"Painting starts with Pain" - Chris Oatley

Lately I felt quite overwhelmed with all this gorgeous art I see everyday on the internet. When you see such wonderful artworks you start question yourself, your talent, your knowledge and ability. And to my horror it affected my need to create. Suddenly I got afraid that all the best art was already created and that I'm not good enough. I guess you all know that feeling.

And in that time of doubt I found a great article "Painting" starts with "Pain" by Chris Oatley:

"Pain is proof that you’ve discovered the limits of your ability.

Pain forces you to decide.

When you reach points of pain, you decide whether you’re going to accept your limits and work within them…

…or practice until you move past them."

If you can spare a few minutes to read what Chris wrote, you won't be sorry. For me, I can say that this article changed my way of thinking about my art and creating. I reached a point of pain and not for the first time. But previously I just accepted my limits and went on, this time I decided to take the hard road. I want to move past my limits and for me is the best way to do it by drawing faces.

I started with artistic or whimsical faces. I went through my books and quite a few video tutorials and finally got to work. My art journal is already richer for 3 faces and I intend to draw whimsical faces till I feel I perfected it and hopefully fund a signature style. Then I'll move on.

This was exactly what I needed at the moment and a proof - once again - that everything you need really comes to you at the right time.

And if you struggle with drawing faces as I did, don't worry, I'll make a blog about best tutorials I found online in following days and maybe you'll find out it's not as hard as it seems.

---------

Comments below are always welcome, you know that, don't you? :D