HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR OF FAILURE - By Susan Harrison-tustain susanart Hello and thank you for your comments, likes, shares and kind words. It is my pleasure to help you on your painting journey. I LOVE to share with you the major breakthroughs I have found to be paramount in my painting career. ONE OF THE MAIN THINGS ARTISTS STRUGGLE WITH IS SELF-DOUBT My aim is to inspire artists to overcome the fears we have all faced. By sharing how I refuse to be crippled by self-doubt - describing how I use logic to understand what we tell ourselves we are seeing, why we do that - I hope to expand your repertoire infinitely. (As much as time allows). You know much more than you think you know. You just need to understand it. Observe it. See it for what it is - light, surfaces and textures and shapes. It is that simple. I will let you into a great motivating experience I had about 18 years ago. Like so many I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The prognosis was a 40% chance of getting to two years without it returning in many places. THIS is motivation! It was time to think about what I wanted to do with these precious two years. Anything more would be a bonus - but I KNEW I mustnt waste a moment. Just in case! Apart from family and friends time - I wanted to paint - leave something behind of substance. At 39 I had filled my life with the usual things - but once I had the prognosis, I knew what I wanted to do. I remembered as a young child, standing under two of what at the time, seemed huge paintings sitting above a family fireplace. The had come with my Uncle, Aunty and family when the emigrated to New Zealand from England. I could not believe my eyes when I saw them for the first time! These magnificent paintings by my great uncle - stood commanding attention as they overlooked the lounge room. They took my breath away and sparked my imagination. They were living on - long after the artist had gone - but somehow he still spoke to us through his work. Im going to be an artist I proclaimed. It was this notion that flooded my thoughts and encouraged me to dedicate much of the precious two years to learn and improve my very basic painting skills. It was time to paint paint paint paint. You see - I had no time to gain confidence and dally with self-doubt. It was do it or miss out on being all I could have been. So my message is this: you dont have to experience that threat - you can be all you can be - it is simply a matter of deciding where to start. Not when - now is the time. You can do it for yourself - now. Imagine how much further you will go if you make that commitment to be the best artist you can be - now - not when I learn this or that or when the children leave home - or when I retire. Make it your priority now - there is nothing to lose - you can only win. Make time! The end of that story is of course that I beat the odds and am perfectly well and savouring the motivation that pushed me on to achieve more than I ever dared to dream. It gave me the courage to go for it and forget about lack of confidence or getting over self-doubt. That is always there just under the surface. If we let it take over - we will always do what we have always done - and we will always get what we have always got. I cant remember who said something similar to that - but how true it is. I want this story to motivate you to take the time to try things. Push yourself. Post your practices, ask, learn, challenge, grow, achieve, find your wings. Fly! This is a never ending journey. We are forever learning and challenging ourselves. That is what makes it so rich and so fulfilling. Dont get me wrong. I have my I cant paint days! That comes with the territory. But that is when I have learned to go back to the basics - the logic and work it out. The answers are always there - right in front of us. We are all similar I am sure. But the thing to remember is to enjoy your todays. The steps, the road and the breakthroughs. Learn from our mistakes. Analyse, deliberate. Ask yourself the questions. We never reach a time when we are painting at our absolute best because the goal-line is always shifting forward - just as it should. The more we learn - the wider the window opens and we realize just how much potential there is out there! The most profound thing I have learned on my journey is to break down what we see. Observation observation observation is key. Understanding the reality and then abstracting it so we can see it for what it is. Inject ourselves into our work. Paintings should speak of you - what you want to say, what you think, what makes you feel something about what you see before you. They are a self-portrait . They tell people who we are, what we believe/d, how we live/d and how we perceive/d our world. What touches us and moves us to encapsulate it within a frame so that generations to come may look on and wonder about the artist who through their work - motivated another generation to take up their brushes. I love that notion - I hope it sparks new thoughts and ideas, and that my teachings about observation in this thread may also help you to see things from a different perspective. Your perspective. Understanding how to capture your world using logic, and how to use paint and paper to speak your words. This painting time is empowering and it will be time you will never regret. Share what you are learning and post your exercises, ask your questions. All join in. Facebook is such a wonderful resource! Find your to your wings and fly. As much as time allows I will post hints and tips to help you on your journey. Susan Harrison-Tustain susanart
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 01:20:30 +0000
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