I have a LOT of character flaws, one of which is my compulsion to be immediately good at everything I try. Which, you can imagine, is not great for actually learning how to do things.
In countless newsletters, Patreon posts, and YouTube videos, we’ve talked about just how important failure is for the learning process. It’s an incredible teaching tool that shows us where we’ve gone wrong and how we can improve. But I desperately want to be good at things right off the bat, and never want to go through that uncomfy dance with failure. At the heart of it, I have an aversion to failure that I can’t seem to shake.
I’ve been diving into the 100 Heads Challenge with the Curious Creatives over on Patreon, and I’ve truly been enjoying exploring portraits! But the experience has also been quite humbling. No one loves to admit where they fall short, but the only way to grow is to be honest with yourself on where your skills are lacking. I had to tell myself the truth: my gouache portrait painting skills were not at all where I wanted them to be. I had to let myself be a beginner and fully embrace all the major and minor failures that would help me become a better portrait painter.
As I began practicing gouache portraits throughout this challenge, I had to remind myself that there is absolutely NO SHAME in being a beginner! You only get to level 100 by starting at level 1. Being a beginner is actually really beautiful. It’s this full embrace of failure as a part of growth. It’s an unapologetic devoting of yourself to something regardless of the outcome. It’s this incredible experience of pursuing something not because you’re good at it, but because you love the process.
Slowly but surely, I’m seeing improvements in my gouache portraits. I’m getting better at predicting the value shift of my paints, exploring different ways of exaggerating and rendering the planes and shapes in a face, and learning which papers I like to paint portraits on.
Somewhere along the way, I’ve fallen in love with painting portraits in gouache. I’m painting sketchbook spreads I never believed I could paint, and that never would have happened if I hadn’t let myself be a beginner.
