(Starting is always hard…)

I’ve been thinking about this blog for awhile now, first just entertaining myself with the idea, then realizing that I probably mean it, so quickly procrastinating various creative ways, then talking about this with a few close friends for weeks, trying to crystallize the idea, and then I finally reached the point when I just gave myself a kick, sat down, reformatted my site, so that I can have a blogging section, and now it’s happening. Here I am…

So what the hell am I doing?

This year (2017) I’ve set out to travel long term, not knowing what I’m going to do – just head out, wander around in Europe, visit friends, see things, experience, learn, draw, paint and see how I like being away from home.

As that tends to happen, after a fair amount of travelling, soul-searching time came and I kept trying to bang my head against the question: What am I doing? With travelling, with art, with my life in general… There is no satisfying answer, but oh well…
(you have to keep moving forward…)
In June I was listening to the audiobook Talent is Overrated as well as reading the Tao of Coaching and the combination of these made me eager to take a step and get down to business.

Talent is Overrated was a really empowering read for me, pushing me forward to make a decision in terms of learning.
The majority of the book is making a case for deliberate practice, what it means and why it is essential for growth.
Realizing that it is something I haven’t really been excelling at doing I decided that I wanted to build it in my life.
(Lift that foot, take a step, you can do it…)

I had a study group on Facebook from last year where I gathered a few friends with whom we set out to learn alongside each other, but life took other turns and the group became a Ghosttown. Thinking that I could revive it, inspiring others if I set goals for myself, I showed up and kept a log of my current aims and achievements. I decided that for now my aim is to focus on watercolor painting and being more mindful of my progress.
(There, you can do it! You’ve never really dared to set goals you wanted to stick to… how does it feel? Oh shush,it’s not that bad. Stop worrying about it!)

Apart from a few encouraging ‘likes’, the group didn’t respond much, but my decision got me into the habit of trying to record my progress – taking photos of different stages of my paintings to see what I’m doing, and thinking more about my choices as I am making them.
Apart from the early days I haven’t really been writing down my self-criticism or thought process, but I think it would be really useful to do so, so the aim is to do so here.
(Lift that other food… another step.)

So one of the goals of this blog is going to be to record my progress on the current quest that I am set out to do, which at the moment is getting better at watercolor painting.
I will try to force myself to take the time, look through all the mess I create, because evaluation is really important so when I try again, I can looking out for specific mistakes that I want to avoid next time.

What I hope to get out of this is becoming more mindful of my painting process, my mistakes, and forcing myself to be more clear about what I am trying to achieve with each practice/painting/sketch.
I’m bringing back the mantra I had during attending a mentored course last year :
I’m not here to impress, I’m here to grow.

Another plan for this blog is to ‘think out loud’ about all kinds of articles, books, artworks and all that I come across – both related and unrelated to the study quest.
I want to show and recommend you guys things that I find interesting, inspiring or cool, and just get used to putting down my thoughts in writing.

So this is the idea so far…
Later on I will try to be clearer with goals and such, try to set myself specifics that I could aim for, but for now I will just be content with finally pulling myself together to break through the stress of the first blogpost.

If you are ‘out there’, reading this, let me know! It’s always helpful to know that one is not writing to the Void, but there is someone, who struggled through my wall of text.
Also, if you know any watercolor painting resources, inspiring artwork or other cool things that I should check out, don’t hesitate to let me know in a comment! ; )