Focus to Perfect Your Skills

Over six years ago I wrote a post about my dreams of watercolor painting. You can read the whole post here. I longed to learn to paint well with watercolors, but my paints tended to stay on the shelf… from fear that I wouldn’t be able to do it well. Here’s a portion of what I wrote:

For so long now I have been drawn to watercolor. It fascinates me. At the same time I think I have been fearful to really do it. What if I am no good? I want to be able to do it well. It’s easy to default to creative activities that I already know I can do well. I even feel no fear in trying new creative things and posting the results on the blog (even if they are not that great) in trying to encourage you (our readers) to find the creativity in yourselves.

Perhaps watercolor will be my “thing,” and that is why I am having a hard time starting. I have been fearful of failure. As long as the potential is sitting there in the box, I can continue to dream about doing it. I can paint great creations in my head without anyone being able to see whether or not I can really do it on paper. But now I have taken a class from a master watercolor artist who encouraged me to keep going. A few bricks have been knocked out of that wall of fear. I need to pull the watercolor supplies out of the box and paint and paint and paint until the bricks have all been knocked out. When we interviewed Skip and Racheal Mathews, we found out Skip determined to make 15,000 flame painted butterflies in order to perfect the process when he was first learning to flame paint. If I really want to be a master watercolor artist, do I have that kind of determination? I have to start… and then keep going…

In the past year, I focused more on watercolor than any other creative activity. I’ve taken online classes, read books, and started mentoring my granddaughter who loves watercolor. By focusing more on developing this skill, I am seeing growth and increasing in confidence. Just doing it more and more is knocking the fear out and I am starting to feel like I can be a watercolor artist. I’ve only shared a few paintings this year (some of what I’ve done with my granddaughter). So I have decided to be brave and post several more pictures I’ve painted…and I do plan to keep going now that I finally started.