Creativity and Doubt: Unleashing Your Artistic Potential

Introduction

All creatives wrestle with doubt. It’s simply part of the creative process, of being a creative in the first place. Yes — even those who are wildly successful and established live with a constant flurry of doubt. It’s inevitable and inescapable. 

And make no mistake — doubt isn't to be trifled with! Honestly, it can be absolutely devastating to our creative drive, rendering us unable to create at all, even for a long long long period of time if left unchecked. Artistic block? Anxiety? Lack of confidence? Welp, that’s all a function of uncontrolled doubt running rampant in our studio. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way! Because while doubt can be an absolute downer, it can actually be something worth harnessing! Yes, really! Why? Well, in its benign form, it can actually lead to better work and bigger ideas. This is because doubt introduces ambiguity into our process and therein lies limitless potential! 

So how do we coexist with our doubts, even put them to work for us in a way that propels us forward rather than holding us back? Happily for us we have several strategies on our side to help befriend our doubting natures, so let’s explore them to help us make fast friends with our doubts!

Inducers of Doubt

Let’s first consider those aspects of the creative process that can generate doubt, as follows:

• Evolving skills: Maybe we’re fighting our methods or media because we're still learning them or we’ve actually evolved past them. It’s time to go back to the drawing board or try new stuff!
• Grail chasing: Perhaps our outcome isn’t as consistent to our Vision as we wish. This can be very confusing and frustrating, so maybe it's time to either go back to the drawing board or accept what the Universe has gifted us as it is.
• Raw wounds: Maybe our past artistic struggles are still fresh in our mind and our anxieties. Maybe someone was thoughtless and unkind. Unfortunately, our memory is long and nagging. Any struggle bad enough sticks with us which can cause undue stress and hesitation as we dive into a new piece.
• Chasing windmills: Are we too fixated on perfectionism? This is the surest way to invite doubt into our process, particularly the worst kind of doubt that will cripple us.
• Big investment: Could it be that the expensive body or body we picked is giving us pause? This can really be so intimidating because we don’t want to ruin it.
• Take the leap: Maybe we're on the cusp of a breakthrough which is why things are so uneven and odd. Truly, when things seem most wonky, it usually means that we’ve evolved so quickly, our hands just couldn’t keep up.
• Uneven development: Maybe our hands are out of whack with our perception, pointing to a problem with our translation phase. Here's the kicker, our Eye evolves faster than our hands or our skillset, creating a maddening gap in what we want to achieve and what we can at that moment, leading to feelings of doubt-ridden inadequacy.
• Worried over the outcome: Perhaps we're afraid of failure and judgment, two things that can just stop us dead in our tracks with serious doubts with our abilities and Vision, and even our worth. Or maybe we’re afraid of what’s worse — people simply ignoring our work. All this can cause us to second-guess everything! But creativity is inherently an act of vulnerability, and we need to learn to embrace and make peace with that at some point.
• Wrong priorities: Are we chasing external validation? This is exactly the wrong way to go about creating art because it opens the door some misguided priorities that can introduce needless doubt into our creative drive.
• Feel lost: Do we need more structure and guidance in our process? It’s easy to get overwhelmed and lost in the process as there’s so much to account for in equine realism. Do we need to build in more organized steps, maybe even a schedule? Do we need to find a mentor or maybe create within a classroom setting? Truly, unlike the hard sciences, art has no right answer but an infinite number of right answers. This can make arting rather full of uncertainties because without a solid measure of success, how do we even know if what we're doing is good? 
• Fixation on perceived mistakes: Here’s the big fact of things — only we see and fixate on the perceived flaws in our piece. Everyone else just sees a beautiful piece of equine art! So maybe it’s time to adopt a more wabi-sabi perspective to ease up on that self-flagellation. We should work to congratulate ourselves more than indulging negative self-talk.

And that’s just the start because there are always custom-made causes unique to each of us, too. But boil it all down and doubt is simply an outcropping of insecurities (our fear) which lead to hesitations that can rock us to our core. So learn to make friends with your fear, and you automatically take one big step towards reconciling with your doubts, especially the troubling form of doubt. So on that note…

Five Flavors Of Doubt

We need to understand the five basic forms of doubt if we ever hope to tease out aspects we can put to work. Because knowing these five forms — and how they’re all normal and natural — can really give us a hefty leg up on that horse!

First, there’s friendly doubt. This is the high form of doubt, the one you want to befriend. Why? Because it’s a potent motivator towards helpful problem-solving and better art. Specifically, friendly doubt entails the specific piece at hand. There we are, humming along on our piece when we eventually — because it always happens — run up against the question, “Is this working well aligned to my Vision?" Every artist stops and asks this question periodically throughout the process: Is this piece turning out as I intend? It’s natural and normal, and a  healthy question to ask, being an intrinsic part of the creative process. You see, we have this gleaming, inspiring Vision in our head, our governing concept for how we want it to turn out, the target we shoot for. So it's only natural that we’d pause and take stock every so often, right? Of course!

But maybe it’s not on target, maybe it’s veering off into left field a bit, maybe a lot…maybe it’s turning out nothing like we envisioned. Or maybe things just aren’t clicking and we’re left wondering if this piece will ever work. First determine if this all is just a function of an ugly stage — because that’s normal. Every piece has one, two, or multiple ugly stages, always “trash before the lash.” If it’s not though, now it’s time to problem solve so we apply our tactics and — bam — we have our answer and off we go. And if our Muse runs those subroutines well enough, we usually get our answer as well. But here’s the pickle: This problem-solving and correction would’t have happened had doubt had not been introduced! In other words, that piece is better because of the doubt. In this way, friendly doubt is a marker of a thoughtful and careful artist. It means we’re questioning, searching, and exploring. In fact, if we aren’t engaging our friendly doubt, like if we have no doubt at all, it could mean we aren’t doing things right.

Second, there’s hostile doubt. This is the bad one, the low form of doubt, the destructive one we want to dampen and avoid, even ignore. While friendly doubt deals with just the specific piece, hostile doubt deals with our creative life en total. Being so, it presses the questions:

• Is my creativity all just pointless?
• Why am I trying to be artistic at all?
• Do I even have any aptitude or talent?
• Why am I even doing any of this?
• Will I ever be good enough? 
• Why can't I be as good as so-and-so?
• Even if I was great, would it even still matter?
• Am I just a fraud, an imposter in all this? 
• Are all my achievements just a fluke?

And on and on. So while friendly doubt can get us thinking we might need to rethink or even scrap that piece to start again, hostile doubt compels us to wonder if we need to stop arting all together! Yikes! As such, this is the doubt that sets up artistic blocks which can last for years, even a lifetime. The thing to know about hostile doubt though is that it’s an irrational feeling based on hyperbole and so it cannot be tackled rationally. Unfortunately, we all know how it feels — nothing can perk us up when in its throes! This is because hostile doubt is actually a reflection of how much we love arting. Yes — yes it is. Really, we wouldn’t have such a strong opposite reaction if we didn’t love our creativity so much, right? So it hurts to think that what we love is pointless, worthless, and useless. It also painful to house so much resentment towards our inspirations, our efforts, even those artists we feel outpace us.

Third, there’s comparative doubt. This is the middle form of doubt, the one that can push us to new heights or dash us on the rocks of despair, all depending on how we manage it. We abut this brand of doubt when we compare our work to others or doomscroll studios on social media, or we compare our achievements and awards with that of others we regard as successful. Can you see how this can go either way? Yeah, that. Now it’s good to be inspired by other artists so don't worry about practicing that spin if we wish. Just don’t slide let it into the dark side of comparison because that’ll lead right to hostile doubt, in spades. Avoid that at all costs! Just know that it’s often unavoidable to compare our work to others. We’re human after all. But science has shown that the best way to practice this is to compare ourselves to another a rung or two up, not someone who’s at the top of the game. The former can lead to better work while the latter typically leads to hostile doubt. But even better, rather than comparing our work to others, think instead about comparing our current work to our previous work, looking for all the progress we’ve made. That’s a far more healthy form of comparison, so really lean into that instead.

Fourth, there’s Visionary doubt. This is the taskmaster form of doubt, the one that both guides our efforts or beats us up if we “fail.” Look, our inspiring Vision is potently perfect in our head, isn't it? Of course it is! It has to be powerful enough to get us off our duff to create it. But the thing is, the only place it’ll ever be perfect is there — in our mind's eye. It can never — never ever — be as perfect in real life as it is in our inspiration, and that’s something every artist must reconcile simply to function. So don’t fall into the trap of hostile doubt when that piece falls short of its Vision. That’s to be expected!

Fifth, there’s personal doubt. This form of doubt is seated in our self, deep in our own personal psyche and rooted in who we are as an individual with all our nature versus nurture qualities. Maybe we’re shy, timid, and introverted by nature which can inject doubts into our process a lot more than typical. Or maybe we’re bold, boisterous, and extroverted and so don’t have doubts at all, which is just as problematic. Or maybe someone was cruel to us with our work which has poisoned our well. Maybe we did a huge public faceplant with our work and that public humiliation and shame squished our confidence and moxie. Or any number of reasons that influence our arting today in relation to doubt. The point is, we need to face these nature versus nurture relics and somehow make peace with them if we ever hope to manage this form of doubt well enough to not only stay creative, but to also evolve and grow.

The Upside Of Doubt

Believe it or not, doubt does have its positives! As long as we latch onto those positives and actively smoosh the negatives, our work will actually improve and our enjoyment making it will bloom because a lot of those anxieties we may have will have a healthier context.

So while hostile doubt will deter us, friendly doubts generate a questioning mindset that asks us to consider alternate creative options, preventing us from opting for the formulaic, easy, or predictable answers. So a certain amount of doubt keeps our thinking flexible and adaptive that cannot come any other way. This is a bit counter-intuitive since so often it’s confidence that’s often presented as the key to success. But nope! The more we understand the creative process, the more we realize that the opposite is true: It’s doubt that leads to the questions that improve the work, even initiate creative evolution. Doubt simply generates innovation and originality in both concept and design, making doubt not a weakness but an artistic superpower, one necessary for finding new solutions or directions. As Milton Glaser phrased it, “Doubt is not a weakness; it is a way to avoid dogmatism. When you are confident in something, you tend to seek only confirmation of your beliefs, while doubt forces you to explore alternative paths.” In short then, it’s in doubt where we find creative freedom, not in confidence.

In fact, confidence can become a creative trap that shoehorns creative thinking and discourages the exploration of other options. Indeed, when we believe we have the correct answer, don’t we stop searching for others? Don't we reinforce what's familiar, safe and proven, what’s habitual and formulaic, and then doesn't our drive to explore new perspectives get thrown out the window? As such, too much confidence will lead to artistic plateaus, artistic rigidity, and stagnation whereas doubt keeps our perspective lively, evolving, adaptive, and limitless. While confidence corrals, doubt liberates. It turns our process into an explorative journey with many different options and though not all of them will pan out, still, that exploration invites invaluable insights. Put another way, doubt simply keeps us questioning our assumptions and conventions, a powerful way to invite evolution and experimentation to explore new avenues potentially more fruitful.

Indeed, that’s a big difference with a seasoned artist — they don’t fixate on what’s already been explored nor do they always quest after what’s conventional, safe, and “correct.” Rather they design an environment of exploration, experimentation, and discovery that encourages ideas to collide, evolve, and spontaneously pop into existence. They understand that creativity isn’t about following "correct" dogma but more about ongoing exploration and discovery. This makes every new piece a wonderful opportunity to challenge convention and to reject obvious answers, opting instead for what’s fresh, new, and innovative. In other words, every piece that’s truly fresh was first founded on a series of doubts that kicked what was expected to the curb. It’s doubt that cultivates this attitude by busting through boundaries, dampening complacency, and confronting assumptions. Indeed, if confidence was the trick to success, we’d all be creating by a set of rigid, predictable formulas, right? Yet creativity does best when built on the explorative journey and it’s doubt, not confidence, that fuels that forward.

In fact, it’s doubt that gets us to sidestep pedestrian solutions and can even inspire us to ask some uncomfortable questions about what we’re doing and why. This is actually a healthy practice, albeit not always pleasant, because doubt helps to make our work more complex and compelling. Indeed, sometimes great work requires ambiguity, and doubt cultivates that.

So if we step back and big picture it then, we find that those who are convinced they already know everything they need to know are the least able and likely to learn anything new. In contrast, those willing to question their assumptions and revise their processes tend to rocket ahead rather quickly. This is the power of doubt. Always asking ourselves pointed questions about the whys and what-ifs will strip away the encrustation of our conventions to make room for new understandings. In essence, the seasoned artist understands that creating within uncertainty, to create comfortably with ambiguities without quickly rushing to judgment, is often the better course. Instant thinking, knee-jerk reactions, overconfidence, and conventional thinking can actually erase critical data. In this way, doubt doesn’t narrow the options, it broadens them, it doesn’t weaken our vision, it cultivates it.

Strategies For Coexistence

So now that we know that doubt isn't all bad but is in fact an integral benefit to our process, how do we grasp onto the friendly doubt and kick the hostile doubt out the door? Well, to start, there are different strategies to handle friendly doubt, such as:

• Do proactive study, field study, and research.
• Study the work of admired peers for guidance to see how they tackled similar challenges.
• Query a mentor or respected peer.
• Remember the piece’s original inspiration or spark, and return to it.
• Do some collaborative work.
• Work on something else for a while.
• Do some doodling and sketches without any expectations.
• Engage some artistic exercises.
• Reevaluate feedback — solicit more or jettison it?
• Revisit and study previous work.

In fact, do anything necessary to jog that friendly doubt into working for you rather than against you. Now when it comes to hostile doubt, there’s no managing it. It will eat you alive. So don’t even try engage it, run from it — seriously. So some ways to tell to get stuffed are such:

• Take a break from our brand of creativity for a while. Try something wildly different like ceramics, print making, beading, glass-blowing, or visit a paint n’ sip, or take some art classes.
• Spend time with family, friends, and pets.
• Try new techniques, media, and processes. 
• Do some experiments.
• Participate in a challenge, even one quite different than what you regularly do.
• Go for nature walks and hiking, or horseback riding.
• Lower those expectations! Yes — crank those down. This doesn’t mean you don’t care about your work, but it does mean that perhaps your expectations are unreasonably too high and need to be brought back into balance.
• Never ever judge, redo, trash, or even look at the work in question while in the grip of hostile doubt. It lies to you —  nothing it tells you is truth — and so it will tell you that the piece is junk when it’s actually quite nice and salvageable. So walk away from the piece to save it, coming back to it much later when you can better see the truth of things.
• Show yourself grace, all the time! And revisit those first feelings of invigorating inspiration when you first started the piece, even when you first started to create art. Always remember to “go home,” as Elizabeth Gilbert would put it.

There are also many other tactics to help us coexist with doubt in a beneficial way, tactics that should become part of our skillset, too, such as:

• Do not ever — never ever — attach or tangle up the self-appraisal of your work with sticky stuff like self-worth, self-esteem, and external validation. You are important and valuable regardless of your art! Rather, focus on creating and improving your work on one thing — personal satisfaction. Keep plugging away on it in the faith that you are worthy of it and in the spirit of curiosity, and you will improve as a natural by-product.
• Continue to show up to do the work — that's the real trick. Just keep making more art because that’s how we get better, no matter how fast or slow that goes. So learn to enthusiastically say, “screw it” and just create more art. Who cares what anyone thinks of it! “I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free,” said Georgia O’Keefe, and that’s the headspace we need. Also consider this bit of wisdom from Andy Warhol, "Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” Bingo!
• Engage curiosity at every turn. When this becomes a primary motivator, catastrophic doubt just doesn't stand a chance of taking root!
• If that imposter syndrome raises its head again, understand that most of our self-criticisms come from our insecurities, not from fact. Your achievements are valid and well-deserved!
• Remember that we’re our own worst critic! What you see as terrible flaws just won’t be seen by others.
• Don’t creatively pretend to be something you aren’t — honor your Voice at all times! So what if your work doesn't look like so-and-so’s? It's your art alone and it’s just as special and magical as anyone else’s! The point of your art is to use your Voice purely and boldly, whatever form it takes, not to create like someone else.
• Dump perfectionism and adopt the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, the embrace of impermanence and imperfection. Talk about freeing your creativity!
• Understand this strange dynamic — what you love most in your work will often meet with crickets and what you dislike most will often be met with the most kudos. No kidding! It’s bizarre! So the point is you’re doing better than you think so stay open-minded and keep forging ahead.
• Remember that your Eye advances ahead of your hands, which creates gaps between what you expect of yourself and what you’re actually able to produce. So regularly do artistic exercises to keep that gap as small as possible as you evolve and progress. It’s empowering and practical.
• Employ philosophies that turn fear into curiosity, insecurity into excitement, and doubt into actionable solutions.
• Always remember that doubt is normal. Even those with the most achievements and success are loaded with their own doubts, too. We’re human, remember.
• Embrace this concept: The only way around it is through it. You have to push through your doubts in order to get past them. Be courageous, be bold, be thoughtful, and absolutely, be self-forgiving.
• Never forget that every piece goes through several ugly stages, so if it looks awful, power through it and trust that process! Whatever you do, don’t trash it out of hand. Take a step back, problem-solve, vet critique if need be, and have faith in your process and abilities.
• Interpret each new piece as a stepping stone to the next. Or as Ed Gonzales puts it, “Each horse is practice for the next.” No truer words about arting have been spoken! 

The Power Of Creative Faith

It’s not always easy, and sometimes you’ll flounder, but maintaining a sense of artistic faith in yourself can be a powerful antidote for doubt, particularly hostile doubt. Trusting in your ability to problem-solve on the fly, to bounce back from a blunder, of releasing your grasp on perfection, and even to cultivate your ability to create within the sphere of ambiguity all work together to keep doubts in a better context to put them to good work. Indeed, the unwavering belief that whatever you create, regardless of the outcome, has an intrinsic worth and unquestionable value helps along your struggles in creativity. You also come to understand that all the doubts and internal challenges you face while creating aren’t signs of weakness or unworthiness, but hallmarks of the love, diligence, and seriousness of your ambitions. Because ultimately, what is doubt but a reflection of the great care you put into your work?

To bolster your creative faith then, practice patience with yourself and seek positive reinforcement from peers, mentors, family, and friends. And always trust that you’ll get to your goal, even if you just chip away at it little by little at a time.

Conclusion

Perhaps it’s clear now that doubt isn’t your enemy — quitting is, not starting is, negative self-talk is. You see, doubt gifts us with the freedom to rethink and revisit, to actually make our work stronger, more Voiceful, better. Where certainty ends, that's where our potential begins! Now sure we need a measure of certainty in our technical art form because it give us the biological rules we need to create within. Even so, certainty is quick to stop asking questions and will double-down on what has already been established, making risk-taking that much harder, risk-taking that's necessary to take our work to the next level. In turn, doubt swoops in to restore the uncertainty needed to become flexible and adaptive again, compelling us to question our assumptions and habits, to test convention and pose new possibilities. This is exactly how new innovations, ideas, methods, and aesthetics emerge, aspects we need to explore from time to time in our work to keep it fresh and evolving.

It’s pretty clear then — when everything about our work seems crystal clear and set in stone, that’s exactly the time to start doubting. This isn’t to destroy what we’ve done, but to confirm that it’s the correct way forward. We need doubt to confirm our choices and directions. So wrap it all up, and it’s simply part of our journey to always struggle with doubt. Yet too much doubt can implode our efforts but too little can lead to stale, formulaic work. We have to find that middle ground, that greased tightrope to balance between these two extremes to march steadily forward in an artistically authentic way.

So whatever doubts you’re trying to tackle now, know that you aren’t alone. We all have our own poking us with sharp sticks. But employ the discussed strategies, remember why you love creating equine realism, practice creative faith then lather, rinse, repeat, and you’ll be well on your way with allowing doubt to catapult your work to untold new heights! In doing so, you’ll have learned one powerful way to unleash your true artistic potential, and there’s no doubt about that!

“You are a child of the universe, 

no less than the trees and the stars; 

you have a right to be here. 

And whether or not it is clear to you, 

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” 

― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

Creativity and Doubt: Unleashing Your Artistic Potential

Painting In The Dark: The Right Way To Paint Wrong Part III

 

We're back at it with Ta’alaq, racing towards the finish line. I just applied White and MicroPearl layers to build up the opacity, over and over again. Ooof. As expected though, my biggest challenge was getting enough White on there so he wouldn't look wet but instead look "thin skinned," all the while avoiding an "outlined" effect with the muscles and whatnot. I did a lot of squinting to generalize things enough to get a better grasp of things plus I took him into different lighting situations to rattle my senses. I also took some pix with my phone camera and popped that into Photoshop on my computer to get a more objective perspective as well. Like if I reversed the image or turned it upside down or inverted the darks and lights, it helped to "fresh eye" the paintwork almost immediately by pinpointing areas that didn't look quite natural. It's easy to get lost in the process with this technique and bump yourself off track. You just stare at something long enough that's rather monochromatic and you can end up in the weeds pretty quickly with stylization as your brain tries to impose a pattern. With this particular paintjob though, nuance and subtlety needed to take precedence over pop and pizazz for him to read realistically. I hope I achieved that! I think I did. And now that I know what that special combination of intensity and subtlety is, I think I can ping it again without so much "fresh eye" rigamarole. Anyway...here's where he is now...

Now for the darker dappled portions! For this I used Winsor & Newton Artists’ Oil Colour in Ivory Black and Winsor & Newton Artists’ Oil Colour in Burnt Umber and Raw Umber with the Fast Dry White to create a neutral charcoal. And I mixed in the MicroPearl to keep the darks consistent in pearly finish to the pearlized White. Then I just adjusted the ratios of the paints then to get the various intensities I needed. But here’s the handy kicker, the Umbers naturally dry quicker (with their manganese content) so it forced the Ivory Black to dry faster, too, and with the Fast Dry White, I was golden. And even better, I could stick with traditional oils rather than have to dip into the alkyds. (But I do wish there as a Fast Dry Ivory Black, darn it. Oh well. I guess you just can't get around the antioxidant nature of carbon.) But the tricky bit here is that I painted these pigmented areas after the layering of the White and mica, so they're "on top," after the fact. This risked a lack of cohesion in those areas if I wasn't very careful so I deliberately painted them in a way that made them "sit back." In this the application of value and tone was critical to meld them visually with the white base. But why did I do that and not just paint the dapples alongside the White layering? Because I just couldn't manage it. Maybe it's my skill level or the technique, I don't know yet, but it was just too messy a prospect to attempt to paint the dappling alongside the layering. Plus, painting them simultaneously invited creep of the dark areas, and I wanted to avoid that. I wanted those dark patches more discreet and controlled. I also wanted them grainy-looking as dapple grey has a grain to it. It's not smoothly blended, powder puff-like. It has a speckle from the intermixture of the light and dark hairs, a kind of roany effect. Now had I painted onto a wet White base, painting them together, I don't think I could've really achieved that grainy look so well. But if that base was done and dry first, I had a much better shot. So, overall, I just figured to get the White done first, then I could worry about the dappling later. And all in all, it worked pretty well!

Colors used in the dappled areas: Gamblin Fast Dry Titanium White, Winsor & Newton Artists’ Oil Colour in Ivory Black and Winsor & Newton Artists’ Oil Colour in Raw Umber and Burnt Umber then added in was PearlEx MicroPearl.

Now yes, I know he looks like a bit of a mess. Uffdah. But imagine him with all his dappling and leg mottling...that's the prize to keep my eye on through this ugly stage. And I made his legs dark because they'll marry with the dark mane and tail he said he wants, to paint an exotic picture when he's all done (hopefully). Now to actually paint on the dark areas, I used a #0 angled brush and dabbed on the pigment on there in as chaotic a manner as I could muster to mimic that "organic chaos" so necessary for this effect, applying it onto the hinder, hocks, knees, cannons, and fetlocks. Then I used a small buff brush (an E.L.F. Blending Eye Brush, it's only $3) to even that out a bit and tap down any textural unevenness. Now the reason I didn't use the dab 'n' buff method to apply the darks was because that would've been too powder-puff smooth, orderly and prone to expanding out. I needed a controlled space and a messier finish. Trust me...it'll all make sense in the end! Then I took a clean E.L.F. Eye Crease Brush (it's only $3) and lightly dabbed those areas again, lifting paint off to create a more speckled finish, with tiny little speckles so they were more in scale (which was the white base showing through the lifted dark paint). This particularly worked like a charm! Yay! (New skill unlocked!) So I got my darks on there, chaotic and speckled...check! Then I let that first dark layer fully dry. Then I went back in with some light greige (with Micropearl) to add more speckling with the ELF Eye Crease Brush for more graininess. Why that Crease Brush? Because its grain is so tiny if I dry brush and dab it right, and I'm really focused on scale for this piece to maintain the illusion best. So I let that fully dry.

Now for the dapples and leg mottling...I used a small round brush to paint them on then used that E.L.F. Small Smudge Brush ($6) to futz with them a bit to get them to "sit back" into the overall look by shuzhing their edges a bit. But I did a first layer of dark greige then let that fully dry then I did a second layer in a more pale greige and let that dry. In other words, I didn't use pure White for the dapples or mottling right out of the gate, but I'm building it up in progressively pale griege colors with the MicroPearl mixed in. I'll leave a pure White/MicroPearl layer to strategically amplify things later, "popping" the centers of certain dapples and accentuating some of the mottling for punch.

Colors used for the dapples: Gamblin Fast Dry Titanium White, Winsor & Newton Artists’ Oil Colour in Ivory Black and Winsor & Newton Artists’ Oil Colour in Raw Umber and Burnt Umber then added in was PearlEx MicroPearl. I just made a medium neutral greige with these colors rather than using straight white out of the tube. I'll leave that for the last layers to add strategic areas of intensity inside certain dapples and mottling.

After that, I went back in with some dark greys (using all those same colors), to punch up some networking in key areas, using the drybrush method with that E.L.F. Small Smudge Brush. Then I used the greige and MicroPearl to paint in lighter "lightning streaks" on key areas on the legs and some "ghost trails" on the body softening that a snidge with the Small Smudge Brush and tweaking some of the dappling. 

Getting those dappled areas in there was its own process that asked for patience and methodical trusting the process — and a lot of drying time in between. Uffdah. Gotta lean into that process! Trust that the ugly stage is really a necessary step! Muscle through it! And use the drying time in your favor, as a tool to keep things "clean." Indeed, mixing colors together then applying to the piece produces a rather different effect than layering colors on top of one another, letting them dry in-between. What's more with all this, Ta'alaq was a brilliant, albeit unexpected exercise in not overworking, of going with my guts and first tries. And even more, of having a clearer vision of what I'm doing, to visualize things better before actually digging in, to know more precisely where I'm going with the pigments first before actually forging ahead. You see, I tend to be rather chaotic and back n' forth with my painting method, more by the seat of my pants. But I really couldn't do that so much here. Instead, I had to be more deliberate and strategic with oils and this color in particular, something I'm not quite accustomed to. So happily, that skillset got put through its paces and beefed up because that's always a good ability to hone! But why is this? Because of oils' long dry time. Like why end up with a lot more drying down time because you aren't nailing things first go? Ping it right out of the gate and that's a much more efficient way of doing things. So use that drying time, don't fight it.

So now that I'm done oil painting him and he's fully dry, let's talk about finish sprays. The only one I've used on oils so far is Testors Dullcote and I've had tremendous success with it. But if you'd like a more traditional varnish, one that can be removed with mineral spirits, or a different finish other than Dullcote's hyper-matte finish, try Winsor & Newton Spray Varnishes. They come in glossy, matte, and satin so you have some options. However, while you can paint oils and acrylics on top of Dullcote again for another go, it's not advised to do so with the Winsor & Newton varnish. Why? Because the Winsor & Newton is removable so whatever is painted on top of it will be removed, too. This has a big implication for painting on eyes, hooves, markings, and other detailing for me because I do all that in acrylics after the Dullcote rather doing them in oils before a finishing spray. (You need a Testor's Dullcote spray after your oils are completely dry in order layer on acrylics on top safely otherwise the acrylic cannot stick to the bare oils and will rub or peel off over time. So Dullcote just gives the surface some tooth and allows the acrylics to stick properly.) On the other hand, Dullcote is a permanent finish that can also be layered with itself and more oil paint, so if you want a permanent option, it's a good one (and just a light coating will do, no need to douse the piece which will cause a sheen, drips, and gumminess). Now why would someone want a removable varnish? Well, to allow for cleaning some years from now if the piece gets grimy from wear and tear. So if you want that option, check out those Winsor & Newton varnishes. So all that said...after he's been Dullcoted, acrylic-detailed, and haired, here's Ta’alaq finally all done...and voilá!...

Wow! He turned out so cool, even if I do say so myself! I just absolutely lurves him! I made this?! My big happy with his paintjob is that I successfully pinged all my goals, the peeking-out dark skin effect, the dimensional expanse of white, and the overall realistic dark-skin look. Now yes, he was a lot of misfires and sideways work to get here, but golly, was he so worth it all! Lessons learned. But on top of that, I pinged a fourth...that pretty sheen on him? That's not a satin finish, that's the MicroPearl showing through! So lovely! It adds just the right amount of subtle punch! The photos just do not capture how absolutely ethereal he looks in person though. Holy buckets! Really, in person, he just has the most lovely luminescent pearly beauty! Wowie zowie! I swoon! I gotta say, I think he's the most beautiful paintjob I've ever done because of it. Now as for those final details, I painted all that in acrylics (Golden Fluid Acrylics and Liquitex Soft Body Acrylics). Then I used black and dark grey ramie for his hairing because it's so fine and in-scale for an Arabian. So ta-da! Finito and I'm super happy with the result! Victory! 

Golly, Ta'alaq, you taught me a ton of amazing stuff and I'm so grateful! Yet I couldn't have learned all that good stuff without the mistakes, but that's just how it works, right? And I'm so thrilled to see that my hypothesis was right on the money! That working dark to light worked, and worked so beautifully with oils, this might become my modus operandi for greys in oils. A laborious, time-consuming modus operandi granted, but I just love the result so darned much, I just gotta! Liken note how the skin-grey is so different from the hair-grey...bingo! So thank you gobs and gobs, Ta'alaq! You were a true revelation who developed my oil painting prowess in the best and most unexpected ways! Oh, the power of FAFO in arting is such a wonderful thing!

Wrap Up

When it comes to painting, nothing is really verboten with me. I’ll paint light to dark and dark to light, back and forth, overlapping and patchworking, depending on the effect I want or the correction I want to make. I’ll just do whatever it takes to make it work. It’s chaotic, but it works for me, and I like the results a lot. I think it also adds layers of interest and complication that’s a benefit to the paintwork. Indeed, I find that each direction also has its pros. Like the light to dark gives a clarity, glow and “cleanness” to the color whereas dark to light imparts a richness, depth, and dimension. So if you know how to paint both ways, you’ve got any horse color on lock! The only thing I'll never do though is paint something on top of oils that can't stick to them, like acrylics, unless Dullcote is involved. I'm also not prone to using solvents with my oils. I dunno...I just vastly prefer a solvent-free approach to this medium. And no toxic driers either...yay! Thank you for that method, Heather!

As for this paintjob in particular, my big takeaway was this: Be patient, be methodical, and trust the process. But wow — that was hard at times! So often I had so many doubts! Am I doing this the right way? Is this going to work? Does this even look realistic? Does it even look good?! Plus I wanted to go faster, eager to get to that finish line and see the final result quickly. But yeah — the method and the media have their own pace I had to respect. That was maddening at times because I’m impatient. I like my questions answered quickly and succinctly, not drawn out and unfurling! But that’s the nature of arting, isn’t it? The process is the process, and you go at its pace, not yours. That’s always a good lesson though, a good reminder of The Bigger Picture in Life. It was the tortoise who won the race after all.

The second big takeaway was this: Even if you think your process is forwards-only, it probably isn’t. Sometimes you can back step to go forwards again. I do this all the time with acrylics so it was a relief that even with oils, I found that I could un-make whatever I made to re-make it again with relative ease. Phew! It just entailed a lot of dry-time between those corrections, but such is the nature of oils. 

The third big takeaway was this: Mixing colors and layering colors aren’t the same thing! That's to say, layering colors on top of another produces a very different effect than mixing them together and then applying them to the piece. So I couldn't just mix up colors to create corrections on Ta'alaq...I had to go back to the beginning and restart with layering, as you saw. This was an important albeit unexpected lesson in painting mechanics that I think will be super helpful for pinging effects in other pieces.

Conclusion

I hope this journey was enlightening to you in some way! I hope it not only gave you some new ideas and techniques, but also inspired you to jump into the painting fray as well! You see, for years my desire to paint was simply dead. Dead as a doornail, I was so burned out. Besides, the way I painted with acrylics made my hands hurt, and that became a major deterrent. Plus, I’m more of a sculptor than a painter, so if push comes to shove, I’ll choose sculpture over paintwork almost every time. But that said, oils, painting lessons, going to paint n' sips, and creating for NaReViMo have reawakened that desire to paint again in the most lovely way and now I’m eager again to put media to the test and my hypotheses on the block! In this, I’m approaching painting now as an exploration, a process of discovery and experimentation rather than “something I have to do." That’s to say, curiosity rules the day with my pigments, and it’s really switched up my motivations in the best way. When you ask “what if” with every new piece, your horizon suddenly shifts to something so much more exciting, at least it has for me.

And I gotta say, Ta’alaq was definitely a big “what if”! I really pushed myself with this guy, and while it was a little unnerving at times — which is good — it was never boring! I’m of the belief that if you aren’t a little bit uncomfortable in your arting, you aren’t pushing yourself far enough. Streeeeetch for that brass ring! Push past that comfort zone! Great things are just within reach if you take the risks! “To embrace chance is to invite serendipity,” said Aloo Denish Obiero. So very true! And serendipity — the happy accident — is a super beneficial part of the creative process. In fact, the more fertile a ground you can plow for a happy accident to seed, the better! Honestly, the way I approach my own work is to do just that so in this sense then the “click” I need to call “done” is essentially the recognition of all the happy accidents that happened that I carefully left alone, as they should be. They're gifts from the Universe! If I'm doing it right then, my finished piece is just one big happy accident that made itself. Woot!

So I hope this creative adventure has you thinking down new avenues and considering new possibilities because the ones I played with sure were a blast to explore! I mean, Ta’alaq has certainly got me thinking in new ways and I’m excited about which direction to go from here! Like is exploring metallic micas next? Maybe I need to create a Teke maquette! And how far can I push this MicroPearl? Because gosh, wouldn’t it be so pretty with a palomino or champagne? QH and Morgan maquettes! Or do I try this dark to light on a bay or chestnut? Maybe I need to do a drafter maquette! A warmblood maquette! Or maybe with an isabella or pearl? An Iberian maquette! Whee! So many options! But that’s the beautiful thing about asking questions with each piece you create — each answer spawns new questions with new inspirations that take you in a dozen different new directions at once. Indeed, “Inspiration exists but it has to find you working,” said Pablo Picasso and he’s absolutely right on the money. The more you art, the more art comes to you! So pick up a model, get it ready to paint, and then dive into those pigments with wild abandon in the spirit of discovery! Let "what if?" pilot your course and you're well on your way! Maybe you too can learn more of the best wrong ways to paint and give your portfolio a nice big ol’ shakedown! Doing it wrong never felt so right!

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt,

and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” 

— Leonardo da Vinci

Painting In The Dark: The Right Way To Paint Wrong Part III