Jazzed, Not Judge-y

During the “Gouache to Go” workshop last week at the Scottsdale Artists' School (SAS), a participant kept exclaiming her frustrations with the medium. Clearly a talented and experienced artist but new to gouache, she issued a steady stream of “Geez’s” and big sighs and loud “Urrrrrggghhh’s.”

At first her outbursts were exhausting to me and I hoped she would stop. Eventually, thanks to my meditation training, I was able to let her comments come and go without paying much attention.

Because of her I even found reasons to celebrate – not just my meditation training, but also my training as a writer. I’ve learned not to be too upset by those shitty first drafts and to tell the inner critic “thanks but no thanks” until the draft is further along.

I won’t say I never get frustrated creatively, but for the most part, I don’t expect perfection, especially early on. Instead, a sense of curiosity comes in handy…especially now, when it comes to art. Why did that composition work better than this one? What is another way to approach this subject? What medium would be interesting to try?

I’ll write more soon about the three-day watercolor-sketching class that I went on to take with Amery Bohling while at the SAS, but for now let me just say that I am recognizing that even with my failures, I am learning something. None of the nine little w/c sketches that I did during Amery’s class merit posting here; however, this a.m., five days after my return, I painted the image at the top. (For inspiration I used a photo sent to me by a golfing enthusiast.) I have to say, I kinda like it. But even that was the third try. The “rejects” for the top image are below; basically, it turns out they were studies – just practicing with color and paint and how to represent light.

I am having a heckuva lotta fun with my failures and successes. Feeling lucky to be jazzed, not judge-y, about art right now.