What do artists actually do (how do they make art)?

Making art is about asking lots of questions and answering them – that's it right there, what artists do.

There's no script or recipe to follow you see, an artist has to decide everything about how to make a piece of art.

Here's an idea of the kind of decisions an artist has to make when creating a painting – and there's gazillions of questions involved in making an averagely complicated work of art. These are a random selection of questions I ask myself when starting a painting for example…

• What should I paint?
• Which bit of what's in front me should I paint?
• What bit of this do I like the most, or find the most interesting?
• What is it I like generally about this subject?
• How big a canvas should I put it on, and what shape of canvas (square, long or short rectangle)?
• Should it be mostly sky, or mostly land, in this painting?
• Where's the horizon line anyway?
• Should I try to fit all of this in, or pick a smaller bit to fill the canvas with?
• Am I even in the right place – would three steps to the right make a big difference?
• Which is the darkest bit, and the lightest bit, and what should be the brightest bit?
• Where is the light coming from, and how does it look like it's going change while I'm painting?
• What should I position on the canvas first, and where does it go exactly‑exactly?

Phew, and we haven't even started putting paints on our palette yet – all those decisions about what to do, exhausting isn't it?

It goes on and on, and on, through the whole painting, a gazillion questions, all of them a problem that needs solving, and it doesn't always stop once the painting is finished (or is it finished? See?).

Does it sound ridiculous? As if someone really thinks about all of that! Don't artists actually do something less tedious and more magical. I know, because of something called 'second nature' it often looks like art just happens.

Getting through a door safely and without embarrassment is a problem to solve. So your brain asks umpteen questions like: where's the door handle and what kind is it? Which way is the door going to open (left or right), and is it going to open towards or away from you – oh, and how big a shove does it look like it'll need?

Thing is, your brain asks and answers these questions so fast the moment it sees a door looming, that you don't even realise it's happening. You only notice when every so often your brain gives you the wrong answer (or you and your brain aren't talking), so you pull when you should have pushed.

Your brain is trained to ask and answer questions about doors (and a million other things) so fantastically well, that you don't feel as though you've thought about it at all. Brains are amazing things.

There's a lot of artists who will tell you they don't think about making their art. If I asked you why you chose to open the door the way you did, you'd look at me odd and say ”I dunno, I didn't think about it“.

But your brain did think about it and it's called second nature. We rely on this auto‑pilot a lot (to get through doors especially) and it's defined as: 'a tendency or habit that has become characteristic or instinctive.'

It's why it looks like getting through a door just happens.

All our brains are asking questions and answering them at lightening speed all the time. How else can we get 'push' right most of the time if our brains don't ask: ”Which way does this door open?“

In the same way, an artist's brain is trained to ask and answer questions that need to be asked when solving the problem of how to make a piece of art.

So out of the dozen questions I've listed above, the answer to most of them comes quickly. My brain is an art brain, trained to deal with art questions (It's quite good at door questions too).

My brain has learned a lot of questions to ask, and it's got a library of some answers to those questions too, or at least an outline of the kind of answer that's sort of worked before.

No two original artworks are the same, so even though I can deal with lots of questions really quickly now, I am still asking and answering them for every artwork. It just looks like I'm not thinking about it.

So while it might seem silly at first, to say that what an artist actually does is answer a gazillion questions and the result is art, perhaps it's not so silly at all.

As I said at the beginning, it's not rocket science or magic that makes art happen.

Just one question: do you like it?

Splodge some randomly mixed colour around until you decide you like it. If you're not bothered that it doesn't look like anything, then job done. Art can be that easy.

You can let something called 'muscle memory' do the work. Muscle memory is why you can think about what to have to eat while peddling a bicycle. Peddling 'just happens' once you've answered 'yes' to "Do I need to start peddling now?"

There's only one question to answer when making art this way: "Do I like it?" While it's an easy 'yes' or 'no' question, it can take a long time for your random splodges to become something you like.

If you don't like your splodges, then you can splodge some more until you decide you do like it… or until you get really bored.

Splodging paint or clay, or both around, can become boring and take a long time to end up being something you like, and want to keep. But it's not hard art to make.

The "Can other people tell what it is?" question can't be ignored, otherwise it's not realist art. And why would anyone make art they don't like? So both questions need answering.

Of course it's not two things to decide, this is where the gazillions of questions happens. It's like opening that tin of worms everyone talks about – suddenly there's worms everywhere!

You start simply enough with "Well how do I make it so other people can see what it is?" and end up with lots of questions about every single brushmark.

Answering lots of questions is hard. Coming up with lots of questions when you're not sure what you should be asking about, and there's no 'cheat sheet' list of questions to work from, is even harder. So yes, if making art is all about asking questions like I've said it is, then making art is definitely hard.

Unfortunately, as the famous quote says: “But you did that in thirty seconds”, “No,” Picasso said. “It has taken me forty years to do that”. Training an art brain is a lifetime's work – 'work' being the important word.

And even when you've had lots of practice making art and have lots of drawings, sculpture, pots, installations, or paintings to show for it, it can still be difficult. Every new piece of art is like a new invention, and even inventors struggle to invent things.

The grass is often greener, or yellower, or bluer

I've talked about questions mostly, but answers can be really difficult too. Coming up with questions is tiring enough on its own, but answers can be stinkers to get hold of.

It doesn't matter what you're painting, everything comes in different colours, shapes and sizes. Even when you do find two things exactly the same in every way (and I think only still life artists can manage that occasionally) the light on them makes them look different to each other.

So you might have painted grass before. However, the answer to the question "How do I paint this grass?" isn't guaranteed to be "The same as you've painted grass before". The variations of 'grass' seems never‑ending.

It does get easier though, because your brain develops of library of ways to paint grass. Once in a while, that can mean the answer to "How do I paint this grass?" is "The same as three paintings ago".

Yeah, more often the best you can come up with is: "Maybe try something a bit like that painting from last year, and sort of the same as the one from last week, with a big dollop of something completely new".

The worst question that even an art brain doesn't have an immediate answer to is: "Why doesn't it look right?".

So a work of art is the result of an artist solving problems, involving knowing what questions to ask and then coming up with answers. That's what artists actually do. It's not magic, it doesn't just happen, and even with second nature on your side after years training your brain to become an art brain, making art is hard. Of course, it's the very fact that making art is hard that keeps me fascinated.