Zero to One Concept

 A couple of weeks ago, I listened to the Fine Artist Summit.  The session with  Nancy Hillis, M.D. Nancy, an abstract artist, Stanford-trained psychiatrist and author of the best-selling book, "The Artist's Journey: Bold Strokes to Spark Creativity" was interesting because it introduced me to the concept of Zero to One.

This concept describes that the interval between zero and one is bigger than any other interval mathematically.  So if you think about it, going from nothing (zero) to something is enormous. This concept explains why some artists have trouble initiating a painting or project. 

Artists face zero to one every time they start a new work of art. For those who have difficulty getting started and getting over the zero to one, they can walk in the studio, or start mixing paints or choose a reference photo.

Lastly, Nancy Hillis suggests that working in a series is incredibly powerful because you also can work with constraint within that series.  Working in a series takes the pressure off each painting and actually helps the artist go deeper into these iterations. 

This past week I tried painting a waterfall in a different style.  It wasn't the success I had hoped for but there were some great learnings.

Happily, the two smaller ones I did after this one turned out better.

Have a great week,

Danielle