WILL I LEARN TO DRAW THIS YEAR? YES, I THINK I WILL

Up until quite recently, I haven’t been that confident with my creative skills. Especially when it comes to anything 2D like drawing or painting. Whenever it comes up that I went to an Art University, I’m quick to add “but I can’t draw”, just in case anyone might accidentally expect me to.

Funnily enough, it was at my boring corporate job where I started learning about growth mindset. Though still doubtful, I’ve come such a long way now, that I find the memory of thinking my skills were set, ridiculous. But that’s just step one. 

It has taken me a couple of more years of entertaining the idea that I will one day draw, but now I’m finally ready to start. I’ve got lots of tools at hand, Skillshare subscription sorted and bundles of energy and inspiration, but once again I’m doing the headless chicken run of excitement and getting nowhere.

I’m instantly way too eager to reach all kinds of wonderful goals, yet I’m not very good at doing the work that will get me to any of them. I’m not sure why I have never learned this. It’s certainly something I would like to be able to teach my kid. Results take effort. I’m assuming I must have made an effort in many things when I was younger with the violin and all those gymnastics medals I got, but maybe I wasn’t aware of it. I know that learning English certainly was effortless, for I was placed in an English school at the age of 11 and you just absorb it, but I really don’t know when it is that I became afraid of trying.

So this time I’m going to ignore my mind a bit, and decide on a few things. Just a couple. I love doodling as it feels like there’s not too much pressure with getting your lines straight etc. I think I’ll work on that. Get better at it. And another thing I’ll start with are watercolours. I’ve already done one Skillshare tutorial last year and it revolutionised my understanding of how they work. Previously I’d just been picking a lot of pigment onto my brush without any knowledge that the water is meant to play a bigger part in the process!!

So I may have shaky hands and a mind that freezes over easily, but I also have no idea what I can do, and therefore need to find out. I know I’m going to need all kinds of inner strength to keep at it, but I don’t think I have ever had so much faith in myself either. This will clearly be about so much more than just picking up another skill. So maybe I should change the title of this entry to “Will I learn to draw this year AND work towards a difficult goal, hells yeah!!”