What a Writer Can Learn from an Artist

I recently got some tips on how I might become a better a writer by observing an accomplished watercolor painter in her studio:

As I watched this painter work, she told me all the names of the paints she uses – Alizarim Crimson, Pthalo Blue, Burnt Sienna – and how they interact with each other color in her palette.

For a writer, the equivalent of a painter’s colors is words.  Writers need to be able to use thousands of words to create detailed mental pictures in the minds of their readers, just as a painter uses thousands of colored brush strokes to make an image someone sees in a gallery.

Using dictionaries (to find the meaning of a word), thesauruses (to find similar and opposite words and create verbal variety), and etymological dictionaries (to understand the evolution of a word and how to use it) will give you mastery of your writing “colors”.

The watercolor painter organizes the paints on her palette according to how the colors mix.  If she doesn’t like the mixture of a dark blue with red highlights, she won’t place it next the lighter blue with a green cast because it will give the paint a greyed-out look when they are mixed together and she wants the to being able to mix her colors easily by keeping them next to each other on the palette.

When she buys new tubes of paint, she squeezes them onto her palette with the blues and purples along one side and the light yellows and oranges on the opposite side – one side contains all the dark colors and the other side, the light colors.  That way, the lighter colors always remain very pure and uncontaminated by the darks.

Writers should be organized in a similar way.  If you write on a computer, divide your files into separate folders marked by a relevant topic heading.  Keep your folders on your desktop so they are displayed the way a painter’s palette displays paints.

This high visibility will give you immediate access and inspiration to write.  Separating your individual documents into labeled folders will also keep your  writing focused and help you write more in depth on each topic.  And having many folders to write for will extend the range of your writing over a whole spectrum of different topics.

There’s another exciting benefit to having folders.  If you hand write or print out your documents and put them in physical folders in a portable file carrier, this portability is very convenient.  It’s great fun to take your files with you when you write away from home.

The watercolor artist works from photographs to paint all her landscapes.  She doesn’t paint exactly what she sees, but molds each painting through a kind of painting shorthand that she has worked out over time.  She creates the illusion of reality quickly, by knowing how each brush and each stroke will create a particular visual effect when added to her painting.

The same practice of shorthand can be used by writers.   If you are a prolific note-taker, a personal shorthand can help you write notes fast.  If you want to maintain a continuous flow while writing a story, you can use your short hand to get ideas down as quickly as they emerge. So, whether you are writing on the computer or by hand, shorthand can keep your writing moving.