Hiii there, I hope your week is going just ducky! Welcome to fall for those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere (omg summer? hello? where did it go??), hopefully you have some nice plans in store as the weather starts to change and you start getting into nesting mode. And of course, pumpkin spice latte mode for those who partakeā¦ š
Iāve been working the past six months to a year on getting back into oil painting, if youāve been following me for a while you would have seen many new works, and a lot of discussion about finding my way in a medium that I hadnāt touched for about 15 years due to my military service injury. Itās been quite the trial, and there was something that was always nagging at me ā what worked for other people didnāt necessarily work well for me, whether it was related to my restricted mobility, or just because it didnāt seem ārightā to me. Iām sure if youāve ever done art at any level, or even crafting, there have been times where you questioned whether you could even do this, whether you had the skill or ātalentā for this, because if itās seemingly working for everyone else and itās NOT working for you, then clearly the problem is youā¦ riiiight? Riiiiiigghhhhhhttt?? I KNOW Iām not the only one to hit walls like that while trying to learn something or practice something, no matter what it was.
So, what I decided to do was put my year or so of experimentation (aka many failures, and āsuccessesā that I didnāt know why they worked as they seemed so random) into a video about how to find your own art process. In the video Iām mainly discussing painting and things that you need to figure out, but these concepts can be applied to pretty much any craft or art form as well. Iāve even created a free Notion template that subscribers can download on the Peacock & Fig freebie page (if youāre a subscriber, just search your emails for your welcome email). If youāre not yet a subscriber, you can do that below to access the template:
The template will let you keep track of whatās working, what isnāt, and to keep moving forward instead of throwing your hands up in the air going, āThis is too hard, Iām clearly not cut out for thisā and just give up. Nooooo givey-uppy, maybe itās NOT you but itās being told that you āshouldā do things *this* way, or that *this* material or craft supply is the best and if you donāt like it something is wrong with youā¦ ā¤ļø Get to the blog post and video below:
Iāve put a ton of work into this process and the video itself (I had to refilm it fouuuuuur times last week as I was having so many tech issues, and even then editing it took so much work as thereās a lot of information in it). I wanted to get it out to you last week, but at least itās all done now. I made it as in-depth as I did because I didnāt want to leave potential questions unanswered, and I wanted to give you examples from my own trials and errors so you can see that there is noooothing wrong with you if youāre having struggles finding your OWN way.
Aside from all that, Iāve also been hard at work (despite another unpredictable round of pain flares, hooorayyy) getting some work ready to submit to local galleries for some upcoming exhibitions. Iāll share some more images next time. š
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Talk to ya later, alligator! If you have any questions or comments, of course you can leave them below this post. šā¤ļø