Art lesson: Ignore most of what you say to yourself!

I’m learning lots of lessons on Flora Bowley’s art course and the Number 1 lesson is to ignore most of what I tell myself.

For example, there have been at least three exercises during the course that I’ve responded to less than enthusiastically. One of them involved opening some books and doing quick paint sketches of images we were drawn to.

My immediate thoughts:

“I’ll skip this exercise.”

“It doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“It’s not really my thing.”

In the interests of getting the most out of the course, I decided to ignore what my head was telling me and just make a start.

It took me about 5 seconds to realised every single one of my assumptions was wrong.

It was fun.

I did enjoy it. (A lot.)

It was the sort of thing I could do.

I wanted to do more of it!

This has happened enough times now for me to realise that my brain often doesn’t know what the heck it’s talking about!

So, the quick paint sketches I did in five minutes are now laid out in full view on the lounge floor – to remind me that when it comes to art (and life), I should probably ignore most of what I walk around telling myself!