The terrifying effect of the blank page, staring us down, inciting doubt, bringing up insecurities and, possibly, even feelings of inadequacy, is something every artist experiences at least once in their lives (I suspect).
I admit that it wasn’t a problem for me for a very long time – I started a sketchbook habit very early on, away from the comparison traps of social media, and drew almost every day, what I felt like drawing, when I felt like drawing it. I was still learning, I was a beginner, and I knew it, so even when my art fell short of what I wanted it to be, all it took was flipping the page and starting again.
As time went on, and life got more complex, time management became a constant challenge, as well as dealing with the outside expectations that insisted in creeping into my favorite activity.
I was only a matter of time until it finally hit – the fear of what I set out to do not being perfect.
In 2019 I was making comics, working for an animation company, and still trying to make some illustrations on the side when I had time. Inevitably, the overload of work took a toll, and I developed De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis. To avoid worsening the condition to the point of surgery, I had to quit my job, my work, and take a long break from art. Still, the condition of my tendons was bad enough that my hand never quite recovered. In order to continue making art, I had to change the way I worked in almost every way.
Where I mostly drew highly detailed pen illustrations before, now painting seems to be the only option to work pain free. I have very little previous experience with traditional painting, very few references of artists I look up to in these techniques, and feel like I have no personal painting style to speak of.
I’ve become a beginner once again, but without the advantages I had when first starting out – which means I’m getting very well acquainted with perfectionist procrastination.
I know I’m not alone in this, so I thought I’d share the tricks I’ve been using to overcome it.
They’re simple, not new, and I do not claim to have discovered them, but maybe, today, what I’ve been learning can help you overcome the idea that your art has to be great and perfect all the time to be worth your time.
Set a time frame
If you’re struggling with the motivation or confidence to start your drawing/painting/sculpture, or really, any sort of project of any type, setting a time frame for that activity and blocking time for that in your calendar will be of great help, but mostly if you set it as a short time frame.
Instead of making the compromise to have a session that lasts a whole afternoon, commit to working only for one hour, or half-an-hour.
It’s much easier to say “well if this doesn’t go well, it only took an hour of my day”, than to deal with “if this doesn’t go well, it’s a whole afternoon I’ll lose, and there’s so much more that needs to get done!”.
Even if one hour, half-an-hour, fifteen minutes, feel like a very short time to do anything in, it doesn’t matter – what matters is that it got you started. Once you get started, you may find you want to continue for longer, that the time frame you set was just enough, or stop before that time.
Regardless of how long you spent, you will end up with at least one more line or brush stroke than you started with.
Establish small goals
So now you’ve set your time frame, blocked it in your calendar, and have that time to create whatever you want. That doesn’t necessarily help when you either aren’t sure of what you want to make, or are still terrified of that unforgiving blank page.
This is where setting small, achievable goals can help. And when I say small, I mean that you can make them minuscule.
For some sessions, when the perfectionist paralysis is particularly sharp, I set goals as small as “sit down in front of the desk” or “open the sketchbook”.
Taking the first step in the direction of my goal has never failed to get the ball rolling, and get my work sessions going.
Setting slightly broader goals is also quite important, but again, these don’t need to be big. After opening the sketchbook, having an idea that today you might just “draw the composition’s general outline”,“color in one element of the painting”, or “smooth one surface”, will break down a bigger task into smaller, easier to achieve goals, that will help you mark and understand your progress, regardless of how much progress you end up making.
Make it easy
If you only have a short time span for your art session, you don’t want to spend the time you set aside to practice organizing your workspace, looking for tools, or searching for the right reference.
Once you have your time block, take a few minutes wherever you can to prepare for your art session, before you’re set to start it.
This may include setting up your desk, creating “art kits” of pre-set art supplies you know you’ll use often, creating folders for references in your phone, computer, or Pinterest, or any other sort of preparation you think will save you time and mental effort.
A little extra tip that I took from Karl Martens, and have been successfully using since, is taking a nick of time to focus, and mentally trace the steps I think I’ll need in order to accomplish a certain study, or finished piece – this way, I’m already training my brain to breakdown the process of the work, rather than panicking about the complexity of it, or how long it’ll take me to finish.
Just get started
“No plan survives contact with the enemy”, so in the end, no preparation can take the final step for you, which is to take a deep breath, and just get start.
Get started knowing it might not be perfect, knowing you may end up frustrated, that you may not have enough time time to get to that stage you wanted. But it’s good to keep in mind too, that as soon as that first minuscule step has been taken (like, opening your sketchbook and drawing a circle), the rest will most likely start to flow, and then, all the fear, exhaustion and hesitation fall away, and it’s just you, having a great time, no matter the outcome.
And no matter what the world outside your workspace may have to say about it, all the time you spent making something, is time well spent, even if it ends up in the trash or in the bottom of a drawer – you’ve already taken the most important elements from it – enjoyment and experience.
Know you can quit
And then, why not take even more pressure from yourself? Know you can quit, anything, at any time, for any reason, no matter how much time, effort, and money you have invested on it.
In the end of last year I made a lot of investments in my art – I bought an easel, big expensive sheets of paper, and a set of acrylics, brushes, and painting mediums. I had big plans, and I was going for them.
Until I realized that even though making small studies in acrylic is something I very much enjoy, making huge paintings is not for me, and that my life is currently too unstable to store anything I can’t carry in a suitcase.
So I dealt with the shame, the guilt the disappointment, and finally quit that project.
The world didn’t end, I’m still painting, I can still use those supplies, cut that paper into smaller, more manageable sizes, and re-sell what I won’t be able to use.
It’s still a bit embarrassing, but we can quit, and sometimes, quitting something that’s not working for you, is the only way to open to door to something that does.
It's easier with friends
It’s so much easier to get over certain art ruts when you have a group to practice with, even if only once in a while.
Joining a workshop (there are many free ones out there!), an association, a drink-and-draw, drawing with friends, or even starting a sketchbooking club, can really help feel more relaxed when practicing.
It doesn’t mean that you need to talk all the time, or even be drawing next to one another, but just committing, with someone else, to meet in one place, and draw for a set amount of time, will get your foot across that threshold, and spending time with other human beings, who share the same passions and fears as you, will definitively make you feel more comfortable and confident in the end.
I would advise doing this, whenever possible, face to face, but if it’s not possible, why not online? Places like Discord, or a simple video call, can make for really fun options, like taking a sketchbook tour around a video game, or Google Maps, and sharing the results in the end (and now that I’ve written it, I really want to give this one a try).
Finished, not perfect
Have you ever had that moment, where you finish something, take a good look at it, and hate it? You push it away in disgust, and come back a few weeks later, look at it again and go “hey, that’s not that bad after all!”.
Giving yourself break between finishing something, and looking at it with a critical eye, is usually good practice to avoid being too hard on yourself, and end up demotivated – celebrate first, look at it and judge later.
But regardless of whether you change your mind about something you create, you did finish it. And finished is better than perfect.
Perfect risks staying in our minds forever, so as to avoid the risk of coming out as less than we imagined it, but if it’s only in our minds, it can’t be shared, or seen, the time spent on it can’t be enjoyed and nothing will be learned.
So try to aim for finished, not perfect, and let me know if it’s helped you as much as it’s been helping me!
