Why Its Important to do Research for your Art Ideas

Why Research for your Art?

No two days are ever the same when you work in the arts industry and even more so as a practicing artist. There are of course similar things that take place like today, I have spent half of my day researching Maori design and patterns for a new range of artwork I plan to create throughout 2010.

Research is important to me as I like to know the history behind things, why they are what they are and their significance to the project I might be working on.

It also pays to check that you’re not breaching any codes or copyrights and that your ideas are fresh and original. Although to be honest, there really isn’t anything that hasn’t been done before especially where art is concerned. It’s more about taking a fresh approach to your subject, than being entirely original.

Now I really like surrealist art and do the occasional piece with that type of theme. I spent a lot of time on a trip to the beach one day a few summers or so ago; sketching up ideas for new work and by chance I decided to check out one of my ideas on the internet, I wanted to see if anyone else had painted feet as shoes; my search on Google returned a lot of links to look at but top of the list was a guy called Rene Magritte, who I had actually heard of but never really looked at.

To say the least I scrapped the plans for most of my work I'd designed and started again, nine of ten of them, he had already done his version of, way back in the 1930s! To sayi was gutted is an understatement and I did start to second guess myself, had I seen the other artists paintings and not registered it as such, was it subliminaly already in my mind and not my original idea at all.

Either way it was my wakeup call as an artist that nothing is ever original anymore and that I need to always check by googling my ideas to see what others have come up with so I dont do the same. Sketching up your ideas, planning out and pre-preparing will help make your idea a unique version and you can then tweak if too similar ideas have already been done so your work is original.

It’s amazing what you can find out about if you only take the time to do so.