“Well, it’s not as good as I hoped it would be, but I can live with it.” I had just completed a painting that I did specifically for learning purposes. I’ve been painting quite a bit, but the paintings have all been gifts for someone. As I was struggling with this one, I realized that I’m learning quite a bit about myself as I learn to paint.

One of those things is zeroing in on how I really like to learn.

I’ve said before that I feel I’m a creative soul trapped in a non-artistic body, and this particular project reiterated that for me. The instructor I followed is a wonderful artist, and I could listen to him teach all day, but I had a really hard time following along. That’s absolutely nothing to do with his teaching style, and everything to do with my learning style.

A Bit About Learning Styles…

When I was in the Air Force, I went through quite a few Instructor Training Courses because I did a lot of teaching. One of the first things we learned was about preferred learning styles.

At the time, we were taught three basic learning styles: Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic. Now the learning style models include reading/writing as well.

• Visual learners learn better when they can see visual representations of concepts — charts, diagrams, maps, etc..
• Auditory learners learn better by hearing. As you can imagine, they find lectures and group discussion really helpful for learning new information.
• Kinesthetic learners learn by doing. Actually doing the task they’re learning is what really cements the information for them.
• Reading/Writing learners tend to lean toward text-based information. Reading and taking notes on what they’ve learned, outlining, and making lists can help them retain what they’re learning.

Although it’s helpful to know your primary learning style so you include the tasks that are going to ‘groove’ the information for you, studies have shown that tailoring teaching to specific styles doesn’t improve learning.

In fact, the reason we covered learning styles in our instructor courses was so that we made sure we hit all of them. A multidisciplinary approach (multimodal learning) is much better for making sure we truly learn.

What I’ve discovered about myself, though, is that it’s not just about the mode it’s presented in, it’s also the method.

I need a system.

Although I’ve always known my basic learning style, I’m starting to realize that I don’t do very well learning things unless they’re presented in a very systematic way.

There have been several artists I’ve tried to follow, and I just haven’t had a lot of success. The problem is that I have that type A brain that needs a little more structure than probably most truly artistic people do.

I’ve started developing a system that works for me when I do paintings from reference photos. Of course, everybody else didn’t get the memo, so they don’t teach to my system ha ha.

It’s good to have systems, but we also need to have flexibility. And that brings me to the next thing I’m learning about myself.

I need to loosen up.

Something I realized when I was doing this painting was that I have a hard time leaving white paper. In watercolor, you don’t get your whites from paint (at least most of the time). You get them by not painting what you want to leave white. I find that incredibly hard! I don’t know what it is, but I always want to go back and put some kind of color in those white spots.

The problem with that is, I end up erasing some of my highlights. Then I have to go back in and lift out paint later. It’s harder to lift paint than it is to just leave it off to begin with. The painting can start to look muddy and overworked.

I’m learning that (finally!) about life in general too. I’ve become much more flexible as I’ve become older, but I could still loosen up a little. I worry too much, about too many people/things. Most of those things are out of my control, so I have to let go of the worry as much as possible.

We can’t control everything, and sometimes it’s much easier to go with the flow than go back and clean up our messes because we thought we could.

One other thing that I’m learning about myself is….

I still don’t feel like an artist.

I’ve been working with watercolor for a couple of years now, but I still don’t feel like an artist. I think part of that is because I can’t draw (yet). As I’ve mentioned before, I have to trace anything I paint.

I’m working on fixing that though. I’ve just started a course called The Art Within with Jenna Rainey, who is a well-known watercolor artist. Her painting style is not necessarily my preferred style, but this course is like a mini art school. Hopefully I’ll come out of this finally feeling like an artist.

In the meantime, I’ll keep learning, growing, and getting those miles on my paintbrush.

Do you ever realize you’re learning new things about yourself as you’re learning to create your art? What would you say is your preferred learning style? Please share!

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