It’s easy to get discouraged any time you begin something new. You’ve seen paintings that you like and your expectations are high for how you’d like your work to come out. Unfortunately, unless you bring some previous training, or natural talent, you may feel disappointed with what you are creating with your brush.
I’m a goal oriented person. Straight line from point “A” to point “B” please. I like to see results. Seeing something in my imagination and then trying to transfer that to paper or canvas was more complicated than I hoped it would be.
One of the best results I’ve had in pursuing art is learning to enjoy the time spent and the process. Of course I’m thrilled when the result is close to what I was hoping for. But, finding myself completely lost in the work, time passing without my even realizing it — that is something I hadn’t allowed myself to enjoy much in my past. I wonder if allowing myself the freedom to enjoy the process is one of the main things art needed to teach me.
Developing skills takes time. Time must be spent on what you want to achieve. Unless you are like a child prodigy who walks up to a piano and plays what she has heard, (which as far as I know, is a very small percentage of the population) you will have to work towards painting a masterpiece.
Most people think that artists are born with a special talent that the rest of us just didn’t get. I believe that’s true in a few cases – like the musical child prodigy. But, painting is a skill that takes practice and time. Most everyone I know who plays the piano took lessons as a child, practiced several hours a week, and perhaps repeated this for YEARS. I’ve never known anyone who walked up to a piano and expected to sit down and play a masterpiece without having put in hours upon hours of practice. Why we think art is different, I’m not sure. But I believe that even most of the great painting masters had to develop their skills. Many of them spent every day, all day in their studios practicing their craft.
I like to work in my art journals. In my journals, I give myself permission to experiment, without expecting my result to be displayed. It’s for me to enjoy the process and not sweat the details. I turn on music that really makes me feel happy and I paint for the sheer love of it. And gosh, there are some really wacky looking pages! But I’ve always felt it was time well spent. So give yourself permission to just put color on a page. Make swirls, or splashes. Create layers, or geometric designs. Paint stripes and polka dots if that’s what you are feeling today. Enjoy whatever time you can carve out and feed your artistic appetite. Whatever you feed will grow.
Artful-Essence 