The Individual Artist
Artists work in a variety of ways. Read this section to get a sense of the individual differences in artists' style of work.
We have seen art as a community or collaborative effort, but many artists also work alone in studios, dedicated to the singular idea of creating art through their own expressive means and vision. In the creative process itself there are usually many steps between an initial idea and the finished work of art. Artists will use sketches and preliminary drawings to get a more accurate image of what they want the finished work to look like. Even then, they will create more complex trial pieces before they ultimately decide on how it will look. View and read about some of the sketches for Picasso's masterpiece Guernica from 1937 to see how the process unfolds. Artists many times will make different versions of an artwork, each time giving it a slightly different look.
Some artists employ assistants or staff to run the everyday administration of the studio; maintaining supplies, helping with set up and lighting, managing the calendar and all the things that can keep an artist away from the creative time they need in order to work.
Some artists don't actually make their own works. They hire people with specialized skills to do it for them under the artist's direction. Fabricators and technicians are needed when a work of art's size, weight, or other limitations make it impossible for the artist to create it alone. Glass artist Dale Chihuly employs many assistants to create and install his glass forms.
Source: Christopher Gildow, Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, http://opencourselibrary.org/art-100-art-appreciation/
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