I cheated on my drawings

Begrudgingly accepting the fact that to learn a new skill, I must first be a beginner

I don’t have an art degree.

I don’t have formal art experience.

I don’t have academic knowledge about art or what it really means to be an “artist.”

Or at least I didn’t think I did. . . until I started reading the Artist’s Way ten weeks ago, and quickly realized that I, in fact, did not have to have what I perceived as “natural talent” in order to call myself an artist.

I didn’t have to be born with the ability to create a beautiful painting out of thin air, straight from the womb.

I didn’t need to have some intrinsic gift that, if not present in me from the moment I arrived on this Earth, meant I could never be an artist.

Shocking, I know!!

A couple of weeks ago I sat down and had a talk with myself:

You’ve always believed you just “weren’t a runner,” and look at how you’ve been challenging that. Shattering that. Disproving it step by step, minute by minute, mile by mile.

What if you did the same thing with drawing? Painting? Coloring??

What if you became simply unwilling to believe that you “just can’t draw” and started, well, drawing?

So that’s exactly what I did—and it’s been so fucking freeing!

Instead of sitting down in front of a blank page, forcing my inexperienced mind to spontaneously come up with a brilliant idea that would inevitably become the next Mona Lisa, I went to YouTube and typed in “how to draw flowers.”

A lot fucking simpler, I realized, than trying to stick to whatever romanticized idea I had of this natural gift of being able to draw; this pure ability I desperately craved to magically intuit a brand new idea, transfer it to paper, and be seen as the creative genius I was born to be.

Creative genius—yes; world’s next art prodigy who would have a piece of work framed in the Louvre within months—no (unfortunately).

It’s a classic case of that all or nothing mindset that a lot of us just seem to love SO much, and that I personally allow to hinder my every creative desire, urge, and idea.

I would love nothing more than to be able to create a gorgeous composition full of delicate flowers, blooming petals, and vibrant watercolors—but if I can’t do it right this second, it’s not even worth it.

Pffff. Saying it out loud (or writing it, for that matter) makes it feel so fucking silly!!

But that’s what our minds do, isn’t it? Convince us that if we’re not intrinsically gifted at a skill, a hobby, a craft, that we simply cannot and will never be able to do it?

I don’t know about you, but I’m over letting that silly notion rule my life and my desires—so I went to my local art store (trying my hardest not to support Amazon when I have the choice!) and picked up the SIMPLEST supplies I could.

(I have a habit of buying hundreds of dollars worth of tools for a craft I only spend two weeks on and then never touch again, and I just can’t be doing that in this economy tbh. Plus, you know what they say: constraints foster creativity!)

A set of drawing pencils. An eraser. A sketchbook.

And what did I do next?

I know what you’re thinking—no, I did NOT sit down at my desk and magically develop years worth of drawing skills as soon as I gripped a pencil in my hand!

I went to YouTube, and I spent an hour following a beginner’s tutorial that taught me to draw six varieties of flowers. And guess what? I had a fucking great time. I ended up with a beautiful page of flowers that I couldn’t believe I had actually drawn—even though my mind was screaming at me that I cheated by copying somebody else!!

(yikes, there’s my past as an A+ teacher’s pet coming out to bite)

The next night, I found another lovely channel that helped me learn how to draw a few different leaves, so I drew leaves and leaves and leaves as an outdoor camping video played in the background (shoutout to Outdoor Boys).

Instead of putting my pencils and sketchbook away in my well-organized drawers, I kept them out on my desk—because I’m slowly realizing that if something is out of sight, it is very well out of mind and I will NEVER touch it again.

And instead of walking right past the free coloring pages I saw at Trader Joe’s later that week, I grabbed one (after nervously asking if adults could take them) and spent the next morning coloring it with the pack of markers I’ve barely used since I bought them.

I even ordered an empty scrapbook on a whim, because I used to LOVE adding photos and little mementos to a scrapbook in my early high school years—I just never gave myself permission to do it again. Because every time I tried to start one, I inevitably messed up the pretty letters I tried to make, or glued a photo off-center and gave up immediately.

I realize that none of this is revolutionary. In fact, a lot of these little moments seem very obvious to me now that I look back on them:

Duh, you can follow tutorials when you’re fucking learning a new skill.

Duh, you obviously don’t know how to draw flowers if you’ve never. . . drawn flowers.

Duh, you’re allowed to be bad at things when you first try them.

Despite my judgy brain that seems to love telling me I’m not an artist because I don’t have that “natural talent,” it has been SO fun to explore these little creative urges and ideas that come to me.

I even created a Pinterest board full of art that I find really beautiful and magical and lovely—art that I would love to be able to recreate or take inspiration from in the future when my skill eventually matches my taste.

Because WOW—if I keep working at it, I can get there! It is possible to improve! Crazy epiphanies to have a few weeks before I turn 25, right??

It may take more time and patience than my Gen-Z, optimization-craving, efficiency-crazed brain can handle at first, but I’m going to keep working at it and see what just might be possible :)

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