Happy March ! It’s the weekend !
Recently, I did some fun painting with a friend. She hadn’t painted with acrylics on canvas before, so I was showing her what she could do. I took a lot of disparate paints and blopped them on a make-shift pallette. I then too the side of my hand and dabbed it in all the paints. Then I took my hand and smeared the canvas about 1/2 way down. Her mouth dropped open and she said “I would have never thought of that!”
She then showed me an inspiration piece - a painting by Monet. (He’s been a major influence to me with my artwork.) and she proceeded to paint her version of the painting by Monet.
Then, I was stuck with my canvas. I looked at it. I had no inspiration. I’ve painted water 100 times and just didn’t think of painting another one. And I honestly had no idea how to paint anything on this canvas.
I sat there for a while, staring at my canvas, watching hers come along quite nicely. And finally I decided to take my own advice: just paint. Don’t worry about messing up. Just paint.
And mess up, I did. My canvas is seriously ugly. I can’t stand it. I mean, it’s really hideous. 🤣 I am debating about whether to show it to you or not.
[Well, either I am in luck, or you are, because for some reason, this isn’t letting me attach a photo of the painting.]
I felt sad that my painting skills have gone downhill. But then I think about it and I realize - I haven’t painted since 2011, I think. (I stop painting when I run out of wall space.) And my own book, “Mere Creativity” shares that it’s perfectly okay to make bad art. If you’re so afraid you will do badly that you never start, that’s sad. So it’s okay to do badly - at least you tried.
That made me think about the phrase “Practice makes progress.”
A year ago, I picked up my violin, which I hadn’t played since 1994. That’s 30 years. I started playing and traveled to a lot of states. My playing was adequate to me at the time, but I have been practicing a lot since then, especially this year. And I am so much better than I was a year ago. Why? Because I have been practicing. Not every day, but out of about 365 days, I probably practiced 300-320 of them. It’s making a difference in my playing and in my confidence that I will hit the right notes, so I don’t need to play meekly.
Just this week, I started playing piano again, too. I haven’t played that since 1990. I mean, here and there you see a piano and play a song you used to know and do fairly okay at it, but beyond that, I haven’t played. And the last time I sat at a piano and tried to play something, the bulk of it had left me. Left my brain, my heart, my soul and my muscle memory. Gone. Poof. ✨
So, if I am practicing violin and keyboard, and getting a little better every day, then it stands to reason that if I start practicing art / painting / drawing, that I will start to get better again at it.
My hands are swollen these days, so it’s hard to articulate my fingers like I remember being able to decades ago. But I know if I keep trying, I will get better.
I have been afraid of writing some novels and short stories, like I used to do in high school. (I wish I knew where they were. They were good stories!) And I tried to write a novel in November. I mean, not a whole novel, but at least get a good start at it. And I fizzled out. It just became too hard to do. I have about 12 people I want to introduce in the story, and I feel like I need a backstory for everyone, their goals for the future, their name, appearance, sexual orientation and weight and where they live in the story (physical home), what they like to eat, drink… it just became unwieldy and I had to stop.
If I start smaller though, just trying to write a few short stories, like I did in high school so easily, maybe that craft will come back to me again. Because of practicing. Then, I would remember what essential elements are part of a good story, the way I used to know how to do. I used to come up with opening sentences that caught someone’s attention. It’s such a struggle for me now. I mean, I am out of practice but I also have brain issues because of all the concussions and many other factors, too, that I have dealt with. So it’s a struggle. This aging thing isn’t for the young and inexperienced. It’s tough stuff to realize you can no longer do what was once so simple that you never thought you would forget it.
I hope my muscle memory picks up in my brain, the way it is already with piano. It’s good to practice and keep going.