The Okay Plateau and Working in a Series

How to be a Better Artist

Have you ever thought about why you never getting better at typing even though you might spend hours a day practicing this skill?

They say practice makes perfect but if that were all it takes I should be an outstanding typist given that I spend 8-10 hours a day at a computer.

According to this test I type about 60-65 words a minute, which is above average, but it’s not exceptional and I’m pretty sure in high school I was typing about the same speed.

How fast do you type? When was the last time you got better at it?

To get better, we need the right kind of practice. If I were to spend time doing drills and focusing on increasing my typing speed, I would get better.

I think the same concept applies to being an artist. Just making art is not all it takes to becoming a better artist. We could spend years churning out the same average artwork unless we take the time to practice our artwork with the goal in mind of becoming better.

The Okay Plateau

This phenomenon is sometimes called the okay plateau. When we are learning new skills we get better at it for a while – until we reach the place where we are satisfied with our level of achievement.

Once we reach this plateau – we essentially stop getting better.

This is because when we learn new skill, we go though 3 phases:

• Cognitive – considerable conscious effort is required.

• Associative – some parts are controlled, some parts require conscious effort.

• Autonomous – we’re on autopilot.

This is fine for typing – at some point we are good enough.

But for most of us, this isn’t what we had in mind for our artwork. We don’t want to get stuck at “okay” – most of us would much prefer to make art that results in people saying “wow”, not “it’s okay”.

Moving Beyond the Plateau

So how do we do that? How do we get better at our artwork?

The trick is to stay out of the autonomous phase. You must consciously work at getting better.

Here are a few suggestions on how to do that:

• Musicians get better by practicing scales in a variety of ways. I see design exercises / using a sketchbook as a similar activity for artists. What are you doing to improve your design sense?

• Study yourself failing. When things don’t go well, do you take the time to evaluate why and formulate a plan for improvement? Treat your artwork like a scientific study – create a hypothesis, test your theories, tweak your methods to obtain the desired results.

• Work outside your comfort zone. Are you consciously thinking about design? Or do you just work intuitively all the time? Are you trying new things?

• Get critical and immediate feedback on your artwork. Better yet – learn to give yourself valuable critical feedback. Surgeons get better over time because they get immediate feedback to their work. Interestingly radiologists reading mammograms do not get better over time because they do no receive any sort of immediate critical feedback on their work. It can take years before their mistakes are discovered. This idea of critical and immediate feedback seems to be key in improving our skills.

• Study what those that you feel are more successful are doing. What can you learn from them?

Working in a Series

To become a better artist, I believe rigorous practice is what is needed. And this is one reason I work in a series.

It provides me the structure necessary for improvement.

I view myself as a student – each piece in my series is simply an assignment to learn something. To improve, to try something different, to test a theory, to experiment.

And then I reflect on what I have done – learning from the failures.

If you are ready to move beyond the okay plateau in your art and would like some guidance and feedback on your artwork (and learn how to evaluate the work yourself so you can continue this practice after the workshop), I’d love to work with you in my upcoming Working in a Series online course.

If you are ready to turn the “okays” into “wows” this is the workshop for you.

Details and Registration

Alumni

Curious what my former students have to say about this workshop? I’ve created a new alumni page where you can see their class work and read their comments about the course.

“This course was all I was hoping it would be and much more. I am so appreciative of the time and thought you put into your responses to our thoughts and our work. The structure of the course and the topics you researched and presented to us were exactly what I needed at this point in my development as an artist.

The class work ethic was truly inspiring – it pushed me to do so much more than I thought possible!

Thank you for everything Lisa. I’m really looking forward to working with you in the future!”

~Wendy Tribulski
Avalon, NJ