the process of letting go

Please stop over at Wisecraft. I answered some questions about my new e-course and am giving away a free spot . So please stop by and check out my interview. Blair asked me some great questions.

In her post, I talk about letting go and wanted to share more about that here.

A little history: I used to draw faces a lot in high school. It was all I wanted to do. My favorite art teacher, Mr. Murphy, taught me how. My pencil drawings were big and realistic. I even got to have my pencil portraits hang in the school lobby for an entire month my senior year. My first solo exhibit. (I wish I could find pictures!)

After that I just stopped and tried being a serious adult. I got married, went to college, got a “real” job and started a family. I did some drawing and doodling during those 15 years, but not much.

In 2005, I discovered Illustration Friday and started drawing again more regularly. I even started painting. The strange thing was that I had forgotten that I could draw faces and would tell myself that I didn’t know how or that I couldn’t do it very well. I started thinking that I needed to paint like other popular artist bloggers and I struggled a lot with this idea that I wasn’t enough.  It wasn’t until I finally let that expectation go, that expectation to be and paint like someone else, was I able to finally paint faces I love.

That is what I want to share with you in my e-course. The letting go part. The letting going of being perfect. The letting go of self imposed pressure. The letting go of all that’s holding you back. Instead I want to help you open up to the process of learning something new.  Open up to the joy in putting pencil and paint to paper. Open up to something stirring inside that wants to get out. Open up to finding that special something that only you can express.