Do you push yourself? Do you step outside your comfort zone to do something different just to see what will happen - or what it will teach you? Or do you have a standard recipe for success which you keep using over and over?
For me, I have to keep pushing. I keep trying something new. At times that, in itself, feels like I'm running away from success (because learning something new takes time and effort and there is always a learning curve before you feel good about it). At other times, it feel perfectly right. How else will I learn if I don't try? And it isn't boring!
For me, painting the same thing over and over and over again - even if it's beautiful each time - would bore me to death! And boredom definitely stifles my creativity.
So choose your path - only you can choose.
For me, I'm the one you see getting off the well-trod path and stumbling over the broken, uneven ground! If you see me fall, just know I'll get back up and try again.
Just some words of "wisdom" for your weekend :) Take them with a grain of salt, and a pinch of paprika or a bit of cumin powder or...you get my drift! ha ha
For me, I have to keep pushing. I keep trying something new. At times that, in itself, feels like I'm running away from success (because learning something new takes time and effort and there is always a learning curve before you feel good about it). At other times, it feel perfectly right. How else will I learn if I don't try? And it isn't boring!
For me, painting the same thing over and over and over again - even if it's beautiful each time - would bore me to death! And boredom definitely stifles my creativity.
So choose your path - only you can choose.
For me, I'm the one you see getting off the well-trod path and stumbling over the broken, uneven ground! If you see me fall, just know I'll get back up and try again.
Just some words of "wisdom" for your weekend :) Take them with a grain of salt, and a pinch of paprika or a bit of cumin powder or...you get my drift! ha ha
13 comments:
Rhonda, this question really made me stop and think. I think I take a different tack in my painting/life. Since my life is so exciting in that I never know from one minute to the next what is going to be happening, I think that what I crave is the familiarity of painting with the tried and true of my paintings. In other words, boring is good for me? I find I settle into that zone where all problems disappear for an hour or so and feel re-energized and better able to cope. I have been painting a painting a week for the past three weeks and that has been such good therapy for me.
I always look forward to your blog posts and wonder what you will jump into next. And, I rarely see you fail (other than in your own mind). I love your imaginative works and am glad that it works for you.
Thanks for making me ponder...Susan
You are right-pushing oneself is the only way to move forward-throw that and some blind faith into the mix and you've got an interesting journey-isn't that what it's all about?
These are great words! Thank you for sharing. I also love trying new things and I only learn by doing so.
Hope you have a great weekend trying something new!
Hello Rhonda I am still fascinated by emense skies and low lying land or beaches beneath it. I have been watching the sky each day for years and it never looks or feels the same. It is ever changing and to me the most beautiful thing, those veils of light that dance across the eternal canvas in the air. This morning at 3.45am the kitchen door was wide open, the blackbirds in the garden were welcoming that eerie cool light of the morning and then suddenly the sky started to change as if by a blink of an eye......
Susan, I like what you said about your artwork - you are using it as a place of rest; a place of safety where you can go and know the craziness of life will disappear for a while :)
Jan and Leslie, I think trying the new doesn't mean throwing out the old but incorporating it all - everything you've learned and that resonates with you turns up eventually! That's why we take workshops or go to artist retreats or study others' work online or in books.
Caroline, you look up into a different sky every day! And you've been experimenting with capturing those skies using new colors, new techniques, perhaps even with a new vision of where your work will be going in the future. I don't see that as doing the same painting over and over! ha ha
And remember, this is just my 2 cents - my opinion and no one else's and it's my opinion today - tomorrow I may change my mind! I know that some artists learn by doing a series (not the same painting but the same subject in a variety of ways with a variety of techniques); some artists are so in love with portraits that they paint only portraits (and isn't every single face different?).
I hope to be able to put paint to paper tomorrow - I am getting better; over this cold a bit more each day; if I could only stop the horrible coughing fits that come and last and wear me out! Got to get better by Tuesday so I can have my beginners come for class.
This was a good post, Rhonda. You're so right; you do stop learning if you stop pushing yourself. I think I must be more of "pusher". There is nothing I like better than trying something new and different - pushing the envelop.
I've never been able to paint the same thing twice either. Not sure why but I suspect that I don't want to go through similar angst twice. LOL
Rhonda I so enjoy watching you reach, try new things, grow and learn and in the process you produce some beautiful art. I am so glad that I can enjoy your free spirit from my little safe zone - lol.
Thanks, Kathryn, Sherry and Vicki, for your comments and thoughts on this post :) I know we all have our own ways of working through our art - fast, slow, detailed, loose, experimental, traditional, whatever, I hope you all are creating great art today!
Loved reading your thoughts and pondering, Rhonda. I enjoyed playing with a technique for a time, then it's time to shake things up. Not to mention the older I become, the better the art supplies get! So much curiosity lives in this heart :)
Pam, you said it - so many new art supplies coming out all the time and just waiting to be discovered! ha ha I will never leave pure watercolor on paper but it's good to spread your wings once in a while, even if you flop on the ground sometimes :) We all learn from failing and getting back up and trying again!
Well put. You have to know what "your" success is - and learn only to compete with yourself, no one else. Sometimes pushing yourself is good, sometimes sitting in that comfortable place is better! You are always pushing yourself and sometimes get too hard on yourself!
Deb, I feel I'm not hard enough on myself, letting myself slide when I should be working harder and smarter! ha ha
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