The Art Of Noticing (Five Things)
And how it will make you and others better artists.She starts at a gallery, and the owner teaches her that the value of an art piece is all about context: which gallery represents them, which art school they attended, which branded collector owns their work, and so on.
She found that ultimately an unsatisfying answer, and went to work for another gallery. There, she was taught to “Notice five things” in a work of art, and she discovered that it became much easier to sell it after that!
Later, she became a museum attendant. There, she had to stand in fixed spots for forty minutes. She decided to make good use of that and studied the works of art she was guarding for those forty minutes. She applied the idea of slowing down and noticing what she saw, and as she did, she kept seeing new things in the artwork, opening a whole new world for her.
Later, she worked for the artist Julie Curtiss and learned that was how artists saw the world. You could also go outside and study a hot-dog stand like that, for example.
The above is a paraphrase of the book, but that’s the gist of one thing I took away from it. I read it a while ago. It is well-written and a pleasure to read.
I discovered this book when Rob Walker, the author of “The Art of Noticing,” mentioned it in his newsletter. That’s also a great book about slowing down and really noticing the things around you.
Something is pleasing about slowing down to really start noticing the things around you. It feels rebellious in these times when our attention is grabbed by the addictive feeds on our mobile phones. It is a crazy time in that respect. I do competitive swimming and take the metro to the pool. I try to avoid this myself, but almost everyone there is glued to their screen.
What to do instead of doom-scrolling on your phone? Well, put your phone away, lock in to something near you, and start studying it, noticing five things about it. It will make you a better artist!
Notice five things about a work of art. You can apply that to art in a museum, your own art, or art by others.
It is surprising how useful it is for yourself; you suddenly start to understand things better as you are forced to really look and to put into words what you actually see, what you actually feel, and what you actually think about it.
But it also turns out to be a useful method for writing critiques. It is less prescriptive and tends to have a less annoying teacher tone. You are simply describing what you see.
That way, even a beginner can help a more experienced artist, who may be blind to certain things because they have been looking at it for so long.
Someone on the Discord misunderstood this to be a beginner giving advice to a more experienced artist, but that is not what this is about.
The website has this new tool, The Art Critique Guilds Server, which is in beta right now but seems to work well. It uses this “Notice Five Things” approach to critiquing. It’s the place where I put in the effort to write a critique for everyone who posts an image there. Create an account, and you get enough critique credits to post one image. After that, you get a critique credit for writing a critique, and when the critique receiver “likes” your critique. Right now, for a short time, I will also give you bonus critique points if you post an image, so you can keep requesting critiques without writing them (yet).
You don’t have to join and use the critique server (though you would be helping yourself and others if you did!)
But please do me a favor, and try the “Notice Five Things” yourself!
You will thank me later. Take a piece of art you want to understand better, perhaps because it is by an artist you admire and are inspired by, or take the reference photo you are about to use for a drawing, and write down five things you notice about it. Slow down, sit with that thing, and really study it, really look, really see.
You can see what that looks like on The Art Critique Guilds Server, where you can see sample “notice five things” critiques in the Showcase feed. (Did I mention it’s free?)
Yours sincerely,
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