Sounds + Food 'n' Retail

Why am I preoccupied with art? Realistically speaking, apart from collecting links and inspiring quotes, all I have time for these days is doing some drawing. I like to hold discussions with artists, both about their art and the state of their industry. And I like to think that thinking in artistic ways helps me in other areas also, e.g. how to be more creative, how to see patterns, perhaps how to set up a business that people enjoy spending time at.

Of course, it's a lot of fun too…

Following is a list of things, I've learned/thought about art, starting specifically with drawing, and then about more general stuff about art—economics, DRM, innovation, etc.

• Details are great, but the big picture is better - try drawing a christmas-tree and find out


• Ways to decrease focus on detail - get some children's tools: wax colours, paint, big markers, etc.


• Every object's colour is made up of a number of sub-colours, which then result in that glorious mish-mash, called a [insert your favourite classical artist here] painting. E.g. a leaf is green, but really there's yellow and blue in there, maybe a taint of orange and purple.


• White and black are not colours because they ignore the principle above.


• Nature is a great way to learn drawing.


• Shadows are hard.


• Perspective is hard.


• Capturing movement is super-hard.


• Abstract art is hard.


• Everything can be mastered with practice.


• Recognising shape is something you learn from practice.


• Drawing upside-down—i.e. taking a picture and turning it upside down—is also a great way to trick the brain into drawing the shape instead of the mental picture your mind has already created of that shape.


• Remembering shape and reproducing it from memory requires even more practice.


• Keep a clean workspace so that you can start with a fresh mind the next day.


• Reading 'The War of Art' will not make you a better artist. Practice, day-in-day-out will may make you a better artist. The book may help you become a more effective artist however.

Broad strokes:

• Drawing is a right-brained activity, as such it is no surprise that most artists don't like or want to engage in the left-brained activity of making money from it. Guilty as charged.


• Art is surprisingly similar to innovation - both are quite incompatible with economic principles, aka. making a quick buck.


• The democratisation of art through the internet and subsidies has levelled the playing-field. Everyone can be (read: call themselves) an artist now. As such, discovering truly unique art becomes hard.


• As soon as something can become digital, it loses tremendous value. Outlook for the market-place for digital products: bleak.


• As painful as it sounds to all thieves out there, DRM is a necessary measure in making money from art—at least if you're a producer. That, or become a communist and get paid by the government. Recent discussion on DRM on Tech IT Easy.


• Collaboration is another great way to make money from art.


• Just like in innovation, using both methods and creating art/end-products that are hard to replicate, is an important component of success.