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Excuse List

I have heard many excuses why people will not make a line. Here are some of my pet peeve excuses:

"I can't draw a straight line with a ruler."

Answer: If you are paying attention to what you are doing, you can. If you are not paying attention to what you are doing, then you are not trying to learn.

"I don't know where to put the lines."

Answer: You must experiment and find out where. Everyone must go through a similar process called learning. If you already knew exactly where to put them, you would not need lessons, and you would not need to learn. No one can do your learning for you, but examples can be provided for observation and directions can be provided for guided experimentation.

"I'm not and artist."

Answer: Everyone creates or crafts something. Your medium might be music, painting, box hedges, or even grilled cheese sandwiches. The question of what constitutes art is not the issue. The question actually is, what does your art contribute? Who experiences it? And, how can you take the care and time you spend from one set of circumstances, and generalize it to another situation?

"I don't have time to practice."

Answer: Only you can find the time. If you want to find time to practice, you will. If you do not find the time, then you do not want to find it enough.

"I can't even draw a stick pony."

Answer: If that is really what you want to draw, I can devise directions. But most people would rather have a picture of a real horse. I have no idea who decided that drawing a stick pony was any measure of artistic competence.

There are many more excuses, some more ludicrous than those listed here, the key point is that they are all just excuses. Once one has decided to drop the excuse mentality and realize some basic learning principles, they can achieve practically anything.

If they can put people on the moon, you can certainly eventually overcome a little frustration with paper and pencil. It seems silly to think that there should be no pain or frustration in any learning process. Learning means change, change means confusion, confusion is uncomfortable. Expect discomfort when experiencing actual learning. the trick is to not give up.

Do not start making excuses, and you will not learn to rely on them. There is no one to blame for perceived failure, not even yourself. Failure is a temporary state unless you make it permanent by giving in to it. Success is only measured in the fact that you keep trying different methods until you reach a desired goal.

You are your own worst critic. If you are not, you should be. No one else will care enough about your artwork to make you do it a certain way unless you truly care about it first. When criticizing your work, be as objective as possible and realize that critical focus means isolating what you need to work on more, not identifying what you do not like.

Realize that it will take time to learn any new skill. In a society of instant gratification, this can be a humbling experience. When you perceive that someone has produced something you like, whether it is a stimulating piece of music or a perfect souffle, you must realize that you experience the end creation separate from the hours, days, weeks, months and even years of continuous study that person may have engaged in over their life. Talent is often the illusion of practice focused by imagination and personal will, never assume that people have to be born with it in order to succeed.

Monet suffered from encroaching blindness, Van Gogh from epilepsy, Beethoven wrote music even after he became deaf. Excuses aside, it takes commitment.

Artistic pursuit is often viewed as a luxury in a business oriented society. When mixed with a capitalistic point of view, art which does not produce money (or the movement of money) is often considered inferior and is relegated to the equally ambiguous and lower prioritized category of hobby. Art that makes money is considered a profession. The question of how to quantify something that is inherently unmeasurable keeps tossing paradoxes into our logical world. The easiest way to understand an artistic outlook is to realize these basic points in fact....

Logic and rationality are illusions created by our desire to explain.

Creativity is an illusion created by the action of randomness on our rational outlook.

Talent is an illusion created by constant study and practice.

Like the theory of the atom, when logic works, we use it. When Logic fails us, we turn to art, even logical art. To consider one piece superior to another because it holds a higher price tag goes counter to every artistic notion previously considered. The true measure of art is in the artist, and that is something that can never be counted, only described.

If you wish to draw and you refuse to give up until you feel that you can, I can provide you with something which logic cannot provide... experience.