Art Unboxed – Ask Your Friends

For this week’s Art Unboxed, I would like to share an idea with you. Artists usually are always looking for ideas to draw, paint, etc, but we can’t always be on location, or capture the photo ourselves. While websites with public domain image databases are wonderful options, I have another method to suggest. It’s simply to ask your friends.

You’ll notice the watercolor rooster at the beginning of this article. We don’t currently have any chickens ourselves, but some friends in our Church do. I text my friend, asking the next time he was out feeding his chickens, if he could take some pictures for me.

I’ve done a pencil sketch, a watercolor of his rooster, and a line and wash of the multicolored eggs his hens lay. I hope to do an acrylic of the rooster later, as well as art with the other photos he so graciously shared. I did not plan on sharing them in this post, but the idea had been such a blessing to me that I wanted to share.

If you have a friend that has an interest, hobby, or something cool, ask first if you can have a picture, explain the purpose of it, and make sure they are comfortable with it first. Once they are, then that picture may lead you to a fun painting. For me it was an enjoyable Sunday afternoon during a wintry storm, and I got to paint something vibrant and exciting, thanks to my friend.