I Organized All My Inspirational Art Advice And Realized It Can All Be Paired In Opposites – So Which Way Is Right?

I'm an artist and art teacher. One day when I was preparing for a new class, trying to think of a few good pieces of advice to emphasize, I realized all the good advice directly contradicts each other - and both ways are good. The first idea came when I thought I would teach by getting all the students to loosen up and not worry about drips and mistakes. I started planning how I was going to encourage freedom and working with happy accidents. Then I imagined a whole class painting tie-die and knew they would need to learn some strong technical skills. But I didn't want to end up with portfolios of tight timid drawings.

Each time I thought of something that seemed like great one-size-fits-all advice I asked myself what the contrary was and realized that the opposite is also true. I went down a deep rabbit hole collecting and organizing all my art school knowledge, and researching quotes from well-known artists throughout history. Everyone said something different even though they were considered great artists. So there is no one way to do it to get a good result.

The collection turned into a book called "The Opposite Is Also True: A Journal Of Creative Wisdom." which comes out on October 2nd.

I concluded that as a teacher I can present the information but the student has to decide which way is best for them based on their own point of reference. So I worked up a series of journal prompts and exercises to make art that can help you make your own decisions. It is less stressful knowing that you can change your mind at any time if you try it and it doesn't work out because the opposite way is also good.