I Did a Landscape Painting and I Failed
Actually, I did 5 landscape paintings and all 5 failed.
Have you ever tried to push yourself out of your comfort zone and wondered why you bothered?
I do - all the time. But here’s the thing, when you stay within your comfort zone, you limit your growth and development as an artist. When you step outside, you challenge yourself to try new techniques, experiment, and approach your work from fresh perspectives. This can lead to breakthroughs in your creative process and help you discover new strengths and interests that you never knew you had.
I’m not a landscape painter, nor am I interested in becoming one. But, some of my patrons have asked to me teach them to paint landscapes…….uggh!
Always wanting to please, I set out one day with Dom to gather some reference photos.
And I managed to get a heap of them.
I chose one of the photos that appealed to me and I spent two days painting some cows in a paddock…… (I don’t mean I was out painting in a paddock……..you know what I mean).
Now don’t get me wrong, I like the cows but the landscape part of the reference photo……..meh.
As a result, I ended up with 5 overworked, muddy and poorly composed paintings. The only part of each painting that I liked was the area around the cows.
Of course, I was disappointed with myself. I felt I had wasted all that time trying, but, I tried one last time.
With the 6th painting I decided to ditch the landscape idea and paint a vignette of the cows instead.
And what do you know- I had some success………finally!
Happy Dance! This painting will be a full-length tutorial on Patreon this year.
At first, I thought I’d wasted two days trying to get a decent painting but then after painting the vignette, I realised that those two days weren’t wasted at all. I made mistakes, heaps of them, but I learned a lot. I learned how to paint the grass around the cows’ legs and heads. I learned how to paint the shrubs and bushes behind the cows (I hadn’t painted anything like that before).
One of the things I was reminded of is how important it is to……I’m going to borrow a comment from one of my YouTube subscribers here………. ‘Let the paint make the image’……thanks Graham!
How true……. that first wash is always the freshest. Go with it and let the paint lead you to where you need to be. Don’t fight it, don’t try to make it conform. Accept what it gives you.
And most importantly, I learned that instead of trying to paint like others or paint what I think others want me to paint, I should paint what I want to paint. A finished painting may reflect a lack of passion if you don’t feel deeply invested in the process of creating it.
So, my friends, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and try something different. You will probably fail at first but is it really a failure if you learn something new?
Please let me know in the comments, how have you tried to extend yourself and what did you learn?
I’m udderly excited to hear back from you. 🐮