How to Paint FAST

My mom coulda given Mario Andretti a run for his moolers ~ that's her driving the old L300 van we used to have  at breakneck speed across Quezon Ave when I was about, oh, 15 or so ~ and that's me in the back without a seatbelt on. I legit felt the van jump, just like in the movies.

​A friend once asked me how come I was always so stressed whenever I was prepping for a show. (Come to think of it, I used to get that question a lot, lol.)

I told her it was because of the deadline and she said something to the effect of, ‘Oh, I kinda thought you just made things and you had a show whenever you were done.’

My dear Kathy (wherever you are now), if all artists did it like that ain’t none of us would finish jack spit or ever even have shows, LOL.

I write this now at a time when I want to sort of break away from what I used to *fondly* refer to as ‘painting factory mode’ ~ I want to just, take my time and, come to think of it, do it just like that friend of mine thought how things went with folks like me.

I sort of have this idea now, that if I wasn’t so fixated on getting things done as quickly as I could, maybe the work would turn out better, I don’t know.

Advice from a legendary Pokemon

A famous artist friend (if I may make so bold as to claim his friendship) told me a very long time ago that if I wanted my work to turn out the best it could be, I ought to spend as much time on it as I possibly could.

Years later I told him he’d said that, and he said, ‘Really? I said that? Well, I take it back!’ ROFL Or he might’ve said ‘Well, I was wrong.’ ROFLMAO Whatever his exact words were, you get the idea.

Speed seems to be something artists have to, well I don’t want to say worry about ~ but there, I’ve said it, haha.

In fact, just today another famous artist friend (I’d like to think we are friends, eheheh) was telling me something like, ‘My target date to finish my art project was so and so.’ Seemed pretty tight.
​

Deadlines and results matter

Now I’m not saying artists should take their own sweet time every time or never set target dates or deadlines. In my experience with my practice and my day job it’s the deadlines that make sure something actually gets done.

Like Schikaneder once told Wolfie, after all, your work is ‘no good to anybody in your head.’

Put another way often used in my other job, I guess you might say art is also very ‘results-oriented’ (gag). (Of course there’s also the kind that’s more focused on the process or the material or medium and so on, but yeah.)

And like my other job, or pretty much anywhere I guess, people like to see results quickly. And if you can get those results with a minimum of effort, or resources, so much the better.

Sorry if I keep referring to my other job (if this is the first time we’ve met, I work in marketing and advertising as a writer). I hope you’ll understand how I can’t help it. But I suppose that’s one reason why AI is all the rage these days.

I mean after all, why wait for a writer or a designer to come up with something from scratch when you can just type your orders in and have your copy, images, or videos served up hot and fast straight out of the generator? Save a bundle on paying a writer and designer, too.

And even if you were a writer or designer, why waste time and brain cells? After all, can’t keep the boss, the client, and the client’s fees waiting.
​

Advice from a humble Pichu

Having gotten that out of the way, as artists who still *insist* on doing things the old-fashioned way (I’ve seen how folks these days refer to it as ‘traditional’ art) may know ~ there still seem to be a lot of people who maybe don’t appreciate how much time and work go into making something.

Just last weekend, a gentleman with a camera asked me what advice I would give to illustrators who were just starting out. (Awkward question when I could use some such advice myself, lol.)

I think I said something like ‘You have to be prepared to put in the work. There’s lots of ways to make things easier now but you really have to put in the hours.’ (I barely remember x it was hard to think with so many humans milling about, but I think that’s what I said, more or less.)

Now having said all that, I’ll be among the first to say that there will be times when speed becomes, dare I say, about as crucial as, oh, skill, brains, and all that. I realise this is different from paying one’s dues, but it probably isn’t all that unrelated.

After all, having or developing the discipline to make a deadline once you’ve committed to one is part of paying your dues, I think.

So yes, there will be times when, to put it plainly, the faster you paint, the better. (I was going to say ‘the sooner you get paid’ lol ~ but as much as how that should be the case, it isn’t always is, is it?)
​

How to paint as fast as you can (hopefully without turning it into garbage LOL)

Is there a right way to churn out paintings at speed? Which implies that there are wrong ways? (Should you ever even rush art in the first place? Questions for wiser heads than jill’s?)

To be honest, there are some ways I know some people do that I wouldn’t no matter how much of a hurry I was in. Some corners, you just don’t cut, I feel. Then again that’s just me, and who the Hades am I.

But I can tell you what I would do and actually have done to try and speed things up in the painting factory. So that if you should ever find yourself in a pinch (or know that you’re going to be in one), I’m hoping these will help or give you ideas for how you can paint faster, if you had to.
​

1. Store-bought instead of stretching

I’ve skipped having stretchers made and canvas stretched for me, and bought ready-made canvas at a store. Of course, unless you’re very lucky, this leaves you at the mercy of whatever the store happens to have on stock, as waiting for them to re-stock kind of defeats the purpose.

I’ve also had recourse to blocks of watercolour paper so I wouldn’t have to stretch (I confess giving my plywood a bath is probably my least favourite part of the process).
​

2. Potatoes and wedges

I’ve developed my ‘potatoes and wedges’ system of drawing to help me populate paintings quickly. As I’ve explained elsewhere on the jillablog, the ‘blobs’ were originally developed to help me record ideas quickly, but weren’t originally meant for finished paintings. (So much for that, lol.)

I guess, whether this was a good or bad thing is up for debate if anyone would care to. But as far as I’m concerned, I’ve enjoyed baking potatoes so far and will probably continue to mash them up whenever the fit seizes me.

(Like it has now, at the time of writing ~ and I’ve found I deeply enjoy slow baking them, too.)

3. Knives instead of brushes

I’ve also chosen mediums I know I’m faster at. I confess there have been times when I would much rather have done something on paper, let’s say, but after finding out that I had to make so many, so big, I did it on canvas with a knife instead of a brush.

(I guess you could say I sold out, those times. I can only hope the results vindicated my choices.)
​

4. What Ben Franklin said

Planning ahead has also proven most helpful in expediting my production process. It does save an awful lot of time knowing what you’re going to do already instead of figuring it out when you get there or as you go along.

Planning includes doing any research or whatever before I buckled down to it, figuring out what I needed and getting it all together first, figuring out my schedule, and sticking to it no matter what. I also made a list and sometimes studies or thumbs for what I was going to do.

Of course, that kind of kills the fun of ‘following your inspiration’ or whatever you might call it. That’s why I always leave myself as much ‘wiggle room’ as I dare x I never plan everything down to the smallest detail, again, no matter how pressing the deadline was.

That’s also why I don’t make studies for everything before I make everything and why my studies aren’t always so very detailed (yeah, jill, that would be why LOL).

Things never turn out exactly as I plan them, anyway (for good or ill). And while I’m not always crazy about the results, honestly, I rather like working that way ~ if I had to plan anything at all.
​

5. Not running on fumes

​Resting, eating, and getting all those ‘pesky necessaries’ out of the way first before working, I’ll admit, was something I started doing when I got older, lol. Think of it as gassing up before hitting the track ~ you won’t have to slow down and pull over for a pit stop.

Also think of it as being able to run full throttle versus pushing a jalopy uphill ~ which is what it can feel like when you’re working when you’re tired. I used to get around this by gassing up (or putting NOS in the tank, lol) with a blue and silver can so I wouldn’t have to pull over.

But I’m trying not to do that, anymore x I’m happy to say I haven’t had to do that in a good, long while.


I also hope not to have to ‘paint fast’ again for a good, long while, either. It’s a major change of pace for me, having done it for so long, and right now, I confess I’m not sure of anything at all ~ including whether ‘doing it the way Kathy thought’ really will make the paintings better.

I guess there’s only one way to know (unless you kindly let me know), and I hope the things I’m making now end up vindicating my current choices, too.