Confidence?

Though some of my blogger friends are very confident about their art and themselves as artists, I know that there are many, me included, who are less confident. I also see a serious lack of confidence in the beginners and less experienced artists who join my art forum. Sometimes I try and find some words of wisdom that might help them be more confident in their work and I am continually trying to find ways of boosting my own confidence levels. (Yeh, I know ... I should practice what I preach).

One thing that has driven itself home to me recently is that you, my blogger friends, always seem to like my work much more than I do, and I have been giving this a great deal of thought. I've concluded that this is simply because you don't know what I was trying to achieve - what mood I'd wanted to create; what small detail isn't as accurate as I'd have liked; what colour has dried darker than I'd intended; what 'rescues' I performed during the painting process; etc, etc. You look at my work and see it as you find it, with no preconceived notions or expectations. I look at my work and compare it pixel by pixel (figuratively speaking) to the image that I held in my minds eye before I reached for my brushes. It seldom measures up.

So I now offer a new definition of the word 'confidence' ....

Confidence: the ability to see your work as others see it.


Changing the subject completely, which I can do because it's my blog, a while ago I decided to make my own Xmas cards this year. I even said so here on my blog ... like an idiot!!!

 I thought about it all through September and most of October and actually made a start around the end of October just before the auditors arrived. Remember them?

Anyway, during the time of the audit I was distracted from really important matters, like art, and my Christmas cards got put on the back burner ... again. So yet again this year, I rush headlong into the festive season with a long list of uncompleted good intentions.

As you know, I've been developing a growing passion for pen work and, just as an experiment, I wanted to see how effectively I could sketch a snow scene using black ink on white paper. I had just finished a watercolour of a 'made up' scene for a possible Xmas card, so tried it again in pen. Both are posted here. Initially I wasn't at all pleased with either version but coming back to them many weeks later I am seeing them through fresh eyes. I'm much happier with both of them but I have to say I was really very pleased with the pen version. I refer to my comments above about 'confidence'.

I'd like to offer both as cyber Christmas Cards to all my blogger friends, old and new. Throughout my blogging experience you've been a constant source of inspiration and encouragement and not once have you said "John, that's crap!!!"  I wish you the most wonderful Christmas ever and I hope good old Santa brings you plenty by way of new Art supplies.
Merry Christmas.