Feeling anxiety about working on my art
I am a writer (which I am rather good at) and am slowly teaching myself abstract art through a book. It is really important to me to also be a good artist. My best work is usually colored pencil drawings with or without watercolors (sometimes I combine them.) I have gone through a handful of the exercises in the book, but I feel as though everything I create is terrible and I am afraid to go on because I am worried that everything I make will continue to be terrible and bland. I really want to start working with the book again but I am afraid to start and then disapoint myself with failure :/
@modestwillow
I once heard one of the editors of Art News, he happened to have been the one that discovered Pollock before he was Pollock, say to a room of sculptures and students - "There is no such thing as failure, just delayed success."
So -- first relax! Quit putting this pressure on you -- you never know what any patron is going to like. I point to many mid-20th century artist as examples -- really, get an art history book and start looking through it, it's amazing what people like!
Second -- create! Let loose, don't worry about it being perfect - artist unleash themselves and let loose and often create their best work in this "state". Hey, guess what?! If you make a mistake in the artwork -- you'll be the only one to know it's there. Art is allowed to be imperfect! What you might see as a ghastly mistake of a red swoosh might be interpreted as something primal or gutteral by a patron.
Third -- have fun! Calm that inner voice, put it in a corner, lock it in a box - whatever you do, ignore the conversation that says OOPS and OH NO and have fun making art. If it makes you happy, do it. If it makes you sad, mad, confused, frustrated-- guess what you can make art with any emotion, on any given day, with any medium, for any reason. Don't limit yourself - get outside of your mind, your comfort zone, and create.
Go have fun! Make art! I'm always amazed at what people see in art sometimes -- it is in the eye of the beholders and they don't always get what the artist was putting into it.
