flailing about

At the end of week one, I intended to find freedom in my own creative process. I made a start. I got messy and playful. I was wonderfully inspired by the work of Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler and then had a crisis of confidence. I ‘leaned into my discomfort’ and learned about ‘anti-perfectionism’. Here are the results:

My week started off in euphoria after my visit to the Barlach Haus in Hamburg. I wrote down my immediate reactions here. My excitement resulted in three slapdash portraits.

I Love how Pacha’s face came out. I love the colours and the expression. It is just so…Pacha! I was so pleased and excited that I rushed the background. A few years ago, I would have spent hours observing the shadows and folds of her blanket, determined to get it just right. I have lost this patience. I tell myself this is a rejection of perfectionism. I have a sneaking suspicion however, that it’s actually a manifestation of my fear of failure.

I finally finished the tutorial I started last week. The ‘Ultimate Beginners Guide’ with Kristy Rice.

Some new techniques…

I got excited about the last two techniques, which I forgot to write in. ‘Glazing’ and ‘Contrast Detailing’. Unexpected, lovely things emerged. I’m looking forward to playing with them.

The last exercise was a ‘paint along’ using the same composition as earlier in the tutorial. I was very resistant to this and nearly didn’t do it. I was hungry for ‘new’ and ‘more’. It felt like a waste of time… but I’m glad I did. Although the result doesn’t seem much different to my first attempt, which you can see here. The process was very different. I felt much more confident and excited to explore the techniques. The feeling of progress was wonderful.

Then came my crisis, which you can read all about here. At the end of the post, you will find a list of practical steps that I committed to taking to help dig me out of my hole. One of them was to complete the exercises in Kristy Rice’s ‘anti-perfectionist’ tutorial. Here is what came out:

I LOVE this form of note-taking! These are the phrases I heard in the tutorial that resonated most with me…

• Gratitude – I had never looked at this through the lens of perfectionism. It helped me to realise that perfectionism is a feeling of lacking something…of ‘not enough’. I wonder if I can allow myself to appreciate what I have and what I am discovering? Letting myself be truly present and delighting in the incredible beauty that can appear on the paper.
• No room for perfectionism in art – I am realising that this doesn’t mean that all painting needs to be quick, sketchy and slapdash. I am feeling the need to pay slower and more meticulous attention to my paintings. I would like to find joy in detail without the underlying anxious tension that perfectionism brings.
• Change the narrative – I like doing this. Flipping the narrative on words like progress and success help me to hold on to my sanity within an insane system. I feel like the narrative of ‘Perfectionism as lack’ is triggering some internal shifts.
• It’s simple but hard – this seems to be the case for many of my fundamental learning curves. Anapana meditation for example. ‘Just focus on your breath’. So simple yet so hard. Again and again, my habitual mental nonsense interrupts. I believe working through perfectionism lies in the same territory. ‘Just focus on the painting, be present with your creativity’. But what do I do with all the crap that lies between me and the present moment? Simple but hard.
• We see what we focus on – I can’t remember why this stood out to me in the moment. Something about the lens we see the world through. If we look for lack, then nothing is perfect. If we look for beauty, everything is perfect. Is it possible to look with no lens to see things ‘as they are?’ Doubtful.

For this exercise, I wasn’t supposed to take my pen off the paper. Looking at it now, I think I must have…oops! I Love the result though! The combination of the sketchy lines and bold colour is very striking.

This was with my left hand! Not the writing. Very liberating. No pressure. I love the effect. The task was to write down five positive qualities for myself. It was surprisingly easy. Perhaps I like myself more than I thought?

Week 2 Takeaways:

I feel content that I can produce these kinds of images. I remember my GCSE and A-level art pieces always seemed overthought and stiff. It’s probably because I overthought them, and my body and mind were stiff with fear and expectation as I did them. I watched enviously as others jaunted their way to confident and casual beauty. I thought, ‘I could never do anything like that.’ It turns out I sort of can. It’s nice to see physical evidence that, over the last 20 years, I have loosened up a bit.

There is so much that I would like to explore in more depth. As my eyes adjust to a new ‘water colour lens’, I see opportunities everywhere. I long to capture the dappled pink tinge of a cloud, the distorted tangle of branches reflected in a lake and the unknowingly vulnerable expressions of people on their daily commute. I am impatient to fill my tool box with techniques that will allow me to do this. The terrain of water colour is spread out before me, wide and overwhelming. This ‘wideness’ can sometimes be a ‘running away trigger’ for me, so I will commit to just a couple of explorations this week:

• Investing time and energy into one, more detailed piece of work. While I work, I will pay close attention to the needs that arise. How is my perfectionism manifesting? Am I more focused on the journey than the result? A sort of ‘painting meditation’.
• I will take ‘slapdash interludes’. I do not want to abandon the freedom I am only just starting to find in these quick works. Perhaps working in these different ways in tandem will help me find the sweet spot in between?

I will report back soon!