As such you can never find a simple formula to building confidence in your artwork. You can be aware of being too careful in your approach. Watch how you draw, watch how you apply paint, watch how you choose whatever material it is that you’re working with and how you then go about working with those materials.

[private free|gold|free special]

Do you have a strong sense of knowing what it is you want to create?

Are you able to walk into your studio and be bold with statements that you make with your work? Or is it completely tentative experience from the beginning to the end? This is definitely going to show in the end quality of your work and if it is coming across as being overly tentative or timid for example, it will be dismissed as such.

In the creative process as described as in previous chapters, I feel it’s important to be very attentive to process orientation when you work. I think it’s really important to notice the mistakes that happen in your work in the creative process. You can learn from these mistakes. Sometimes some of the best breakthroughs in your studio activity happen through these mistakes.

Bring the microscope to these things when they happen and you might just find that you’ve had a major breakthrough in your work and that the confidence that you are looking for is suddenly there.

Unless you take a certain amount of risk in your art making process, you won’t be able to learn that sometimes works go in a whole new direction, just by adding new colours or new compositions or even completely new materials rather than sticking by the same old processes of working and being repetitive.

This can be pretty scary for somebody at the beginning of his or her career. Often these people prefer to find a safe place in the way that they create, almost wanting to believe that there’s some kind of tried and true formula to ensure their success. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

I think it’s at this point where it’s really important for both students and artists at the beginning of their career, who are looking to gain confidence in their work, be really willing to study whatever processes they need to in order to improve and gain mastery over that way of working. You can look up the Internet for any process that you’re interested in learning about. This may lead you to either doing a course, buying a book, buying a DVD or CD, etc. All of these aids can help you to gain confidence.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This