"I'm afraid there's nothing inside."This was a response to my last post about a free course that transformed my work.  The artist in question was expressing a fear that many of us share .... 'what if I try to paint authentically and honestly, but there is nothing inside worth sharing?'If you feel this way know two things:

1. You are not alone - this is a common fear
2. It is total nonsense.

How do I know it's nonsense in your case? Because you are a unique person - you have a unique set of personality traits and life experiences and - whatever they are - the very fact of their uniqueness makes them interesting to the rest of us (who are not you and therefore cannot experience life the way you do).We are all capable of making boring, restrained, restricted, unauthentic art - in fact we're pretty good at it! But if we dig deeper and make art that truly comes from within, we can all make something interesting and totally unique - we can't help it.So how do we get there?I think it's about really getting to know ourselves.For me, the process has involved really paying attention - paying attention to my thoughts, paying attention to my preferences, paying attention to the paintings that I enjoy making and to the ones that feel difficult. See, I believe that in life and in art, the things that feel difficult are probably wrong for us. Alternatively, the things that bring a feeling of joy or lightness or ease, are the things that are pointing the way.I have also had to learn how to let go ... to loosen my grip on the need for a result and to just let things happen naturally. This is SO much easier said than done, and yet it is a fact that if you stop pushing for a result, you will almost always make better work. Once we stop caring about what anyone thinks, once we stop worrying about sales, once we stop questioning the 'correctness' of what we are doing - then we are free to discover all that lies inside us just waiting to come out.There are worlds within you.There is a unique, exciting, still-to-be-discovered voice that would love to be heard.There are paintings that will only be made if you make them.The question isn't whether you have ability ...The question is are you going to release it?The free course I took is only available once a year and it is now open for 2019 registration. If you would like to take it, click this link to sign up.