Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse.  Give yourself permission to be a beginner.  By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one. 

-- Julia Cameron

I'm a beginner again!

I'm pushing out of my comfort zone to work on portraits. This is very new for me and it came about because I followed my own advice.

Having worked hard on a series of over 40 abstract landscapes for my layered landscape series, I suddenly felt drained of all inspiration. I was preoccupied with teaching my annual Find Your Joy course, so it didn't bother me at first. But then I started to worry, as we all do at these times - I started to think "what if I can't do this? What if I am simply unable to 

So far I've done blind portraits and used unfamiliar media. and worked across all sorts of substrates, and even experimented with image transfers of photographs. All these experiments sparked ideas and last week I felt ready to start on actual paintings.

I'm working on three at once, but I recorded and photographed one of them all through the process. I'm quite happy with where it finished, but I wanted to also show you some of the many fails that came before the one I actually like.

And I wanted to tell you that I got a taste of how it feels to be new at something. I experienced how it feels to not know how to do something. I felt a rising frustration at times. I felt a little rush of panic when it started to get worse. I think there might have been some swearing from time to time.

I might know how to orchestrate colour and create strong tonal contrast and build abstract compositions, but I am horribly out of practice at painting reality, which meant the nose and eyes and mouth and chin all kept being in the Wrong. Damn. Place. 

Perhaps you've felt like this with your art. Perhaps you've started with an idea, begun to execute it with great abandon and then felt all your enthusiasm drain away as your efforts came nowhere close to the image in your head.

But this is what I want to say today: that moment when you realise the gap between where you are and where you want to be - that is where the magic lies. As you feel the disappointment, slow down and recognise something else ... feel all the possibility that moment holds.

It is ripe with potential - burgeoning with all the ways you can now grow into a new version of yourself. If you already know what you're doing, there is no such potential. You will execute the moves and make the painting and move on and make another one. 

I feel a yawn coming on even as I write that.

But this thing you want to do, but can't ... ? That thing is what you must run towards. Because in the struggle lies your next level. In trying to learn this new thing, you will shed the skin of the old you, and transform into a new person. You will learn lessons along the way. You will win victories. You will cry a little yes, but you will also punch the air with joy when you make an advance. 

I can't tell you how glorious it felt to work on my portraits and to be right in the middle of that battle. I felt so alive and that alive feeling showed me how stale I had become. My usual work had become a little too routine. I knew how to fix paintings that went wrong. I had a bag of tricks and I knew how to use it.

THIS was different! This was me and the paint and the problem of Tracey Emin's face. And we were going to battle it out until the bitter end. Eventually, one of us would emerge, beaten and bloodied but not bowed.

And I'm proud to say that I am still standing!

I love the painting I made. It has an energy to it and some of the emotion I wanted.

But it's nowhere near what I want to make in the future. It's not a great likeness. I still have to get that right. And it isn't anywhere near as exciting as the work I want it to be.

I want to make amazing, moving paintings that speak of everything I feel. But I understand that what I want to achieve is massive - it's something to strive for in the future. Wanting to be better gives me a purpose - every day, I will learn something new, every day I will move a little closer.

Many beginners stress and worry about their lack of skill but I LOVE that I haven't mastered this. I love that I still have mountains to climb.

Because the true joy of art making is here, in the challenge. It's not in the successes - those only make you happy for a very fleeting moment. Once we conquer the mountain, we have to find another one to climb.

Some people might find that a depressing idea (you mean we never arrive?) But I find it liberating. Because it means today's work doesn't have to be perfect. It means I can do my best and that will be enough. It means I can let go of the desire to be "good" and instead focus on the paint and the brushes and the tactile joy of what I am doing.

I can simply be present, not looking towards the future or back to the past.

Not worrying but relaxing.

Not controlling but allowing.

I have yet to find a better way to spend my time :)