Art isn't easy!

 Snowdrop composition coming to life in watercolour

I meet so many people on my travels when I teach my workshops all over the world and the one thing that seems to be a common denominator in my art courses is my coming across people who tell me that they find painting really difficult. In that their results aren't always as pleasing as they want them to be or simple to achieve.

  I think theres' a point that we all miss at times.We all love painting and we all want to paint. But art isn't easy! It takes years of practise to get to a level of painting where you feel you are creating something worthwhile but even then, you still take time to perfect your skills. I cannot imagine one single famous artist  starting out in their career and simply painting a masterpiece straight away. In the same way that a famous golfer didn't get a hole in one on their first attempt at playing golf.

No painting isn't easy at all. 

I still have days where I face a new subject and what I achieve in my results may be passable as a finished painting but it will be far off from where I intended my results to be. In fact I am going to be totally honest and say I must be such a hard task master as right now I know exactly where I want my latest snowdrop and daffodil paintings to be and I am almost there . But not quite. In my mind I can see the daffodils blowing in the breeze and my results although beautiful don't quite say this. But they will. My snowdrops I want to glisten as if in early morning light under fresh snowfall. They aren't there yet but they will be.

Note these three words.

They will be.

Why?

Because I want them to be. Its' as simple as that. Mind over matter. I want to paint a great painting. I want to fall in love with my finished work myself. I am the driving force behind my work getting better and that is the most important point. Lets turn that around to you.

You.

You are the most important key to your own work getting better. How good a "key" you are is up to you but unless you keep turning that key and aiming at "somewhere" you will never reach that destination. It helps of course if you know where you want to be in your art journey. But most o fus want to be better.

So for me this morning, it is back to painting flowers and aiming for the painting that is in my mind, just out of reach. The one that I will always strive to get to as a higher level in my art.

Happy painting!