EVALUATE YOUR OWN ART

How do you evaluate your own art?

Or know f a particular piece is finished? It’s essential to incorporate basic design principles and color theory, but what’s the best way to evaluate your completed painting?

When I evaluate my own art, I like to put away my painting and come back to it with a fresh eye. Often I see changes I need to make immediately. What’s fun is when I return to a piece and realize it is better than I thought. It doesn’t always happen, but it’s pretty cool when it does.

Here is a checklist of items I try to use to evaluate my own art:

• Is the composition pleasing? Does it feel balanced, and are there exciting areas and also places for the eye to reset? Movement. Do your eyes move throughout the piece? Is there a variety of sizes of shapes
  
• Color. Is it warm or cool, or too much of an equal balance? Does it need to be pushed a little in one direction or the other? There are whole classes devoted to color theory, and it’s interesting to see how color play against each other. Does it have some neutrals? They make the color read differently.
• Value. I struggle with value the most. People tend to think that color is the most crucial element when they evaluate their own art, but value makes a more significant difference. Acrylics tend to dry darker than they look when wet, and sometimes my lights are less light than I had in my head, so I have to go back and rework. Sometimes I use a clear red plastic plate to look through and better see the value.

• Edges. Some fuzzy and soft, others crisper?
• Focal point. Is there more contrast at the focal point? Is your eye drawn there?
• Are there lovely layers and different levels of transparency?

Ultimately, you get to decide. You can evaluate your own art. Art is subjective. Do you like it? Are you proud of it? That’s how I know. If I’m not proud of it yet, then I keep going. As your work improves over time, your expectations increase too, but it’s all part of the journey.