This past Saturday, my niece Amanda was married at an outdoor wedding.....in August.....in Florida. Yes, you read that correctly. In the photo, the flower girl is spraying Amanda's face with a water mister/fan thingie that helped to keep the girls cool before the ceremony.

I had started to put together a sketch of some of these images. I wanted to do a more personal representation of the day and I was struggling with my sketch to make it look like Amanda and her new husband, Dustin.

When Chris came in from work and saw the sketch, we started to talk about it. I was not happy with it at all. Since it was family, I definitely wanted the people in the sketch to look like who it was suppose to be and not the Asian folks that had shown up on the page.

Amanda & Dustin

I wasn't good enough.

Mind you, that's not what he said at all. It's what I heard. My insecurities were already raging, nipping at my heels and chewing on my toes. (I tend to think of my insecurities as piranhas...they move in at the first scent of insecurity and work into a feeding frenzy.)

I took my sketchbook back to the studio and erased the whole page......

I shouldn't have listened.

Not to my insecurities. Nor to my fears that I couldn't complete the sketch to my satisfaction. And I shouldn't have erased the damn thing.

Cheesecake and Cupcakes!

 What did I learn?

1. The next time my insecurities are that raw, it's probably best not to enter into a conversation about the art no matter how well-meaning the person may be.

2. Wait before erasing. Nothing would have changed if I would have waited until this morning and still decided to erase.

3. I shouldn't have listened to the fear. I know better. Fear is not a good leader.

4. I would have learned something if I had gone ahead with the sketch, even if I had not done the work satisfactorily or to my satisfaction (two different things).

5. Nobody but me would have seen it anyway. Especially if I didn't think it was good enough.

Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Watkins!

Detail of Texture from Autumn Tree, Watercolor Painting

The kids go back to school in our county today. The football season has begun and the voter booths are open today, and even though it doesn't feel like it.....it's gotta be Fall! And it's shaping up to be a busy Autumn with lots of new classes on the schedule! Please visit September's i•Trav•e•logue for all the details!

Detail of Texture from Autumn Tree, Watercolor Painting

The two images above are details from a recent painting exploration we did in the Artful Journaling: Explorations class. As I was talking with my husband about this painting, I found myself calling it a failure.....and I knew that wasn't right. I stopped to examine what I was saying. I was a bit disappointed that once again the need to be perfect had slid back in.

You see, I had judged this painting a failure because the end result, the "product," is not destined to be a show piece, a gallery piece or even a display piece. When I looked at the process and what I learned, this painting was a tremendous success! Once again, I found myself needing to redefine "failure" as well as reminding myself of what my goals for the piece were to begin with!

A failure, to me, would be when I didn't learn anything, when my goals are not clear, or when I repeated an action from a past experience that had already taught me it would not work. I did not set out to create a show piece with this painting. My goal was to learn a simple technique and how I could push it and do different things with it. That goal was accomplished. So where did this word "failure" come from?

It came from fear. Fear that I would be judged as a bad watercolorist at the very least and a complete idiot at the worst. Because it wasn't a "perfect" painting. Fear of not being "good enough" is an insidious thing....and it requires vigilance to keep it out of our thoughts!

• Instead of asking open-ended questions, ask specific questions....“I’ve been working on getting stronger lights and darks in my painting. Do you see this as having a stronger value pattern?” (Be aware that you may have to educate them on values, but that’s a good thing!)
• Try the criticism on for size. See if there's any truth in it at all. (The more the advice or comment bugs us, the better the chances are there is some truth to it!) If the criticism fits, use it as motivation to improve! If the advice doesn’t fit, see yourself physically dropping the criticism into a trash can, and walking away. Kick the can, if necessary! The trick is to not go back and dig that piece of advice out of the trash and let it start to hurt all over again!
• Ask yourself if you’re taking the criticism personally and why. Evaluate whether the criticism is directed at the work or at you as the artist. Many of us get tangled up in separating the art from the artist. Once you’ve established which is being criticized, evaluate the criticism for relevancy.
• Never ever, ever, never take criticism personally!!! Criticism, simply put, is another person's opinion. It may or may not be relevant or valuable. Opinions come cheap and often unsolicited. They're often said (shared) without thought as to how they might be "heard." 
• We give the criticism its power - to hurt, wound, irritate, annoy, dismay, or otherwise, harm us! When we take away the power, we take away the sting.

Did you see it?!! Did you see the Critic in here? Can you believe the audacity??!! To just show up on my blog like that!!


Of course, the Critic was invited. 


I even held the door open....


In yesterday's post, I made the statement, "....I can't help but wonder if the time may have been better spent on a brand new attempt!" That, my friends, was the Critic talking, and is totally unacceptable! My husband mentioned my comment last night and said something on point about me not practicing what I preached. To which I responded that I was simply evaluating the work and I wasn't entirely certain that it had not been a wasted effort. 


As I moved through the evening, I realized that indeed, I had let the Critic loose. If you've taken an Imaginary Trip with me, you know that on all of the class blogs there is a statement at the very top of each class blog that says "Imperfection practiced and encouraged here." As a recovering perfectionist, I stand by those words. They enable me to get things done that would otherwise hold me hostage indefinitely as I'm not able to do them perfectly. 


But every once in a while, I still fall prey to the Critic's voice. This time, by passing judgement on a piece of work that didn't need to be judged. That was not the intent of the piece. It's a sketch, not a competition painting. As a sketch, it's fine. Is there room for improvement? Yes. There is room for improvement in every piece I've ever sketched regardless of how good I may have thought it was, and I wouldn't have it any other way!


You see, I believe that perfectionism is fear. It is the ego's weapon to keep us from setting ourselves up for hurt, harm, ridicule, embarrassment or any other undesirable result. Especially, if it's happened before. So our ego uses a reasonable, logical voice and we listen!! It then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because too often decisions made from a place of fear are poor decisions, and we prove the ego right. 


Dealing with criticism–our own internal Critic, external, well-meant, hurtful, harmful, constructive, non-constructive, idiotic and down-right idiotic–is part and parcel of being an artist. It is necessary to learn to deal with all types of criticism. To learn to identify when it's harmful and how to make it useful. I'll be getting into that tomorrow. 


Meanwhile, if you see that Critic in here again, kindly ask it to LEAVE!!!