the US, it may be easy to make a piece of art for every state.
• You may also have some favorite cities or monuments.
• Take a landmark/landscape you like and just add some visual contrast.
• It may be temporal, spatial, thematic or just colorimetric.

• Same thing if you’re living in Europe.
• Start your trip in Lisbon and then all the way to Minsk.
• As you go around mix & match cultures, monuments, plants, wildlife and so on.

Unique Landscapes, acquire Artistic Awareness

Rest, for real & Restart

• Do you have nightmares?
• Vibrant, violent nightmares.
• The kind of apparitions that are a blessing for they procure you the art material you need.
• Yet, are also truly taxing at the same time.
• And not even literal nightmares because they have nothing to do with being laid off, or…
  • That’s all actually.
  • That’s the only realistic thing that won’t happen into these kind of nightmares that are about mooncalves & other monstrosities that aggregate when your visual library gets saturated.

• Travel is supposed to be fun.
• It is also supposed to be the moment when we rest.
• As in, ‘Do we really have fun?’, think.
• Did I really rest?
• Did you rest?
• Start another project.