Artistic Expectations

The biggest speed bump that I see my students (and myself, let’s be serious) encounter is setting too high expectations for their own current skill level.

My Kindergarten students ask me, “Why can’t I paint like you?” And I tell them very simply, “I’ve been painting for thirty years. You’ve been painting for one year. When you’ve been painting for thirty years, you’ll be able to paint like me, but right now, you paint like you.”

Here’s a little story to show you what I mean.

When you were round about a year old you started to learn how to walk. You started by watching other people walk and thinking to yourself, hm, maybe I’ll give that a try, that looks like something I could do. I mean hell, if they can do it, I can do it too!

So then, you tried to walk. You pulled your clumsy baby body up off the floor by clinging tightly to a table or chair with your chubby baby fists. Hey! You managed the first step to walking, baby you were STANDING!

So you got a little cocky and tried to take a step. And BAM! You fell on your face. You probably also looked around to see if anyone was watching so you could fake injury and get some hugs out of the deal.

But then little baby you got up off your ass and said to yourself, damnit, I am going to learn to walk! And you tried again. And you fell again. And you tried again, and you fell again. And again, and again. Falling all the while.

You probably fell a few hundred times before you learned to walk. But here’s the thing. The falls got less painful over time. They got to be predictable. Sometimes you could even figure out what you did that caused the fall. You learned from every single one of them. You figured out from all those mistakes what not to do, so you could stay on your feet while in motion.

You had to fall in order to learn. It was unavoidable.

So then you finally figured it out. Little baby you fell enough times that you learned to walk without falling. As much. Let’s face it, you still fall down sometimes. We all do.

So, you figured, why not take it up a notch? Now that I know how to walk, I’m going to try running. You saw your older siblings doing it and they were having tons of fun. So you tried to run. But your little baby legs were still awkward and clumsy and underdeveloped. Your chubby thighs and silly knees got in the way of your running dreams and you fell. Again and again you faceplanted while you learned to run like the graceful little gazelle you know you are deep inside.

But again, one day it clicked. You figured out how to run. Your knees suddenly started bending the way you wanted them to, your leg muscles developed, and some of the baby fat melted away so you could finally run with the best them.

A few years went by. You became proficient in walking and running and could do either one whenever the hell you felt like it. These things became second nature, part of being human, and you could literally do them with your eyes closed.

So then, you decided to give riding a bike a try.

And here’s where the real growing pains started.

Unlike walking and running, you weren’t just figuring out how move your body in a new way, you were figuring out how to move your body in symphony with a machine. Both you and the bike needed to move in unison for it to work.

It took weeks, maybe months of falling down, getting injured, kicking your bike, shouting at your brother for making fun of you, and crying in frustration before you finally learned this new skill. It took a lot of perseverance and a hell of a lot of emotional and physical pain for you to finally succeed.

But you did it. And you know why?

Two things.

1. You wanted to do it badly enough to keep pushing on when things got hard.

2. You put in the time learning how to walk and run before learning how to ride a bike.

And it’s in this same way that we learn ANY new skill. We have to put in TIME and PERSEVERANCE in equal parts in order to get what we want out of the deal.

So now for the metaphor.

Maybe you spent last weekend watching artists on youtube or instagram creating beautiful watercolor paintings and it looked so EASY and enjoyable, you thought, hey! I’d like to do that too.

So you ordered a bunch of art supplies off Amazon. When they arrived two days later you were feeling amazing while you took them out of their shiny wrappers and admired your new art making collection.

Then you tried to use them for the first time and failed miserably. The paintings you created didn’t look anything like the paintings you saw on instagram. Maybe they looked like a child had painted them.

Maybe you blamed the art supplies. Maybe you thought your brushes were at fault, or the famous painters you’d seen had used expensive watercolor paint, and you’d used the cheap stuff.

Then maybe after throwing some blame around, you promptly gave up. Maybe you put all your brand new art supplies in the closet, closed the door, and tried to forget about your dream.

Here’s the thing.

You didn’t fail because you suck at painting. You didn’t fail because you’re not artistic. You didn’t fail because of your art supplies, and you sure as shit didn’t fail because everyone else can do this but YOU can’t.

Don’t you see?

Expecting yourself, as a brand new baby painter, to be able to pick up a paintbrush for the first time since second grade, and paint something like this…

…is the same as expecting a one year old baby to be able to ride a two wheeler bike.

It’s exactly… the… same… thing.

If your dream is to learn to paint, you absolutely can do it. No matter what your perceived artistic ability, no matter what your socioeconomic standing, and no matter what your mom or your art teacher or that bully in second grade told you. You can do this.

But you have to take baby steps. You have to learn how to stand before you can learn how to ride a bike.

You have to put in the time and you have to push through the falls, and there will be falls, before you become a painter.

You can’t give up when it gets hard, you have to learn to push through when it gets hard, because just beyond the hard, is where it gets good. Just beyond the struggle is the growth. You just have to keep trying.

And damn it, you’re up for it. You just need to take the first step.