Overcoming the Fear of Painting
I've had many artists over the last few years of my time on YouTube contact me with questions and concerns regarding fear and painting. Most of them were fearful to even begin a painting at all. They would tell me that the blank canvas was intimidating and they were afraid of not creating a great painting, so instead of giving it a go - they never started. This type of fear and level of perfectionism can be quite damaging to your art career or journey. I'd like to give you a few tips to help you overcome this fear so you can start creating and progressing with your art.
Have a Plan
It's important to have a plan. Many beginner artists overlook this step because they may not think it is valuable or needed but it definitely is. Think about sailing on a ship - without a crew or a captain or navigation, the ship will probably never make it out of the harbor and if it does it'll probably sink somewhere but one thing that's for sure is that it'll never make it to its destination. But if you take that same ship and give it a crew and captain with a map and a plan, it's more likely that it'll make it. The same scenario applies to your art, so have a plan before you start.
Ways you can plan:
Thumbnail Sketches for Composition Ideas
Use Photographs, then create sketches from these
Think about what colors and mixtures will be used
Decide on a concept, what's the idea of your painting or drawing?
Keep it simple - don't over-complicate anything
Courage
At the end of the day, you must have courage. Don't live with the regret of not starting that painting or drawing. I would rather create a terrible piece of art than have never tried to create one at all. Becoming a great artist takes patience, practice and determination. Even great artists that we all love and admire failed at creating, at one time or another. No one is perfect, nothing is perfect. There's an old quote which is "Perfect is the enemy of good". This basically means that if you worry yourself about perfection, you'll never create anything good. At least that's how I see it.
Check out my video to hear more about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLL2g3hxpEI
