Remember these dreaded words from school, “Practice makes perfect”? At that time they meant interfering with my social life and fun. Now they have an ominous tone to them that attaches to my self esteem and ego.
I love doing artwork with colored pencils or pastel, but have never really applied myself to actually keeping up with the skills to learn how to draw well. My fault I know. I just don’t think I can do it “well enough”, is my excuse. Judge and jury of my own works prevents me from ever getting fully into just drawing.
My negative self talk undermines my good intentions and desires straight into a brick wall every time. I’ve taken art classes and have no problem getting good grades, On my own though I block myself with excuses.
REVISED THINKING
Well, Covid 19 lockdown has brought my work to a halt, which in turn has left me plenty of time to pout and think. Of course, artwork came up as an option, and so did all of the excuses. That is until about two months ago when I got this brilliant idea to just do artwork because I loved doing it. Do it for me and see what happens from there.
What a revelation in this self judged brain. I had no more excuses. I had just given myself permission to just have fun with it. Can you imagine how freeing that was? It was like a magic light had just gone on and a door flung open. So that is exactly what I did.
I flung my art door right open dragging all my old art supplies from all those classes out of every nook and cranny I’d hidden them in and began with a start and stutter. Not all smooth sailing. I still get those “oh my God” moments. Like when I stopped working on the pastel I started and panicked at the thought of ruining it if I don’t do it “right”. Don’t ask me “right” by who’s standards, but still heart stopping as I walk past it on the easel for two weeks trying to think about how not to ruin it.
SHIFT
Last night though brought the brilliant revelation to what must have been the right side of my brain saying, “This is just practice and you told yourself it didn’t matter how it turned out”. Left brain immediately got the message answering, “Oh yeah, that’s right. I guess it doesn’t matter where I start then does it”?
Ta Da! Door is open again and, as a bonus, the door of ideas for blog posts opened as well. So going back to practice makes perfect as long as it’s for fun right broke through a huge barrier for me and I’m hoping I can keep it going. Wish me luck.
