outsider art handbook #2

Outsider is a convenient catch-all term for art that unprofessional, uncool, unhip and lax on things like perspective and graphic accuracy. It resembles children's art, or can do; it resembles the art of the insane, or can do. It includes so-called naive art as well as clever experiments by formerly or otherwise mainstream artists. Like the term 'street photography' it is more use as a description of how the artist feels and how it can motivate the artist; it is what you might call 'a permission description'. And that is a jolly good thing as many people feel as they formerly did about writing pre-internet (the internet made writing democratic) which was that it was the preserve of the skilled and devoted and sunday painters beware....

So, having justified its own existence here are 10 more bon mot for would-be outsider artists:

11.  Installations are fun. All they need is a clean white space as a frame. Anything goes after that. The key is to create a fun or interesting experience for the viewer.

12. A wall makes graffiti.

13. A frame makes a picture.

14. Almost all of art is a reconciling of positive and negative space. The main thing and the space around the main thing. The flatter something is, the more the space can count.

15. Beauty can be in the decor, the negative space rather in the thing depicted, the positive space.

16. Think more about lines, shapes and colours and less about what the thing looks like.

17. Ugliness can be a lot more VITAL than beauty, the downside is...it's ugly.

18. Straightlines are to curves what black and white is to colour. A useful thing to master, good enough on their own. Limiting yourself to only straightlines (lots of artists have done this, turning a curve into lots of little straight lines) is one example of a limiting frame that gives pictures verve.

19. Perspective just means things further away are smaller, things nearer are bigger. Always mess with it is a good watchword.

20. Dots, lines, squares and circles form the basis of all caligraphy. Just using these four things you can go a long way.