Karen Sperling’s Blog

Painting by Karen Sperling from a photo by Michelle Lamberth.

I wrote the first Corel Painter manual in 1991, when the software debuted.
Adobe Photoshop debuted around the same time.
That means, it’s almost 20 years since digital art first became widespread through the use of two popular software programs available on the two most popular computer platforms, Macintosh and Windows.
It also means that we’ve been debating for nearly 20 years what to call this art.
There are purists who insist upon calling it digital art. The problem I have with calling it digital art is that the term has a stigma attached to it. Digital art is somehow perceived as not being as valuable or as proper as “real art,” if real art is that which is created with traditional materials, mainly because theoretically, infinite numbers of computer printouts can be made from the digital file vs. “real” art that’s only one of a kind.
The fallacy in this logic is two fold. First, “real” artists create multiple copies of the same artwork and sell it, from Monet and his haystacks to Andy Warhol. Sure, it can be said that even if someone oil paints the same subject on two different canvases they won’t be identical. But that leads to the second fallacy, namely, that two art printouts are identical. They’re not. The colors, the ink levels, the kind of paper or canvas, will be different each time.
Instead of comparing computer prints to “real” paintings, they should be compared to photos. An Ansel Adams photo is valuable, and the quality of the print is considered in determining the value. One doesn’t say, it’s not valuable, it’s just a print from a negative. It’s valuable because it’s an Ansel Adams photograph.
I’ve learned two very important factors about art in the 20 years that I’ve been writing about and teaching Painter.
The first factor is, it’s the same hand movement back and forth, whether you’re painting with a Wacom stylus and the computer or a paint brush or drawing with a pencil.
And the second, more important factor is, art is about creativity and thought as much as, if not more than, it is about physical dexterity with a mark-making implement.
It’s the thought that goes into the ideas of the art that makes it art.
That means that it doesn’t matter if art was created on the computer, it’s art because it represents the thought, ideas and expression of the artist.
David Hockney has embraced computer tools, it’s time everyone else does.
Regardless, I have never seen myself as a warrior fighting the good digital art battle. I leave that to other people.
I’m not alone. Go to galleries and museums nowadays and you’ll see art that has been affected at one stage or another by computer software, yet there’s nothing in the accompanying identifying plaque about computers. That’s because it doesn’t matter how the art is created, it’s still art. And maybe it’s also because of the stigma attached to mentioning the computer.
I liked how Jim Dine seems to have handled it. I went to an exhibit of his art at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine here in California. One of the images looked like a digital print of a photo of an office with a bird painted in it. The accompanying descriptive plaque listed the media as paint and printer’s ink.
Digital art purists view digital art as an art movement similar to Impressionism and Pop Art. I don’t see it that way. I see digital art as another medium alongside oils, watercolors and pastels.
I’m thinking about all this of late because I have made the decision to get into painting portraits full steam ahead. Till now, I’ve been content to just teach others how to do it, which probably had more to do with my confidence levels-those who can, do; those who can’t, teach, as the saying goes.
And I’m just not comfortable with this whole name game. I want to just call my portrait art paintings, but that’s not completely accurate, and besides, I will be offering prints on canvas and also oils on canvas. I can’t call them digital prints or digital portraits because there’s still a stigma attached to those terms.
So I thought about it and I came up with the term, paintography. That’s what the digital prints are, a combination of painting and photography.
I did a google search on paintography, and I’m not the first to have thought of it, though I haven’t seen anyone else use the term in relation to portraits.
I use the term paintography at my portrait web site.
I think paintography has great potential and might be the solution to the problem, what do we call what we do.
What do you think of paintography as a way to describe paintings from photos?
Please add your thoughts in the comments section.
Learn the art concepts and software steps for turning photos into paintings in Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop with the tutorial movies on the Painting for Photographers DVD. Use the brushes on the Artistry Bonus CD for hand painting backgrounds and hand tinting photos. I’m available to paint client portraits, or if you’re a photographer, I’m available for subcontracted paintings. And I’m available for portfolio building photography sessions.

Tags: Karen Sperling's painted portraits, The process of art (Corel Painter) by Artistry
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In part I of my Confessions of a newbie children’s portrait photographer, I showed the results of my first portfolio building portrait shoot and talked about my experiences with grainy, high-ISO photos.
Many of the comments I received about that blog mentioned how courageous I was in revealing my feeling stupid in my new adventures as a portrait photographer.
The fact is, that was exactly the point of that first installment. You only feel stupid till you figure out what you’re doing, and if you stay with it long enough, you will figure it out. So I knew feeling stupid was just a temporary predicament that I was going to soon leave behind me, which is why I didn’t feel bad about admitting it.
In this installment, you see my next group of photos, for which I used the correct ISO setting. As a result, these photos were less grainy than the ones from the previous shoot.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, in this shoot, there wasn’t enough available light so all the photos came out dark. What I found, though, was that I was able to adjust the tones and colors in Photoshop, using the art theories and software settings that I describe in the art lessons and the bonus tutorials on my Painting for Photographers DVD.

Though I’ve been involved with Painter for 20 years, I’ve only been using Photoshop for a few years, and I find that the same thing applies to both software programs–knowing the art theories behind what you’re trying to do is more important than knowing the software steps. Moving Photoshop’s adjustment sliders around gives you various results, and the art concepts are the key to deciding which effects to keep.
The more I venture into the unknown territory of portrait photography, the more convinced I am that the art theories are the perfect compass to guide you on any artistic or photographic expedition.
I tell you all this to help convince you that if you’re interested in painting, you can probably do it, if you learn the art concepts in addition to the software steps. If you’ve painted and have become frustrated, or if you haven’t even gotten as far as trying to paint, learning the nuts and bolts art theories will take a lot of the mystery out of the creative process and will allow you to make progress in creating art from your photos.
Of course there’s a third ingredient in addition to the art theories and the software steps, and that’s practice. The more you paint photos, the better you’ll get. I speak from experience. What I’m doing today is far better than what I did when I first started.

Once I adjusted the tones and colors in Photoshop, I used Painter to add brush strokes and colors.
In the above image, I painted the background with the texture brushes and I hand tinted the photo with the watercolor brushes on my Artistry Bonus CD. I find that Photoshop’s adjustments are really great for editing colors, but only to a point. If you want to completely change colors, I find it’s easier to paint them in Painter, and my watercolor brushes are already adjusted for you–all you have to do is change brush size depending on the size of the area in which you’re painting.
In the above image, I reduced the figure’s saturation in Photoshop almost completely and then in Painter added back color by painting it with my watercolor brushes.

Now that I was able to create photos without grain, my next challenge is to work on lighting. I have a new shoot tomorrow, so I’m going to try to figure it all out by then. I’ll let you know how I do in part III.

Learn the art concepts and software steps for turning photos into paintings in Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop with the tutorial movies on the Painting for Photographers DVD. Use the brushes on the Artistry Bonus CD for hand painting backgrounds and hand tinting photos. I’m available to paint client portraits, or if you’re a photographer, I’m available for subcontracted paintings. And I’m available for portfolio building photography sessions.

Tags: Artistry Bonus CD, Karen Sperling's Corel Painter brushes, Karen Sperling's Corel Painter brushes reviews, Karen Sperling's painted portraits, Painting for Photographers DVD (Corel Painter), The process of art (Corel Painter) by Artistry
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I have been teaching people to use computers and Corel Painter software for nearly 20 years. It’s my experience that people with the ability to feel comfortable with feeling stupid learn better than people who hate feeling stupid. People who can just roll with feeling stupid get smarter quicker by not wasting time on fighting feeling stupid.
I’m finding myself in the situation of feeling stupid as a result of a decision I made a couple of weeks ago to photograph children and to paint their portraits.
It might not seem that extraordinary that I should take on client portraits after teaching photographers how to paint for 20 years, but it was an unusual turn of events for me because, although I’ve taken photos all my life, and though I teach photographers how to paint photos, I never aspired to being a working professional photographer. I still don’t, but I would like to be a working professional portrait artist, and although I have a portfolio of paintings I’ve done over the years, both for clients and for training materials, I didn’t have a group of paintings based on my own photos. I was always too busy creating the paintings to additionally do all the photography, and relied on my audience of photographers to supply me with images to paint for instructional purposes.

Because I never was a professional photographer, I was suddenly in the position of feeling stupid.
The first thing I had to find out was, how to go about getting clients. I researched online, and it turned out that a common practice is to do “portfolio building” sessions, where the photographer waives the session fee and minimum print fee and gives out a free print or CD of images. The hope is that you’ll sell some prints, too, but the main thing is, you’re giving away some time and images in exchange for using the photos as publicity to get clients, and in my case, you’re also getting some experience and some photos to paint.
Great, I got some people to sign up for free portraits of their children, then I had to actually do the photo shoots, which I never did before, even though I’ve been taking photos all my life. The closest I ever came was shooting a friend’s wedding, which I did for free in exchange for being able to use the photos for tutorial paintings.

The day of the first children’s photo shoot arrived, and I thought photographing an 8-month old was really fun. Unfortunately, I did something stupid. The night before, I was practicing with various camera settings, including a high ISO, which allows you to shoot in low light, but causes graininess. I took all the photos the next day on the high ISO setting by mistake, and when I went to edit them, I saw photos of a beautiful baby with grainy skin. Oops.
Now this was a whole bunch of feeling stupid to contend with: Where to find clients, how to do a photo shoot, how to set up the camera.
Now I had some more feeling stupid–I had to find out how to remove grain from a photo.
Did I want to run in the other direction at this point? Um, yeah. I’m no more comfortable feeling stupid than the next expert!
I have this saying, in relation to fear. I fear a lot of things, and I say, feel the fear and do it anyway.
So I transferred this advice to myself for the current situation: Feel stupid, and do it anyway.
I started to do some online research about removing grain in Photoshop. I found a lot of sites with a lot of ideas–apparently I’m not the only one to make the high-ISO mistake. I started to apply some filters in Photoshop, but I didn’t like the results.
Then, like a scene in a movie, the answer suddenly appeared.
Corel Painter to the rescue!
The way to take out details in Painter is with the Blenders’ Just Add Water. Grain is a detail, hmm…
I proceeded to paint out all the grain using Painter, and suddenly, I was feeling smart, again.
Once I had painted out the grain, I decided to change tones and colors, as well, following all the art lessons and Painter instructions I provide in my Painting for Photographers DVD and Artistry Bonus CD. The results are the images you see on this page.
After I finished painting all the images, I had second thoughts because of my inexperience with client photos. I had offered to take photos and use them for paintings, I didn’t offer a lot of paintings, which is what I wound up with after painting out the grain in Painter. The images weren’t my typical Painter paintings, but they weren’t straight photographs, either, and though I’ve always received great feedback about my Painter art from my readers and students, I was afraid the mom wouldn’t like the results.

I showed the mother the images and told her what had happened. A nice thing about doing all this for free and calling it portfolio building was being able to be honest about everything. If I had called myself a professional photographer and charged fees right out of the gate, I shudder to think of the position I would have been in when things didn’t go right. I offered to redo the shoot on the correct camera settings so that the images would be more like photos.
Well, it turned out, the mother liked the results! It was worth placing myself in the position of feeling stupid to figure out how to accomplish getting photos to paint for a portfolio, and the mom will have a nice print of her child.
The moral of the story is, don’t avoid doing something because it makes you feel stupid. Enjoy learning the thing you’re trying to do and the result will be feeling smart.
One great way to learn to paint photos is to attend an Artistry Retreat in Los Angeles (Sherman Oaks).
A great alternative to the Artistry Retreat is the Painting for Photographers DVD, with step-by-step tutorial movies for painting portraits from photos, including painting backgrounds and combining figures with backgrounds. The Artistry Bonus CD has plug and play brushes to use for painting oils and watercolor portraits. I’m available to paint client portraits, or if you’re a photographer, I’m available for subcontracted paintings. And I’m available for portfolio building photography sessions.
Read Confessions of a newbie children’s portrait photographer, Part II.

Tags: Artistry Bonus CD, Artistry Tips and Tricks (Corel Painter), Artistry Tips and Tricks reviews (Corel Painter), Corel Painter classes, seminars, workshops, Corel Painter classes, seminars, workshops reviews, Karen Sperling's Corel Painter brushes, Karen Sperling's Corel Painter brushes reviews, Karen Sperling's painted portraits, Painting for Photographers DVD (Corel Painter), The process of art (Corel Painter) by Artistry
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Photographers who paint photos don’t think of themselves as artists, but they are, and it’s a good idea to look at art in galleries, museums, books and online to get better at creating your own masterpieces.
Google has beefed up its image search engine, and it can be especially useful for art research. Google any artist and you will see a collection of the artist’s work. The image above is what I got when I googled Monet.
Here are 5 things to look for when viewing art:

What is the subject?
In art theory, the subject is the area of greatest contrast between light and dark. Look at artwork to see how artists use this theory in creating their compositions to help you design yours.

What color scheme did the artist use?
Determine and analyze the colors that the artist used. Do you like them? If you do, use them in your art!

Did the artist use color harmony?
Color harmony is where colors are repeated through the composition. See how the artist incorporates it in theirs and use the ideas in your artwork.

What kinds of brushstrokes did the artist use?
One of the things that I see photographers struggling with most in their paintings is over blending. They’re used to looking at photos with soft transitions between colors and tones. Viewing art, especially in person, will show photographers the kinds of looks and brushstrokes that they can emulate that will help make their images look more painterly.

What is the artist’s style?
I like to go into a museum and see if I can tell who the art is by without looking at the plaque next to the art, and I usually can by looking at the characteristics of the artist’s style. Getting better at determining artists’ looks or styles will help you in creating the style or look of your own work.

For information about art theory and how it applies to turning photos into paintings in Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop, check out my Painting for Photographers DVD, which recently received a new rave review at Blog Critics.

Tags: Painting for Photographers DVD (Corel Painter), The process of art (Corel Painter) by Artistry
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Painting by Karen Sperling. Background available on the Painting for Photographers DVD. Photo from http://freerangestock.com/

Why do you paint?
I ask because there are a lot of people out there who would like to be painting and who are either scared, or intimidated, or simply don’t think they can do it, yet, the thought never leaves their minds…maybe they could paint?
So I’d like to get everyone’s feedback about why they paint to both encourage those who would like to paint, and also to get us all thinking about the reasons to clarify our thoughts about the process.
You could like to paint because you like to express yourself through art, or because of the way it makes you feel, or because you make money at it, or maybe it reminds you of a favorite uncle, or maybe you like the Impressionists.
Whatever it is that you like about painting is interesting, and I think getting the input from a lot of different people will be enlightening and encouraging to everyone.
Post your answer in the comments section.
I’ll start the ball rolling.
I like to paint because I like the uniqueness of media, whether I’m using computer tools or traditional ones.
When you think about it, writing is like painting in the sense that you use symbols to get across your thoughts. In writing, the symbols are the letters and in painting the symbols are the brushstrokes.
I love to write, but I especially love to paint because the brushstrokes are more interesting, unusual, and many times more colorful (I like black and white paintings, too, so that’s why I say many times).
I find when I’m writing that I miss painting because I miss the different ways of creating brushstrokes that together form the art.
It’s probably why I enjoy creating Corel Painter and Photoshop DVDs, tutorials and books and teaching Painter and Photoshop classes, seminars and workshops. I like analyzing the brushstrokes and coming up with different ways to create them.
Your turn! Why do you paint?
Look forward to reading all your comments!

Tags: The process of art (Corel Painter) by Artistry
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Detail of painting by Karen Sperling from her photo taken at the Butterfly House in Topanga, CA.

I had a great conversation with Rodney Washington today. I’ll be a guest on his radio blog show on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at 1 p.m., Pacific Time.
I was impressed with Rodney’s take on the importance of marketing.
He tells photographers that instead of thinking about marketing as dreading having to make another phone call, think about what your niche is, “what’s your message, what’s the reason behind why you’re doing what you’re doing and how it’s affecting people,” and then speak that message. “The money will come if the message is in alignment” with who you are and what you believe in.
Nowadays, anyone who has a business has to do marketing in one form or another. I never think of myself as a master marketer, but I certainly have to do it to keep my business going.
And what Rodney said really hit home for me. I told him I never really thought about it before, but my message, my reason behind why I do what I do, is what I wrote in my book, Painting for Photographers, and that is, if you think you can paint photos, you probably can.
The reason that’s so important to me is because I want to offer encouragement to others to paint and to pursue creative interests because no one ever encouraged me.
When I was younger, I thought no one encouraged me because no one thought I was very good at anything.
Now that I’m older, I realize that there are zillions of reasons preventing people from encouraging you, and most, if not all, have nothing to do with you.
Some people don’t need encouragement. They are made of tougher stuff and they can go out and realize their potential without any feedback from anyone.
Not me.
I took to heart all the negative feedback and lack of encouragement and waited all my life to realize my creative potential. And I’ve only just begun to do so, I have a lot more I want to accomplish.
What got me going was some encouragement from an editor of a magazine. She was the only person who ever said to me about art, you can do it, and I did, and she published my first painting.
Click here to read the story.
So that’s my message, if you think you can do something creative, you probably can, and as for painting photos, I’m here to help you turn your interest in painting photos into a passion by showing you not only the art concepts and the software tools, but also by being the example of what I’m teaching. I never finished a painting before 2001 and now I’ve exhibited my art in New York and Los Angeles and during Art Basel Miami, and I’ve sold my art and commissioned portraits to private collectors.
So if I can do it, you can do it!
I guess this is marketing, then, but it sure doesn’t feel like it, and I guess that was Rodney’s point, and it’s a good one–do what you believe in and everything will fall into place.
I titled this blog the aha moments because that’s when I get the most satisfaction out of teaching Corel Painter workshops, when I’m showing photographers the art concepts and the Painter steps for painting their photos, and their expressions go from fear and confusion to aha! That’s how you do it! For me as a teacher, those aha moments are fantastic!
I’m sure readers of my Artistry Tips and Tricks and my Painting for Photographers book also have aha moments, but I don’t see them! I do see the aha moments in my Corel Painter classes, though, and they’re the reason I love teaching Painter, to give people who think they’d like to paint the tools to get them painting.
And you can experience your own aha moments live at an Artistry Painting for Photographers Retreat, where you learn the art concepts and receive step-by-step Painter instruction for turning photos into paintings. The next Artistry Retreat is May 12-14, 2010 in Atlanta, followed by a Los Angeles Artistry Retreat May 24-26, 2010, then again in Los Angeles June 21-23, 2010 and in New York, June 28-30, 2010. Click here for details.
Are you someone who has had an aha moment from my Corel Painter tutorials, books or classes about painting photos? Please share your aha moments in the comments. You’ll be encouraging those who are afraid to paint to learn the art concepts and Painter steps and to paint their photos!
And tune in to Rodney Washington’s radio blog show on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at 1 p.m., Pacific Time. Between his insights about marketing and my painting information and experience, it should be a pretty interesting conversation!
Aha!

Tags: The process of art (Corel Painter) by Artistry
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Painting by Karen Sperling from a photo by Frank Stewart, featured in the July 2009 Artistry Tips and Tricks.

I received this email from one of my Painting for Photographers readers:

“I haven’t done much in the way of digital painting since I received your book (not a fault of your book, but my waning interest in digital painting at the present time). I had an unpleasant experience taking a studio painting course a few months ago, my first acrylic painting course, and that experience made me wonder if I had any artistic ability at all. So, I’ve stayed away from art and photography for a while.”

And here was my response:

“I’m sorry to hear about your experience with the studio painting course. And I want to encourage you not to get discouraged.
I always say there are 3 ingredients to painting: knowing the art concepts, knowing the tools and practice.
You get better through practice at incorporating what you learn about the art concepts and the tools, whether you’re painting traditionally or digitally.
Everything is an interim image and the more you paint, the better you get!
I speak from experience.
I took art classes in college and never thought I was very good, and now I’ve had my art exhibited in New York.
The difference is that back then I gave up too soon. In recent years, when something looks awful, I just keep in mind that it will get better the more I work on it, and it always does!
I hope you’ll try painting again. The paintings you sent to me were very good and you’ll only get better the more you practice.”

And his reply:

“Thanks for understanding and for your encouragement. You should have been my instructor!”

This email exchange sure hit home for me and I am sure others can relate to this reader’s experience, so I thought I’d post about it to help anyone who’s feeling discouraged.

The emotional makeup that results in our pursuing creative fields, whether it’s painting, or photography, or writing, or making movies, includes being sensitive to the world around us. That sensitivity gives us the ability to put ourselves into other peoples’ shoes, to act and react to the world around us and to create art in whatever form that both communicates our perceptions and also speaks to others.

Sensitivity is a double-edged sword, however, and it’s that understanding and insight that makes criticism–whether from outer sources or from inside our heads–feel so acute.

I can’t speak for everyone–maybe there are people who never experienced a sensitivity to criticism– but I can tell you that I’ve felt it and everyone I know has.

If you’ve tried to paint your photos–or tried to write novels, or screenplays, or you’ve tried to take photographs, or tried any other creative pursuit– and you haven’t gotten very far and you’re thinking you don’t have “talent,” I can tell you that you’re experiencing self-criticism. The critic in your head is shouting at you that you can’t do the thing you’re trying to do.

Well, the critic is wrong.

If you want to do something, recognizing the desire is the first step toward doing it. You have to find a way to listen to this OTHER voice in your head giving you the idea that you’re interested in painting photos or whatever creative activity you want to pursue.

And the way to pursue that interest is to learn the theories, learn the tools and practice.

I set up Painting for Photographers to give you the art concepts and step-by-step instructions for painting photos in Painter and in Photoshop.

The practice means that you continue to paint, without getting discouraged.

When you find yourself thinking that what you’re doing is horrible, change your thinking to telling yourself that it’s an interim step and it will get better the more you work on it.

This isn’t just my experience. I learned this when I first started writing Painter tutorials. In the beginning, I hadn’t painted for many years, and I wrote instructions based on the artwork from others. And I saw firsthand how “bad” the interim images were. They weren’t bad at all, of course, they just were not finished!

Now that we’ve silenced that critic in our heads, let’s take aim at the outer critics–the people like this instructor that my email correspondent had. If someone is telling you that your work is no good, then there’s something wrong with him or her. I’m not kidding. Why on earth would someone want to teach if they don’t want to encourage people? One of my biggest joys as a teacher is helping people in my Artistry Retreats to pursue their interests and cultivate them into passions. And yet, I’ve had so many instructors and teachers and professors over the years who ripped apart my writing and my painting. Why? What purpose did that serve? It only discouraged me and stopped me from creating for many years. And I’ve subsequently published several books and had several art exhibits. Obviously, these detractors didn’t know what they were talking about, and I wasted many years listening to them!

It’s not just teachers who criticize, of course–parents, friends, siblings, acquaintances, so many people bashing our creativity, so little time. You have to learn to either avoid the detractors or at least not listen to their critiques.

Again, I can’t speak for others, but maybe you have the same little voice that I have nagging, “What if they’re right?”

Here’s the answer-they’re not right. Tell yourself this: “Everything is an interim step and I’m working to learn the tools and practicing to be able to do what I’m trying to do. And what is the critic’s ulterior motive for bashing me? They can’t have my interests at heart.”

I had an experience that to me epitomized the absurdity of criticism.

I’ve made no secret about my own desire to write movies, something I have studied over the years and really want to accomplish in 2010.

I knew a guy who is a produced writer and director and who teaches film at USC, one of the most-respected film schools. At one point I showed him one of my scripts.

Not only did he rip it–and me–apart, but he also said something that really made crystal clear how ridiculous criticism is.

In this conversation in which he bashed me and my script, he said this to me:

“You’ll never be able to write movies.”

At this point in my life, I had been teaching Painter for many years.

This sentence shocked me. I couldn’t imagine ever telling anyone they’ll never do something. How could anyone predict about anyone else what they are capable of? I believe that if someone really wants to do something, if they study it and practice hard enough, they can do it.

Up until that moment I had been quietly listening to this guy’s “feedback.” When he said “You’ll never be able to write movies,” I replied, “How do you know?”

He didn’t have an answer. He wasn’t being polite, he had no problem ripping me and my script apart up until that moment. He had no reply because he didn’t have an answer. There is no way to know what the outcome will be for someone who works hard at learning and practicing.

So pick up your Wacom stylus, or pick up the paint brush, or go back to the keyboard, or pick up the camera, and try again to pursue what you’re interested in.

If you start to feel discouraged, follow these steps:

1. Take a look at who is discouraging you. Are you hearing discouragement from an outside source, are you being your own worst critic? In either case, question the motivation of the negative feedback you’re hearing. Realize that someone who really has your interests at heart wouldn’t criticize you, and that includes your own, inner critic.

2. Take a look at what’s discouraging you, whether it’s a painting or writing or music. It’s an interim step. It will get better the more you work on it.

3. Maybe your discouragement stems from lack of knowledge or direction. Are you not sure how to proceed? Get some information or review what you’ve learned. Getting better at your creative pursuit includes learning how to incorporate your knowledge with your creativity.

4. Surround yourself with supportive people and ignore the critics. I think it’s human nature to focus on the negative. Focus on the positive and ignore the negative.

5. Read my other blogs on never giving up, finding confidence and confidence, not talent, leading to creativity.

Tags: The process of art (Corel Painter) by Artistry
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Never Give Up is something people involved in creative pursuits say all the time.
It may seem obvious that they mean never give up your dreams.
But after creating and publishing Painting for Photographers and putting together several gallery shows of my art, I have experienced many ways in which “Never Give Up” is tested day to day, moment by moment, beyond the broad concept of pursuing dreams.
As a result of these experiences, I’ve been wanting to write out a detailed list showing all the ways in which you are tempted to give up throughout a creative project. I’ve wanted to write about it to help you to keep going in your creative pursuits and as a follow-up to my previous blogs on confidence being the key to creativity and how to find confidence.
I was reminded about the subject, again, while reading the blog belonging to my Twitter pals, husband and wife producers, Joke and Biagio (@jokeandbiagio at Twitter. You can follow me at Twitter, too! @KarenSperling).
I highly recommend reading all the information at their blog, whether you’re a filmmaker, photographer, artist, writer or anyone looking to get inspiration for moving your ideas and goals forward.
Reading their encouraging words reminded me of my thoughts about how often giving up seems like the only answer, until I think the situation through and come up with the solution to keep going!
In this blog, I have come up with a list of rules for how to overcome the temptation to ditch your creative goals.
I offer this list as a way to encourage both you and me to keep going and to recognize all the ways in which our resolve is tested.
I want 2010 to be the year that I make progress with one of my biggest yet unrealized goals, making movies. I’ve tried and given up on writing movies many times and I don’t want to do it again-give up, that is. Making the little book trailer movie above for Painting for Photographers was great fun! I’d like to take that experience and expand on it to make real movies! So I’ll be referring back to this list, and I hope you find it useful, too, whether you are a photographer trying to paint photos, a writer trying to write scripts, a filmmaker trying to make movies, an artist trying to paint, or anyone else going after a creative goal.
So here they are:
Karen Sperling’s Rules for Not Giving Up
Rule #1
Never give up on your ideas.
Don’t just talk about them, take them seriously enough to actually do something about them. It’s great to get the idea that you want to paint photos, or make movies, or shoot weddings, or create paintings.
Don’t just talk about how much you want to do something, find a way to do it.
Another Twitter pal, filmmaker David Baker (@indiemoviemaker) touched on this aspect of not giving up in one of his vlogs, and how having the ideas doesn’t mean anything, it’s doing something about the ideas that means something.
David speaks from experience. He’s created movies, including Mission X, and he’s working on a new one, Death Movie.
I had been thinking about writing this blog about not giving up, and I realized watching David’s vlog that coming up with a lot of ideas and not doing anything about them is the most basic example of giving up that there is.
Why do people talk about their great ideas and not follow through with them? Because they give up on what they think they’re capable of doing, maybe not consciously, but if they really believed in themselves and in their abilities, they would talk less and do more.
If you get an idea for something that you want to do, then sit down with a pen and paper-OK, you can type on the computer or an iphone or whatever way you like to get your thoughts committed to written form-and make a list of what steps you have to accomplish to achieve your idea.
It is OK if you come to a step that you don’t know the answer to or a roadblock that seems to stop the whole project, because then you’re on your way to creating something, and you have reached Rule #2.
Rule #2
Never give up on problem solving.
You have started to devise a plan to accomplish your great idea, but don’t know how to get to step 4, or worse, can’t even figure out what step 4 is?
Never give up. Do research and find out how to do the step or to determine what the step is.
Creating anything requires finding solutions to seemingly impossible problems from the beginning of the project through its completion.
You have to learn to look at every situation, challenge and obstacle as a problem that you will solve to accomplish your goal of completing your project.
Rule #3
Never give up on being determined.
You have to really be determined to find that solution even if it doesn’t come to you right away. Without the solution your idea remains an idea. Never give up on your determination to make your ideas reality.
Rule #4
Never give up on being flexible.
Know your strengths and weaknesses, and know when an idea is just not feasible.
If you really can’t figure out how to accomplish the next step or can’t decide what the next step is, then get help. Do research, read books, contact people, join groups in real life and online where you will meet people more experienced in your field. Don’t be afraid to learn from others.
I just finished reading filmmaker Robert Rodriguez’s great book, Rebel without a Crew, in which he chronicles his experiences making a movie in 1992 for $7,000 at the age of 23.
I highly recommend reading this book, not just if you’re interested in making movies, but also if you want to see how a person who doesn’t just talk about ideas gets things done.
He borrowed a 16mm camera to make his movie, though he didn’t know how to use it. He called up used camera equipment places and asked around to get the information he needed to operate the camera to make his movie.
1992 was pre-internet. Nowadays, getting your question answered is as simple as typing it at google.com and reading all the sites that come up.
Rule #5
Never give up on being resourceful.
It’s OK to seek the answers to the questions you have, but never give up on your ability to figure out solutions yourself. Don’t be a lazy thinker and expect everybody else to tell you how to execute your idea. Get the satisfaction of finding the way yourself around a problem/obstacle/roadblock.
Rule #6
Never give up on giving yourself credit.
It’s easy to look at the project that isn’t done and to want to give up.
You have to take a moment and look at all you’ve accomplished up till this point, rather than look at all that still needs to be done. Never give up on feeling good about each little accomplishment. Each of these successes is leading to completing the project.
Rule #7
Never give up trying to find great ideas.
Don’t settle for mediocre ones.
Know when to keep going pursuing your ideas and when to stop.
Sometimes, determination is misguided. Maybe you find out after you’ve completed the step-by-step list to accomplish your goal that it doesn’t make sense, logistically or financially. Maybe it’s been done before. Remember, rule #4 is never give up on being flexible. If something really, really, isn’t going to work out, then know when to fold. Never giving up means knowing how to analyze and recognize the ideas that are worth pursuing and going after them with passion and conviction. You know they’re good ideas because you wrote out step by step how you were going to achieve them. Never giving up means not latching onto one idea because that’s the one you had. Never give up looking for the right idea that is worthy of your time and ambition.
Rule #8
Never give up based on factors outside of your control.
You lost your job, find another. You lost your funding, find more. The economy goes into the worst recession since the great Depression and you don’t get as many preorders as you thought, find alternative funding (yes, this is what happened to me during Painting for Photographers, and I have a published book! I never gave up!)
Rule #9
Never give up having faith and courage.
Your faith and courage will be tested every step of the way in pursuing your creative goals and dreams. You will wonder why you’re working so hard, why everything is so difficult, sometimes you’ll even wonder how everything’s going to work out when it all looks so bleak. The answer is that you believe in your creative goals and you will reap the benefits when you have accomplished the task you have set out for yourself.
Rule #10
Never give up ignoring negative people.
If you really believe in whatever artistic goal you are pursuing, then parents, spouses, relatives, friends, acquaintances, enemies–no one can sway you from your goal.
Your creative goals will find supporters, but you’ll also find the haters, the people who want to tear down what you want to do.
I have found that for some reason the bad feels worse than the good feels good.
We all do it, we focus on the negative person, the negative words.
If you’re online or in a party, watch how people respond to the haters instead of responding to the positive people.
Comedians always say on talk shows that they could have an entire audience laughing at their jokes, and they’re still bothered by the one guy who is staring at them not laughing.
Learn to focus on the positive, supportive people and to ignore the negative, critical ones.
Never give up ignoring negative people. Don’t listen to them. They have hidden agendas for seeing you fail, many times having nothing to do with you and everything to do with their own set of problems.
Rule #11
Never give up being positive.
Maybe you’re the negative person in your life!
Never give up being positive. Never give up looking at the bright side.
Here is my guiding philosophy in life: It will work out, it always does. You have to always believe that what you’re doing will work out great, and you have to operate under that belief, even in the bleakest, darkest moments when it doesn’t look like any of it will be OK.
You also have to look for the bright side.
At the end of 2009, there were a lot of stories in the media about how 2009 was a bad year and how the first decade of the new millennium was bad.
Com’on. There were bright spots in both the year and the decade.
Only seeing the bad things is negative thinking.
Count your blessings, always look at the bright side of life.
Rule #12
Never give up breaking down your gigantic project into little pieces.
Gigantic doesn’t necessarily mean big. You might have decided to write articles for your local newspaper and you may have your first writing assignment for a short 200-word piece. If you’ve never done it before, that little article can seem gigantic. Whether it’s an article for the local newspaper, or a book, or a movie, or a painting, if you start to feel overwhelmed by the idea, just refer back to your step-by-step notes about how you’re going to accomplish your goal. And if you’re still overwhelmed, then write out steps to accomplish the step that’s standing in your way.
When I created my Magical Mystical Tour abstracts for my first New York gallery show, I had notes for each painting describing what I was trying to accomplish. It made it easier to just paint and do the work instead of freaking out that I was getting ready to show my art in New York!
When I wrote Painting for Photographers, I had a list of what I wanted to accomplish in a particular day, and how I was going to do it. It made the idea of filling an entire book seem less gigantic.
Rule #13
Never give up turning a defeat into a challenge.
TV talk show host Craig Ferguson, who is originally from Scotland, said in an interview with Michael Eisner that one of the things he likes about the U.S. is that you don’t have to accept failure here.
If something doesn’t work out, it’s OK, it’s a challenge to make the next thing work out, no matter where in the world you live. It’s not geographic location, it’s mindset that determines whether you’ll keep going and never give up on your dreams.
Rule #14
Never give up learning.
Get a Masters in Fine Art (MFA) in whatever you want to do.
You don’t have to go to school to get one.
Research every new venture as if you’re earning an MFA degree in it.
I earn one every time I tackle another project.
I don’t actually go to school, but I do read everything I can find about a subject and many times attend classes.
After graduating college with a BA in English literature, when I decided I wanted to be a journalist, I read newspapers and how-to books on writing non-fiction in addition to reading style and grammar books.
I used to compare the same news story in several different newspapers to see how the information was presented in each one to get ideas for writing my own stories.
When I was a singer, I spent a year taking singing lessons before I sang in public.
When I decided I was going to design newsletters and brochures, I read how-to design books, I took graphic design classes at the School of Visual Arts and I analyzed newsletters, brochures and other printed collateral materials to see how they were created.
To write plays, I read every play I could find and I attended playwriting classes at New York University.
When I wrote short stories and novels, I read every story I could get my hands on and took fiction classes at Columbia University.
When I decided to write movies, I had already taken playwriting and fiction classes. I supplemented that experience by reading and rereading stacks of scripts and outlined the ones I liked the most to see how they were written and to understand script structure. I also read many how-to screenwriting books.
With art, I supplemented the drawing and painting and art history classes I took in college with reading every how-to-paint book and art history book I could find.
To publish my book, I supplemented my real-life experience of writing three published books and publishing printed and digital newsletters with reading every book on self-publishing that I could get my hands on.
If you want to paint photos, read Painting for Photographers and Artistry Tips and Tricks.
Knowledge is power and don’t ever give up on gaining more knowledge.
Stick to your goals and ambitions, but never believe you know it all.
A wise man is a fool because he thinks he’s wise.
A fool is a wise man because he knows he’s a fool.
Rule #15
Never give up believing that you know enough to accomplish your goal.
While I believe knowledge is power, I also know that you can over-research and over-analyze a project to death and never get anywhere.
You don’t need to know everything there is to know about something to be able to do it.
You just need to know enough about it to accomplish your goals.
I’m saying to get a masters degree in your chosen pursuit, not a Ph.D.
Rule #16
Never give up on creativity.
If you’re painting, drawing, photographing, writing, filming, composing, doing anything that requires creating, you’re going to get stuck. It’s just part of the process. Find a way to get unstuck and keep going.
Rule #17
Never give up learning from the past.
I don’t even want to call them mistakes.
You can do everything right, create your artwork/movie/photograph, you can market it and it still doesn’t sell. Capitalize on what you learned in the process by doing what you did and also doing it differently. Don’t assume your script/movie/artwork/photo didn’t sell because it wasn’t any good. The world of creativity isn’t black and white, there are many shades of gray. Maybe you could do something to edit the art/script/movie/photo/novel for it to sell better. Maybe you could find a different niche/market/community in which to sell it. Maybe you could change your advertising/publicity/marketing to improve the sales. Never give up means continually fine tuning what you’re doing to improve your chances of success and not thinking that something about you or your creative output is standing in the way of success.
Rule #18
Never give up looking at how you give up.
I hope you found this list interesting and useful, but there are probably other ways that you give up that I haven’t listed.
Learn to recognize the ways in which you give up on your creative dreams and devise solutions that will help you to keep going.
You’ll be a lot happier if you keep going than if you give up!

Tags: The process of art (Corel Painter) by Artistry
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Painting by Karen Sperling from her photo, featured in Painting for Photographers.

In a previous blog, I offered the idea that confidence, not talent, is the key to creativity.
I also promised to reveal how to find confidence, which is the subject of this blog.
By the way, I’m not a psychologist or a therapist.
I’m basing what I say on my own struggles with lack of confidence through a zillion years of pursuing creative careers, from writing articles, plays, movies and books, to publishing magazines and books, to taking photos and creating art, to singing.
I write about my experiences with the thought that maybe you’ll find some helpful information for your own situation and pursuits.
I also offer these ideas because writing about them helps reinforce them for me.
Recovering alcoholics say they’re always alcoholics, even if they don’t drink. They could go off the wagon at any moment.
The same is true of recovering confidencephobes.
You don’t flip a switch one day and suddenly lose all your insecurities.
They’re always lurking, ready to yank you off of whatever creative pursuit you’re attempting.
Here are four ways to find confidence.
1. Figure out why you’re lacking confidence.
The first step in finding confidence is to look at why you’re lacking confidence.
I think it stems in part from childhood, and in part from who you are as a person.
The part that stems from your childhood is the message your parents and other authority figures gave you.
How who you are as a person comes into play is how you react to this early feedback.
Some peoples’ parents tell them they’re great.
Some people use that positive feedback to achieve positive results in adulthood.
Others take positive feedback like that and coast, they don’t have motivation to pursue anything, they’re already great.
Take the opposite.
Some peoples’ parents put them down and tell them they can’t do anything.
These people either grow up to be insecure, believing their parents’ assessment, or they grow up to achieve greatness to prove their parents wrong.
These are just some possibilities, and I’m sure there are many more.
To figure out why you lack confidence, take a look at your own set of circumstances.
What’s the message you got growing up?
And how did you react to it?
And is this helping you or holding you back?
In my case, I was told I couldn’t do anything.
It’s kind of odd when you think about it.
I have a trillion talents.
In any case, that was the feedback I got, and I believed it on a certain level.
On a certain level, I didn’t.
So I’d try things, but then give up easily.
That’s a lack of confidence, which I described in my previous blog.
That something was wrong first became clear to me when I began trying to write screenplays.
I had been a journalist for many years, I had written non-fiction books and I had studied playwriting.
Plus I’ve had a life-long love of movies.
I never even dreamed that I, a mere mortal, could write screenplays until my friends produced a movie and I was an extra in it.
I saw other mere mortals creating a movie, and realized it’s something I could do.
Well, something I could try to do, anyway.
I read screenwriting how-to books and read scripts and started writing movies.
It didn’t come easily and it became increasingly difficult to get anything down on paper.
Then it got to the point that I was paralyzed with fear and gave up screenwriting.
Funny thing about it, though, I never really gave it up.
Every few months it would occur to me to try to write movies, again, but after a few writing sessions, I’d give up again.
What was that about?
I read a bunch of books on writers’ block.
I highly recommend doing so even if you’re not a writer.
These books suggest possible roadblocks to your creativity and you can figure out which ones apply to you.
For me, it was hearing the negative feedback in my head that was planted there early on by my family saying I couldn’t do anything.
I never heard this negativity when I tried other kinds of writing, I guess because other kinds of writing didn’t seem as scary to me.
Being a screenwriter sounds pretty exciting to me, but wanting to do something so much turns up the pressure.
Because I was just learning screenwriting and didn’t know much about what I was doing, I was yelling at myself every step of the way, no, that’s stupid, no, that’s wrong, no that sounds horrible.
Yikes!
I realized, unfortunately, that this negative feedback I heard in my head while I was trying to write movies was what I heard as a child growing up.
It was pretty amazing when I did finally realize it, because then I could do something about it!
2. Change the messages you send to yourself.
What I did was change the conversation I was having with myself.
That’s my second recommendation for finding confidence–after you recognize whatever it is from the past that could be holding you back, replace it with something that will move you forward.
In my case, as an adult, I don’t let anyone degrade me the way my family did.
And I realized, I shouldn’t allow myself to address me that way, either.
I actually made a conscious decision to rephrase my self-criticisms as I wrote scripts.
I literally would say to myself, that’s pretty good, but maybe you can think of something even better.
Another way to combat criticisms from the past, one I picked up in The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, is to think of all the people who have complimented you throughout your life. Think of a teacher or a football coach or your best friends’ parents, anyone who said anything nice to you. And when you start hearing in your head those doubts and negative thoughts, try to replace them with the nice thoughts and people who have encouraged you along the way.
We’re like comedians who can have an entire audience laughing at their jokes, but are upset by the one guy who isn’t laughing.
We have a tendency to remember the mom or the teacher who told us we can’t draw, sing, act, etc., but we forget the nice neighbor who laughed at all our jokes and the friend’s mom who said we were great in the school play.
Well, it’s time to remember the nice, supportive people and forget all these negativity spreaders who populate our psyches.
Nowadays, I can write without all this other stuff coming up, but it took really paying attention to the thoughts going through my head and changing their effect on me.
Become more conscious of the reactions you have to your creations, and be your own best cheerleader. And no more yelling at yourself about how bad everything is.
However, don’t go overboard, either. You need to be critical of what you’re doing to get a good result. If you just accept everything you do, then you’re not going to grow as a creative person.
But don’t accept that whatever you do is bad, either, like many of us incorrectly decide.
Some of it is very good! The rest of it can get better with practice! Take credit where credit is due!
Maybe this isn’t exactly your situation.
Isolate whatever feedback you’re hearing in your inner thoughts as you try to create, and also how you react to it.
And then make a conscious effort to flip whatever is holding you back into something that propels you forward.
It doesn’t happen overnight, you won’t suddenly find the answer.
But let it simmer and turn it over a few times and see if it doesn’t help.
3. Be the expert.
You now know two ways to find confidence–determine what it is that’s holding you back and change it to something else that helps you move forward.
The third way to find confidence is to be the expert.
When I first moved to California from New York, I got involved with the Wordplayer web site for screenwriters run by Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott, who wrote such hit movies as Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean.
One of Terry’s many philosophies is, “Be the Expert.”
By that he means, learn everything you can about screenwriting and know whether your own scripts are good because you are the expert.
I use this advice in everything I do.
Whatever you’re doing, whether it’s taking photos, painting art, creating movies, performing music, you have to study and know what makes something good and then use this knowledge to achieve your own goals and to complete your own projects.
Learn not just the nuts and bolts of your chosen field, but also see what everyone else in the field is doing, and know the history, find out what came before you.
You may not realize it, but artists, writers, musicians, directors, many creative people are influenced–steal–from that which came before, whether it’s a style of writing, a particular way to shoot a sequence in a movie or a kind of look in a painting.
Where the artistry comes in is in the different spin the new creative person gives the reference material. There’s no creativity in copying something from the past, but using it as the basis for new ideas can spark creativity. If you don’t know what came before, you miss out on an important idea source.
Using something from the past takes homework. It’s not enough to use something from before as inspiration. You have to know why it’s good and why you like it. Understanding why you like something enough to find it inspirational helps you to be the expert.
You can’t be an expert in your field if you’re creating in a vacuum, ignorant of other works in your discipline.
Learn the ingredients for doing whatever it is that you’re pursuing, be the expert, and know that what you’re doing is good, and if it’s not, know how to improve it.
Confidence comes from being the expert.
Being the expert also means not waiting for others to tell you whether something is good or bad.
A lack of confidence comes from not being sure of what you’re doing and presenting it to others hoping they’ll tell you it’s good, or asking them to critique it and tell you what’s wrong with it.
It’s nice to hear compliments, but if you’re the expert, you know whether your work is good, and why, and if it’s not, how to improve it.
After working on Painting for Photographers for two years, I’m thrilled that everyone loves it and is happy with it.
But am I shocked?
No.
I’ve been writing tutorials about Corel Painter for 20 years since I wrote the manuals for the program’s first four versions. Painting for Photographers is my fourth Painter book, and I’ve also published a printed magazine and an ezine about Painter. Plus I’ve been teaching Painter and using it all this time.
I know Painter inside and out.
Before I wrote the Painter manuals, I was a reporter and an editor for newspapers and magazines, both on staff and as a freelancer.
When I was starting out as a journalist, I learned to write articles by reading all the local newspapers to see how they covered the same events.
I analyzed writing styles and word usage, and I looked at what facts each article included and left out.
I read how-to-write books and usage books like Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.
And to learn the art techniques and to paint the paintings, I minored in art in college, plus I’ve spent a lifetime going to museums and galleries and studying art and artists.
Meanwhile, I designed Painting for Photographers, including choosing the typefaces and designing and creating all the layouts and I’ve studied design and layout for 20 years.
I know Painting for Photographers is excellent because I put in the time to learn how to write, illustrate and design books and how to use Painter and explain how to use it.
That’s not bragging or boasting, and it’s not something I go around saying in everyday conversations.
But I type it here to show you what confidence sounds like.
Do I completely believe it?
No! That’s the plight of the life-long confidencephobe!
But like the recovering alcoholic, I take confidence building one day at a time!
At least I know what confidence sounds like! And I know what I typed is the truth because I know how hard I’ve worked to create a good book.
I decide not to listen to all the negative thoughts that simultaneously appear with the positive ones, just like the alcoholic tries to ignore the cravings for a drink.
By the way, if you’re interested in painting photos, one way to be the expert is to read my book.
That’s how you become the expert, by learning the nuts and bolts of what interests you. Painting for Photographers has the art lessons and software steps that you need to paint photos.
4. Pretend.
The fourth way to find confidence is to pretend you have it.
You’ve discovered what from your past is holding you back.
You’ve quieted those negative voices and people in your past and replaced them with positive, supportive feedback and people.
You’ve become the expert and know what good is.
And yet doubts still nag at you.
Just pretend the negative thoughts don’t exist and pretend you have confidence.
You will start to believe you’re confident, most of the time, which is better than never!
My mother’s advice about everything was, try not to think about it.
I used to think this was dismissive, but actually, she had the right idea.
Ultimately, a professional photographer, writer, artist, musician, anyone, gets to the task at hand without thinking about all the things that hold us back.
Successful creatives do the work while everyone else is sitting around thinking about it.
Don’t be the one sitting around wishing you were creating.
Be the one creating by finding the confidence and doing it!
My bonus bit of advice about finding confidence is to write a blog about how to do it.
Maybe seeing how much you know about finding confidence will finally convince you that you have it!

Tags: The process of art (Corel Painter) by Artistry
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I just dropped off my art for my new group gallery show opening this Friday, September 25, 2009, in Glendale, CA.

I created some new, smaller, color works for this new show as part of my Magical Mystical Tours series of abstracts.

Since my childhood in New York, I’ve had a recurring dream in which
the expansive highways leading to gigantic bridges turn into roller coasters
as I travel over them.
The Magical Mystical Tour series stems from this
idea of highways turning into roller coasters.
The new works are approximately 16″ x 12″ and the Gallery Godo show will be their debut.
I’ll also have some new 24″ x 20″ black and white images, and also a couple of the larger 40″ x 30″ works.
This promises to be a great show.
Please join us!
Highly Toxic
Gallery Godo
6749 San Fernando Rd.#C
Glendale, CA 91201
Opening Night: September 25, 2009
7 pm to midnight
Gallery Godo
Karen Sperling’s Abstracts

Tags: The process of art (Corel Painter) by Artistry
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