Wildlife art| animal art| bird art
  • Home
  • Shop
  • Original Artwork page 1
    • Original artwork page 2
    • Original artwork page 3
    • Original Artwork page 4
    • Original artwork page 5
    • Original artwork page 6
    • Original artwork page 7
    • None animal art >
      • Broken Gem heart
  • Videos
  • Tutorials
    • Layering Tutorial
    • How to draw a Monarch Butterfly Wing
    • How to draw cat's eyes
    • How to draw owl eyes
    • How to draw feathers 1 (hummingbird/Jacamar type feathers)
    • How to draw feathers 2 (irregular feathers)
    • How to draw feathers 4 - parrot feathers
    • How to draw feathers 3 chest/breast feathers
    • How to draw feathers 5 - Wing feathers
    • Hummingbird Head Feathers
    • How to draw cat fur
    • How to draw chimpanzee fur
    • How to draw a grasshopper’s wing
    • How to draw fish scales
    • How to draw snake scales
    • How to draw lizard skin
    • How to draw fish fins
    • How to draw a gemstone
    • How to draw tree bark
    • How to draw rose gold
  • Tips and Techniques
    • How to get white
    • What pencils should I use?
    • All about sharpeners?
    • How to blend with colored pencil
    • How to burnish
    • Erasing colored pencil
    • How to mix colors
    • Keeping your work clean
    • Reference photos and copyright
    • What to draw
    • How to make your work look real
    • I can't draw
    • What paper should l use?
  • Blog
  • Contact

Learning to be easier on yourself!

3/2/2018

0 Comments

 
Are you like me? Do you expect yourself to do everything perfectly, all the time - even though you know it isn’t actually possible! I hope some of you are like me! I can’t be the only one! It has been one of the hardest lessons of my life and l am still learning it! Why do we expect perfection of ourselves and yet make allowances for others? I am so hard on myself at times and l have been like that over the past week with this piece. It just won’t do what l want it to do. And l have spent sooo long working on it. Far too long. Going back and back. Adding layers, adding color. And at the end of it all, it still isn’t quite right and l have no idea what to do about it!
On one hand there is an upside to relentless perfectionism - it pushes you to progress. I never want to lose that desire to get better at something. But the downsides really outweigh the up. Being continually dissatisfied with what you do is not a good place to be. There has to be balance. Whether it is art or life finding balance is so difficult.
Picture
Somewhere along the way we have to learn to accept the way things are, recognizing that we cannot always make them the way we want them to be. A few things in life can never be changed by us (the advance of time, the cost of living, the idiot at work who treats everyone badly), but most things can be improved with persistence and determination. By picking yourself up and trying again.
I was thinking it is like a baby taking its first steps, and it takes two little wobbly steps and falls over! We don’t say, ‘two steps! And you have fallen over already! You might as well not bother, you will never walk!’. No, the camera comes out and photos and videos are made and granny gets rung up and everyone is excited because baby is ‘walking’. The truth is baby is on the floor more often than baby is walking, but we see only the progress. We need to start thinking of ourselves like that. Be excited about each baby step of progress. Keep picking ourselves up, make another baby step and be excited about that too.
So my flower didn’t work as well as l wanted it to. I will pick myself up, draw my next piece and move on, and the next time l draw a flower it will be better - not perfect, but better! And l am ok with that.
Gallery
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

    Click to set custom HTML
  • Home
  • Shop
  • Original Artwork page 1
    • Original artwork page 2
    • Original artwork page 3
    • Original Artwork page 4
    • Original artwork page 5
    • Original artwork page 6
    • Original artwork page 7
    • None animal art >
      • Broken Gem heart
  • Videos
  • Tutorials
    • Layering Tutorial
    • How to draw a Monarch Butterfly Wing
    • How to draw cat's eyes
    • How to draw owl eyes
    • How to draw feathers 1 (hummingbird/Jacamar type feathers)
    • How to draw feathers 2 (irregular feathers)
    • How to draw feathers 4 - parrot feathers
    • How to draw feathers 3 chest/breast feathers
    • How to draw feathers 5 - Wing feathers
    • Hummingbird Head Feathers
    • How to draw cat fur
    • How to draw chimpanzee fur
    • How to draw a grasshopper’s wing
    • How to draw fish scales
    • How to draw snake scales
    • How to draw lizard skin
    • How to draw fish fins
    • How to draw a gemstone
    • How to draw tree bark
    • How to draw rose gold
  • Tips and Techniques
    • How to get white
    • What pencils should I use?
    • All about sharpeners?
    • How to blend with colored pencil
    • How to burnish
    • Erasing colored pencil
    • How to mix colors
    • Keeping your work clean
    • Reference photos and copyright
    • What to draw
    • How to make your work look real
    • I can't draw
    • What paper should l use?
  • Blog
  • Contact