How on earth can it possibly be April already? It seems like just a few days ago we were starting the new year, and now, we’re in the fourth month of it! Goodness, time flies!
Since it’s April, one would think I’d have a lot of artwork to show for the previous three months, but unfortunately that’s not the case. I’ve probably only completed about three paintings this year so far. I’ve done some other things; I just don’t have a lot to show for the work I have been doing.
Part of that is that I’ve had a couple of failures, one of which was supposed to be a gift for my Hubby. There may have been some tears involved with that particular one. The thing about failure is that it’s really just a lesson to be learned.
With this project, and a couple of other things I’ve worked on, came some more Watercolor Lessons. I thought I’d share them to hopefully help others avoid the same mistakes I made.
There’s a fine line between having your pencil lines light enough and not being able to see them at all.
When I trace my pictures onto my watercolor paper, I usually end up using my kneaded eraser to lighten up the lines a LOT. Some artists like to leave their pencil lines visible, but I prefer for mine not to be seen.
In the case of the painting below, I wanted to paint on a block of watercolor paper, so I couldn’t use my Lightbox. Instead, I traced it backward, then turned the paper over and scribbled over the lines to transfer the tracing. This usually works great, but this time, something went wrong.
When I finished transferring it to my watercolor paper, the lines looked awfully light, but I thought I’d be able to make them out under my painting light.
Well, that was not the case. Even under the light, there were a lot of areas that were just too light for me to see.
That became a HUGE problem when it came to the eagle’s face. As you can see, I messed the eye up, and there was just no way to fix it. I needed to start over.
This leads me to the next lesson — at least for me.
Paint the most difficult parts first.
This painting was going great — until it wasn’t. Now I know it may not look like it, because it was firmly in the ‘ugly duckling’ stage when I stopped. But I was happy with my background, and the sticks placed in the nest were looking good. I had done a good 2 – 3 hours’ work on it by the time I got to the eye.
When you’re painting any kind of animals (most likely people too), the eye can make or break it. If you get the eye right, it can bring your subject to life. If you get it wrong, though, it can ruin the entire painting. This poor eagle looks like my pup used to look when he was confused about something.
If I had started with the eye, once I realized I had messed it up, I could have stopped and saved myself doing all that work for nothing.
But hey, at least I got some practice with doing that fuzzy background and making the sticks and branches look the way I wanted them to look.
Perfectionist tendencies can stunt your growth.
This is definitely not a new lesson for me, but I was reminded of it recently. In a conversation with my blogger friend Mark from Midlife, Maniacal and Me, we were talking about feeling ‘blocked’ in our artistic journeys sometimes. I realized a long time ago that my perfectionist tendencies keep me from moving forward sometimes, because I get so scared of messing something up that I just don’t do anything.
That definitely happened with this painting. I got as far as transferring it to my watercolor paper and lightening the lines, and then I stopped. I just haven’t had the nerve to start again.
I’ve been feeling stuck again, and haven’t done any painting at all. Finally, yesterday, I decided I had to do something to break out of this. I knew I didn’t need to jump in on a big project, or something where I was tied to a great result, after a couple of weeks without painting at all.
When you’re in a slump, choose something quick and simple, just to get your brushes wet and paint on paper.
For some people, this could be as simple as doing some painting exercises such as practicing different brushstrokes or color mixing. I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t be happy with that, though, so I had to do something else.
Thankfully, one of my painting memberships is Watercolor Mastery with Emily Olson. She’s a great instructor, and she does daily challenges, which are 30-minute videos. Now, I can’t ever finish a painting in the time she does — she paints FAST — but I can usually finish her challenges in around an hour to an hour and a half.
That was the perfect thing to help me break out of this painting slump I’ve been in. Because I wasn’t too attached to the results, it didn’t have to be perfect. It helped me get past some of those perfectionist tendencies I talked about earlier and helped me avoid being in danger of giving up.
Don’t let your failures cause you to give up.
The longer I work with watercolor and strive to become the artist I want to be, the more I realize just how important it is to keep a growth mindset and to view failure as lessons learned. As Thomas Edison famously said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
He also said, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” As long as we keep trying, and learning along the way, we’re moving closer to success every day. Mistakes are often where we learn the most!
What are some of the lessons you’ve learned from mistakes or failures? Please share!
I Wanna Be An Artist 
I’d love to hear your thoughts!