SPARK the Art - LIGHT

CREATIVITY IS FOR EVERYONE, EVERYONE IS CREATIVE

OK SO IF I’M CREATIVE, WHY CAN’T I DRAW?

Drawing is a fine motor skill that requires nurturing and challenging. Like when you learnt to ride a bike or drive a car - it will take a lot of time and a heap of determination. Without these 2 crucial elements it’s likely you will never be able to draw - sorry. But if you do want to develop your drawing and painting skills you most certainly can. And there are plenty of books and courses out there to help you – these are well worth the investment. Drawing is 50% observation (so start looking really intently at the world around you, see the shapes, lines and colours, take notes, make sketches, make connections, start building up your own visual library) and 50% mental (it’s likely you have a very nasty inner critic who will rubbish your work, mock, even taunt you – you are going to have to make friends with your critic, let them know you are in this for the adventure - and the long ride).

Being creative does not usually bring instant success. It comes with many ups and downs and, again sorry, a high risk of failure. Sharing your art, being willing to take that risk, and understanding that a lot of what you create will never see the light of the day - are all very humbling, and it’s likely you will feel very vulnerable (like being back at school). But the more you do it the more you WILL enjoy it. It’s the engaging that matters (the results come much later). Engaging in the creative process is a great confidence builder, because you discover failure. And it’s this that often stops us, particularly adults doing creative things – that fear of failure, that shame, that unworthiness, that hurt pride - that horrid sense of being found wanting. But if you keep creating you start to see failure as part of the process – something that is survivable - and this is ESSENTIAL. Because it’s this “failure” – which is not failure, it’s learning – is what helps us grow and make our work better. We begin to live with the fear, release it and then we try new things, even at the risk of failing again. This is when your brain starts to LIGHT UP, leading to lovely feelings of achievement and high self-esteem.