 The potential to earn your living at writing is enormous, this is how I am doing it. This is a long, two page e-how, blog. A friend I met through my gray-nomad blog, and who is now a facebook friend, asked me to explain to her how I am able to sell my writing. She is hoping to pick up some ideas from me, to help her earn income writing. This blog post is for you and all other aspiring writers. Please feel welcome to comment, I don't consider myself an expert writer, we can all learn from each other, I'm interested in how other writers succeed also. Since I was a child, I wanted to be a writer, just as I expressed a desire to be a painter, and sculptor and I began to study how to do these things early in my life and I continue to learn. I was aided by my mother encouraging me to write draw and paint, and begin tuition aside from what I could learn in regular schooling, early in life and I’ve maintained that habit of seeking out information in those areas that interest me and a good practice habit, in my creative arts and I have also been proactive in telling people that this (being a writer, painter or sculptor), ‘what I do’. You will not be treated with the respect of a professional, if you yourself don’t act professional in the pursuit of your creativity and your public relations surrounding your work. So let it be known widely that you are ~ a writer, if you want to earn your living writing. My latest effort to earn money at my writing, was last Monday, when I arrived at gym and needed to pay for a course on top of my already several hundred dollar gym membership, I asked if I could speak to the manager of the gym, first, before I made my payment. This request was met with a troubled look and I beamed in pleasure and reassured them that it was not a complaint. They offered to get me a fitness trainer to speak to and I insisted that, ‘No thank you, I do need to speak to the manager of the gym’. I was asked to sit down in the lobby the manager, a young woman, greeted me warmly and I explained to her that I was a motivational speaker and writer with an interest in fitness, health slimming and nutrition and I planned to do the 8 week Extreme Measures course beginning the following Monday and that “if I was to blog about it, on their web site as well as mine, it would bring them many new customers for the following Extreme Measures course andI could bring their web site up to date “ which I told her, “was always months out of date”. I paused, and then mentioned that “the eight week Extreme Measures course was being advertised on their web site as a 6 week course and this was one of my skills, writing web sites”. I paused again to allow this to sink it. Then I said, “and I do not even want payment to do this, I would be very happy to do it in return for my doing the Extreme Measures course fee free”. Then I stopped and let her think about her reply and answer me. She said ‘they had a very good motivational writer for their web site. That Aquamoves was not a private gym it was run by the city of Shepparton and that she as a manager had no powers whatever and therefore would not be able to do any such thing’, but she thanked me for my offer, I thanked her for listening, smiled and we shook hands and parted. I paid for my Extreme measures course and decided that this example of how I ask for work, was simply the best explanation to anyone of how I have been able to earn my living in the arts. I look for areas where my services could be put to good use and without being pushy, I let it be known, what service I can provide, how this would assist the business to whom I offer the service and how I would like to be paid. I do not go door to door to private homes but I do make a business to business approach, that is how it is done, in business. A more subtle form of advertising is that I also wear a T shirt, carry business cards have a car sticker all stating my name and that I am an Artist, Author. If people do not know, then how you consider yourself skilled in a field and seek work, you will not receive work. Most creative work jobs are never advertised, they are created for someone whose skills are seen to benefit a business. Whatever your creative skills are, be assertive and let others know you are eager to provide a service for a fee and don’t be too proud to offer your skills for free as this can be an enormous learning tool and a way to be out there doing the job and having your work seen by potential employers. As a writer I look for a need, I offer to fill it, sometimes even voluntarily, I train for positions, again, many voluntary ones, I counsel where I have the skills to do this, I promote other businesses and organizations I think are worthy of promotion, such as the we are slimming forum below. I have ghost written for no fee, as a stand in editor of a magazine, for a Doctor not knowing how to word his research paper for a medical journal, and co written self help booklets published by an organization aimed at helping people overcome problems. I gave voluntary telephone counselling for almost a decade written gardening info for free on an online chat forum, for years and then I’ve both learned and shared on weight release forums during the almost three years I have been slimming and this all counts as writing experience gained. Any professional writer will advise you to write every day, at least 1,000 words, just keep the flow of words up, practice and learn, keep letting people know you are a writer and look for and grasp those opportunities that will suit your interests and style of writing. During the decades that I have done all that free writing, learning, sharing of info just for the love of it. In doing voluntary writing. I have had examples of my writing 'out there', where it can be seen by people who might offer me work so that when I do make an approach to someone, such as I did, when I spoke to the manager of Aquamoves Gym, and ask them for some form of remuneration for my writing and explaining what I'm prepared to do and how they will benefit, I know I will get a lot of refusals, but I will also be accepted, sometimes straight away, sometimes after a 24 hour thinking think it over period and occasionally out of the blue I am offered a paid writing assignment many months later. You first of all need to love what you are doing, let people know you want payment to do it, ask for work, create your own work. And if you want to write for a living, almost any writers will tell, you must write every day, at least 1,000 words. There has to be the love of the art form within your core. What should you write about? Lots of web sites on how to make money writing will tell you to search for popular key words and subjects and write about those, that is not me. How can I write about things I know nothing about, just because it’s selling? I would recommend writing about the things you know about, your interests, never mind trying to please everyone, you can’t, there will be others who have similar interests to yourself, these are the people you become interested in and write for, find out what their needs are and offer them a service through your writing, write for the love of writing, not for the money, but let people whom your writing could benefit, know you are interested in being paid. Other than that, just be yourself. I was reading someone’s blog today and she intersperses her blog with her beautiful fabric crafts, her family and shared her life’s ups and downs openly and sometimes with humour and sometimes in frustration and even swearing. I felt I knew this woman, and liked her, she was real, her writing wasn’t fake, and it exuded with her personality. She is a good writer. It was obvious that she was not writing about this week’s hot topic, she was writing about the dog going to the vet or the kids to the dentist, and it was all real life, filled with real people’s emotions and highly readable, and she had a large reader base. That’s what I mean by “allowing your personality to move into your writing and writing about your interests and what you know”. Just be yourself. I write about those things that interest me, that are my life, I do this mostly through my blogs, and occasional ‘how to’ booklet, a little reporter work or magazine article, and yes I do have files containing potential chapters of novels, filed away. I have written and had published self help booklets, over thirty years ago and I’m proud these are still in publication because the self help style information I write does not tend to date a great deal. This is the style of writing I enjoy best and I could write about any phase of life I’ve lived and therefore been interested in and I just wish I had the tremendous gift of humour and because I still consider I am learning my craft, I do a great deal of free writing, I study writing, I practice writing, I have ghost written for voluntary organizations all in the name of improving my skills and the sheer love of writing about subjects that interest me. When I read magazines I usually find typos and poorly quoted passages, like the teacher offering a ten day course to be held on Monday the 19th. If you see things like this, that’s a perfect opportunity to seek employment at that magazine as a writer because you can see they need a good proof reader’s skills. Could you be a travel writer, a music critique, a gourmet food writer? If you travel through various countries and use the services of different companies, have you considered offering a story about your trip to a travel magazine and also in turn telling the travel agent that you are a travel writer, showing them an example of a published article, and asking for a discount or even free accommodation to review a service. My sister visiting from California and my family received free passes to Sovereign Hill at Ballarat and also to their sight and sound show, during the evening, on the basis that she was visiting Australia as a travel writer and she has visited Malaysia entirely at the expense of the Malaysian air lines just as I too visited California and stayed at Yosemite, dined in San Francisco and went to the Metropolitan Opera with tickets provided free for the music critic, (no not me J ) in the family. In our family my sister was always considered the writer who also painted and I was the painter who also wrote. lol, strange thing is that in retirement she now paints more than writes and I write more than I paint, lol J. My sister, the more gifted and natural writer of the two of us, writes with a sharp wit, I greatly admire and a flowery style,(which I don’t desire for myself), one way with words that’s become so embroidered with musical terminology, I barely know what she is saying now. I can’t read her style of highbrow writing any more than she would consider I could write a shopping list, J.. lol J The thing is, we have each found our own style and our readers find us. Her readers and mine would rarely have anything in common. The friend who asked me to write this blog entry is approaching retirement age, and I have to say, don’t ever think it’s too late to take up writing for a living as while you might be a has been on the professional tennis circuit at retirement age, in writing, you have a wealth more experience to draw on, so you are never too old to write. Youth and lack of experience and knowledge of varied surroundings is not a deterrent to writing either, if you write from the heart about what you know, Anne Frank, wrote from her heart, about the world she knew, a small attic. The Diary of Anne Frank shows how readers what honest writing, not writing that has been contrived to earn money. It is easy to read the difference. I will not try to give tips on proof reading and editing, these are not my greatest skills, and others can explain these writer's tools better than I can. Use all the proof reading skills you can learn. At the same time, don’t aim for perfection before submitting your work, as perfection is never likely to be achieved in a creative work, and you need to balance proof reading, editing with being forgiving and not too harsh a judge of your own work, or you never will submit your finished work for publishing. So when you think your writing is OK, (not perfect), submit it. If it is not picked up and accepted by others, it is not a rejection of you as a person or a writer, it simply was not what they were looking for, or they have another writer or they are like aquamoves, run by city council and you have submitted your work to the wrong person and need to go further to find the top of the chain and submit again. Remember, it isn’t personal if your work, your approach, does not sell, there is a lot of work available for writers, just keep looking for the needs you think you can fill and keep asking. J. I knew no short cut way to communicate how much it is up to the individual to write about those things that they feel a writers passion for. This post isn't meant to be about me, it's about YOU, taking your creative passions and being able to express them and even being able to earn a living doing what you love most, by simply being yourself. Happy writing, happy creating J Add Comment  On Saturday evening, at dusk, following a rain shower I picked a couple of lovely, just opened Golden Bunny roses, popped them in a crystal vase and painted them into the early hours of the morning.  On Sunday evening, at the same time, I decided I wanted to add an image of a small bear, Faith, the one I had used as a competition prize, into this painting to give it more variety as the rose was all one colour and I felt that faith would give the art work a story line. I cut a piece of cloth from an old T shirt and I wiped out the paint from the area I intended to paint in Faith the bear. I did not apply any thinners, (turpentine), to the cloth as i work safely, and turps, thinners or any solvents or harmful chemicals are never used in my studio, With the canvas wiped as clean as I could get it, using elbow grease and the texture of the wipe out cloth, I began to paint the bear while continuing to develop the painting of the rose and background, working over the entire painting, not just focusing on completing any one area. By mid night on Sunday night I had the block in of Faith the bear and the golden Bunny rose, complete and much of the refinement of the work, done.  Third night at this painting and I followed, my 'more look than put rule and I didn't begin the painting until late in the evening, when i was sure of 'what it NEEDED'. At this stage I worked with a fine signature brush and I mixed a dark violet with dark orange and I increased the darks within the rose. I mixed Titanium white and lemon yellow increasing the lights on the outer edges of the rose petals, I also dragged the paint on the brush over the the face of the bear to try to give the impression of some fabric texture, an indication that this was a calico bear. similar dry brush work was used to try to indicate a suggestion of a knitted top on the bear.. I know I could easily work on the painting for another week, adding detail, but would it be better or just stiffer and more perfect? When I asked the painting, 'What more does it need, (see the previous post), rather than asking, 'what more can I do', I didn't hear it tell me anything.  With nothing more to do to the work other than observe it for several days in the studio, the 'more look than put', technique, waiting to see if it 'talks to me and tells me anything it needs', I put it on a bench that I will pass several times a day and I’ll wipe my brushes clean of excess paint and add them to the pile of Saturday and Sunday night's paint brushes, all soaking in a container of canola oil. cleaning brushes is the only use I have for canola oil, known as rape seed oil in some countries. I rarely interrupt the flow of the painting to clean brushes before it is finished. The painting does not photograph well due to the reflection of flash on wet paint. it will be a couple of weeks before I can take a good photograph of the work.  I will reproduce this painting with a motivational quote as a small business card size fridge magnet for sale at A$4.00, including postage within Australia. If you have any suggestions for a quote that you think would suit this image (not too wordy), I would love to hear it. Cheers, and happy creating, Private & Semi-Private Lessons Kathy  When is an art work finished? 10/18/2009
 I remembered a lesson I was taught, always remember to use and have passed on to my students, like many lessons in one medium. you can apply it to any art form, and life itself. I remembered this technique, the other day, when chatting with a friend about how we go through periods of indecision and lack of motivation in life. I use it when I lack clarity in knowing what to do next. It’s a simple technique; it simply requires you to ask yourself questions. Just make sure your asking the right questions. ‘Ask the right question and you usually get the right answer’ If I relate this for a moment to how I learned the technique and taught it, as an artist, it was in response to ‘How the painter knows when a painting is finished?’ Explanation: - The average unskilled art student and self taught artist, overworks a painting and ruins the potential it had with excessive work. They keep finding more that can be done, to do in the work and they are never content with it, never feel it is ‘finished’. As a writer I am learning to apply what I have long known as a painter, to get to the point quickly and not ruin what I’m saying with excessive waffling. In life, it’s recognising what needs to be done and when it’s OK to step back and rest. When you look at a work in front of you, don’t say, “What more can I do”, because there is always more to be done, you could put birds in the sky, rocks on the ground, another blade of grass, there is never an end to the, ‘What more can I do’, question and the project goes downhill, looses the breath of fresh air, enthusiasm it started in and the multiple layers of paint result in a work that simply, cracks. In life, If we keep looking at life with a ‘what more can I do’ question I think we become what is in danger of cracking. Sometimes the best thing to do, is nothing. J. Be patient with yourself. Try this question next time. It makes for great artists and some brilliant art works. Step back and look at the picture from afar and ask the right question the question that on reflection should bring forth the right answer:- 'What more does it need'?. What more does it NEED? If while you look at the work, the project on hand, you do not hear it ‘speak to you’, to tell you clearly, something it ‘NEEDS’ to have done to it, then STOP. Towards the final phase of every great art work, of every life project, you reach the point where the plan has been made, the block in has been done, a little refining has been done and your now at the detail, fiddly bits stage, this is the stage when a good art teacher instructs you to do ‘more look than put’. I think that advice I learned can be used in all the art forms, including life. Most of my life mistakes have been from wanting to rush in, over commit and try to ‘fix things up’, rather than step back, observe, do a lot more looking on than putting on and asking, 'what more does it need', not 'what more can I do'?. Using my observations tool and looking back over my life, using that tool would have made me a better parent, and certainly have spared me the stroke, workaholism gave me, now that’s another story about someone who tried to fix everyone else’s problems instead of realizing if she didn’t care for herself, she would be no use to anyone. J. Today I try to observe and make corrections before things reach that sort of breaking point. An artist learns to put the brush down, take your mind off the project, walk around the block, get the mail, look at and smell some roses, sleep on it, turn it upside down, look at it through sun glasses, lol, J, take long breaks and come back and take a fresh look at it again, leave enough time after the block in and refinement stage so that you stop seeing the brush strokes you put down and see the overall picture. Then, only when the work speaks to you, DEMANDS that it NEEDS something, do you know what finishing touch, detail, you can do to ‘lift’ the work and have it ready for your signature, COMPLETED. Private & Semi-Private Lessons Painting the beauty of roses in oils. 10/16/2009
    Reg went to bed early after dinner and I had exercised by gardening and doing my weights work out at the gym in the late afternoon and my writing in the morning, so my evening was free, My roses are starting to flower well and they were calling to me, I went outside and picked the freshly rained upon roses just as dusk was falling and now at midnight, I have a small rose painting near completion. The roses in my artist's garden will flower nonstop for the next seven months. I have a steady supply of roses to paint through until I prune them in late Autumn, Tonight I began my first rose painting for the season. The painting is still unfinished but I was eager to show the beginning of the work. I will do some e-how painting lessons again, soon. The photos show flowers to be painted, a painting in production and some completed works.  Guest blogger, Tina from Mummified TIMES FIVE Photography is my passion. Being a busy mum of 5 meant that extending my photographic training had to be put on hold for a number of years but now that the kids are older and I am able to take some time for me, I've finally started working on achieving my goal - which is to become a professional photographer, specialising in portraiture and landscape - by enrolling into photo imaging courses through TAFE. Practise makes perfect and practise means taking lots of photos. Having lots of photos means needs an efficient way to store them on your computer. I've tried a few different methods but this way seems to work for me. Click here to read more-> Organising my photos Another creative posts by Tina, I got some Cloning skills by Tina, autor of -Mummified TIMES FIVE blog. ______________________________________________________________________ Check out Tina’s Mummified TIMES FIVE, blog for more, creative photography ideas. I think Tina (see photo above),has a great artist’s ‘eye’, behind the camera. J. ______________________________________________________________________ How I organize my photos, by Kathy Shell. I also download a day’s photo shoot, at the end of each day. I love digital photography as I usually take about 100 to 200 photos on a day out with the camera. I file these under the day’s date. When I am ready to edit these pictures, I rarely use more than 2% from a day’s shoot and I delete the remainder. My edited photos are filed according to the picture quality I am saving the image as. The highest being my print quality images and I save these off my computer where they cannot be lost nor take up excessive space in my computer memory. I back this up with a second copy stored on line in a password protected area; I value my print quality images too much to lose them in a computer crash. All web ready images are saved according to whether it is a photo of a subject I might use as it is or if it is a photo of my own art works. Then within these two groupings, I will have a portrait folder that has sub folders of bears, birds, dogs, flowers, horses, people, etc and a landscapes folder with sub folders of regions, for example, ‘top end’, ‘outback WA’. However you store your images, try to make time to back up copies of your most important ones and delete those you will not be using, to save space on your computer, and happy photographing J by Kathy Shell Author of Fridge magnet art-Words and works blog, gray-nomad-Gone Bush blog, Artslim-The art of healthy living and natural slimming blog, Art of kathy Shell- A Creative Life, blog and through the eyes of a dog, Indigo’s dog blog Lifelike Drawing in Colored Pencil with Lee Hammond  June Gover is an amazingly inspiring lady and an artist. The picture above is of a painting of a tree at the entrance to Brachina Gorge, Flinders Ranges, South Australia. I had the enormous pleasure of meeting and getting to know June Gover and her family on visits to Western Australia. June is 81years young, and she has refused to give in to her rheumatoid arthritis despite being told about 35years ago that she would be in a wheelchair in 5 years. She is the mum of one of my very best friends, who tells me with great pride in her mother, that her dad used to call her mum, a "Pig headed Aussie Bitch" with affection of cause , and this is why she drove a car until recently, displaying with humour and pride, the number plate, PHAB. It was June’s determination to not be beaten, that saw her, even though severely affected with this dreadful rheumatoid arthritis, walk the Busselton jetty much to the admiration of onlookers and the intense pride of her family. June Gover, had always wanted to learn to paint (not an easy task when you cant hold the brushes properly) and her family, and myself, are very proud of her efforts. June’s children and grandchildren mean the world to her and it is reciprocated, I am told that they feel she is a good friend as well as a good mum and knowing the family, I can vouch for the closeness and love you feel within the close family. June’s daughter tells me that her mum is generous in spirit and actions, as she has been known to go up to strangers, particularly young frazzled mums and give them $50 to treat themselves when she could ill afford to do this. June has a young outlook on life and no topic is off limits, I know, because I love spending time with this ‘young’ spirited woman. June used to enjoy a nightly nip, not so often now (darn medication) but is allowed to occasionally still have the odd one. June loves to read, enjoys quirky things in the garden (she is looking for a skeleton or mannequin for a bath in the garden at the moment). I think June’s landscape painted in Vegemite, shows outstanding artistic talent, the light and shade and composition are excellent. Absolutely inspiring work, June. June actually offered to give me this work, and I was so touched by such a generous offer but declined, not because I did not love the work nor value the generosity of the gift offering, June, but because I did value it so highly that I would not take such a beautiful work away from you or your family, it’s something for you all to treasure , as I will the photo I took of you with your painting you told me was inspired by my work of Brachina gorge, Flinders ranges, South Australia. June it took me a lot many more years of experience than you have had, before I could paint as well as you can. J. I think your fantastic and I treasure all my memories of meetings with you and your family. Here are some other examples of Vegemite art work. Steph Chad’s Vegemite queen & Queen, in Vegemite. Vegemite on toast, speed painting Peter Browne Vegemite Painting Can an Owl become a Lark? 10/10/2009
 I worked hard yesterday afternoon and set up my home gallery and then I worked in my writer’s studio until 2am. I woke refreshed at 6am so I got up and began work again, thinking at the same time how I was doing what I have warned against in previous posts, 'getting on a creative high', and making a note that I must rest later today once I've completed my current creative writing assignment. It is rare for me to be up before dawn and see the sun rise and it is most enjoyable, I think I should make it a permanent part of my life. But can I? I have been watching the mist rise over the oat field and the sun coming up and highlighting the creamy yellow green heads against the deeper green base, it seems only a week ago that they were just a short grass crop. Reg and I fantasize as we always do when gazing out over a panorama, that this is all our land, our wealth, lol, well it is, we get to see the beauty of it and have none of the responsibility or work of planting maintenance harvest and sale of the crop, how much greater wealth is there that that? It is chilly but beautiful. I think I could enjoy working in the morning peace at 'this time of day' but I would have to get my body’s rhythms set to get to bed by 10pm, unheard of for me. At 63, can I make this change? It is 7.15 am now and Reg has joined me. He is in his window seat armchair with is breakfast and the morning sun is streaming through our window, removing the crisp, chill in the air. It is going to be a beautiful day here in Northern Victoria, and I am so pleased I did not miss a moment of its daylight beauty. :-)   I began with this wonderful, photo of two Clydesdales, showing amazing personality in their expressions. The secret of a good paining is not in the artist's skill but in an amazing subject. Every painting should tell a story and the subject lent itself imagining what this pair of horses might have been saying to each other. My friends and I had fun choosing captions for the art work prints. I am working with Maimari Puro Artists Oil Paint, and an archival quality stretched canvas and using artist quality, round, Chungking, hog hair brushes, size 2 8 and 12, one synthetic, rigger brush, size 1 and one 000 sable signature brush/ I use a disposable palette..   Because I am needing to enlarge the image from a small photo, I very carefully draft it as a line drawing on to my canvas using a soft charcoal stick which will dust away as I work. I only use this technique if I am enlarging, I normally work without a preliminary drawing when painting sight size.  I planned every aspect of the painting, before I began, especially the colour harmony, I chose a split opposite colour harmony of red orange, yellow orange and the opposite colour to orange a blue. I put out on my pallet, low and high chroma (colour intensity)versions of these colours and light and dark tonal values (light and shade, versions of them plus Titanium white. I did not use black from a tube but achieved a tone as dark as black by mixing a dark orange (Burnt Sienna) and a dark blue (Ultramarine dark), together so they muted out each others colour, leaving only a dark no colour as dark as black. You are only able to achieve tones as dark as black when you work with the worlds best oil artist quality oil paints with high concentration of pigments and little or no bulking fillers. Student grade oil paints contain a lot of filler and oils and little pigment (colour) density, if using these you would have to resort to the rather flat, bland, black where you need intense dark and expect the dark to eventually fade, if using student grade paint, as the oils eventually yellow and alter the pigment colour.  Preliminary painting step: I didn't begin this painting at the traditional beginning, I chose a relaxed, easy, non stressful place to start, with a medium blue sky coloured background produced by mixing Ultramarine Blue with Titanium white with a tad of orange red occasionally added to the mixture to make the colour more muted. I didn't completely mix the colours on the pallet, preferring to mix as i paint with the size 12 bristle round brush, making the background slightly mottled in appearance and more interesting that a flat solid one tone and colour sky would have been.  Step two of the block in of the horse painting. I painted the lightest light now. I do not always work in this order; the lightest light is often left until last. The reason i jumped ahead and painted it second is because the light shining on the horse's light hair needed to sparkling pure and light and it was important that the brush did not touch and pick up any darker tone that might have made this light paint appear muted or muddied. Any time you need clean bright colour or tone, apply that area of paint BEFORE you paint the surrounding areas even if this contradicts the normal, paint from dark to light method of tonal painting. Sometimes rules are there to be broken. Don't follow anyone's method of painting dogmatically and lol, don't follow a dogmatic painters method. There is more than one way to paint, don't believe anyone who thinks, 'their way is the only way'.  As soon as I had applied the lightest tone to the painting, I could see that my medium tone background was not dark enough to make my light area appear as light as I needed it to be, so I rubbed away some of the medium tone paint and painted a medium dark tone of the same colour, in its place, making my lightest light area, appear lighter than it had before. Remember to make something appear lighter place it along side something darker. To make something dark appear darker, place it beside something that is lighter. In this way, you are able to draw attention to your focal points in a painting.  Thinking 'composition', while I have the medium dark background blue colour on my brush, I dip into the a little of my medium dark tone red orange and I both deepen the tone and mute the colour of the background area between the horses heads so there is a subtle blending of the edges in this area of the painting. This also helps make the light on the horses face and the contrast of tonal value (light and shade), that will emphasis the expression of the horses faces, showing their personality, telling 'the story', to be the first thing that will be noticed about the work. It isn't enough to paint the work well, in brush stroke technique, the painting has to 'speak' to the viewer and this needs to be carefully thought out, planned, and the focal point kept in mind all the time the painting is being developed. Big brush, big areas covered. No hard edges, No details, this is still block in stage; keep everything as loose as possible for as long as possible.  With my darkest and lightest tones blocked in, I begin to mix all my medium dark, medium and medium light tones   Then I block n the mid tones of the painting, working from medium dark, through mid tone to the medium light tones as the last I apply. The brush strokes are still applied loose and with a large size 12 bristle Chungking hog bristle brush. The painting should look 'crude' at this stage as this is still only the block in phase of the work  With my dark, medium dark, mid tones, medium lights and lights all blocked in, I am ready to begin the refining stage of the paining. I hold the stretched canvas up to the light. This shows me any areas of the canvas where I have not applied any pain and unless there was a reason why I should not apply paint to that area, I turn the painting back to face me and I correct this now using a range of brush sizes, from size 12, 6 to to a size 2, to suit the size of the space i am painting in. Large area, large brush, small area, small brush.  With the first three stages of the painting completed. 1/ The planning stage = preliminary sketch, colour harmony and compositional plan. 2/Bold confident large brush work, loose block in of the dark, medium dark, medium, medium light and lightest tones. 3/Refine the pain of any obvious detrimental to the finished effect, blemishes, smooth any area where texture is detracting from the image and fill in any obviously missed areas. Do not over fiddle at this stage. I was now ready for the final, fourth stage, the detailing if the art work. I now go back over areas already loosely painted, developing the contrast of the light and the shade in the focal point areas of my painting and I add the smaller details, firstly working in size 6 brushes for medium sized areas of work and then I work with my size 2 round Chungking hog bristle brushes for the small details.  Notice how I have lightened the background behind the darkest area of my focal point horse head, in the same way i had previously darkened the background behind the light area of the foreground horses head, to increase the contrast, make the dark appear darker and the lights appear lighter, and make my horse heads come into sharper focus, being the focal point of my painting.  Thinking of composition once more, I darken and mute the colour of a section of sky, blurring the edge of the horses neck on the right hand side. I want all the focus to go to the amazingly cheeky expression on the horses faces and then for the eye to comfortably wander around within the painting with no lines drawing the eye out.  have used a new brush for every tone and colour of that tone that I have used in this painting. I don't stop to clean brushes and I do not allow thinners to be used inside my studio. Once I have finished work for the day I might put my day's brushes into canola oil to stop the paint in them drying out. You can also use baby oil only this is a little more costly. I of course would not paint again with these brushes until all that oil and paint has been removed carefully from the brushes.  I do more detailing and subtly draw the viewer's eye to the focal point and strive using good composition and reduced contrast of light and shade on the outer corners, to stop the viewers eye going out of the painting. Can you see how I have blurred the fence post on the lower left hand side of the painting? It merges with the background, visible, but not hard edged, It is viewable but it does not draw the eye away from the main focal points which is not the horses themselves but the interaction in expression and pose of the horses. I feel as if they are in conversation and it’s somewhat a cheeky private in nature one at that. These horses make me smile. I love this painting and enjoyed working on it and sharing my how I painted it steps with you. I am available to assist you with your paintings through private tuition, on line or in my studio for a tuition fee. The completed painting of Rosco and Rusty the delinquent Clydesdale, below. The images of my art works are copyright, contact me to purchase originals and print images and please respect my free lessons, learn from me all you like, but do not copy. Thank you :-). Private & Semi-Private Lessons Happy creativity Kathy Shell  | Follow me on Facebook at @ Kathy Shell
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