7 Ways to Overcome the Fear of Ruining Your Art
What do you see when you look at a blank piece of paper? If you're anything like me, you see the most scary and intimidating, valuable canvas, which will easily be wasted as soon as I start to draw anything on it. But look, I mean, it doesn't have to be this way, right? So in this video, I'd like to share with you 7 Strategies to Overcome the Fear of Ruining Your Art.
#1 - Realize that your art isn't permanent
Nothing is permanent. Even if you've been to a museum and you see these hundreds of years old paintings, they're all falling apart. Even though they're trying to conserve them. I think adopting this kind of mindset helps you move away from the perfectionist mindset because so many people are trapped in this perfectionism where they feel everything has to be perfect, my art has to be perfect.
Being perfect or having perfect art isn't reality. Sometimes it's good to just take a risk, ruin your art sooner rather than letting nature ruin it. But don't be afraid to ruin it. Take that risk and see what.. what your art could turn out to be, which may be a lot better than you expect.
#2 - Try again. Art can be recreated
This was something very valuable I learned throughout college, and I remember one of my instructors saying that she does a lot of her watercolor paintings twice, and usually because the first time is kind of a study, they're just working it out and they're trying to figure out the problems. And usually when she does the painting the second time, it actually turns out a lot better.
And I did this when I was younger. Naturally, I drew the same thing and many, many times I drew Winnie the Pooh many times Dr. Seuss, etc. And it was a way for me to practice and to get better. There's no rule of saying, you can only draw something once. And that's it's a one of a kind.
Most art is not one of a kind. And just because you draw something once and it doesn't turn out the way you want doesn't mean you can't just try and draw it again.
#3 - Don't live with regret of wondering what it might have looked like
Sometimes I would have an idea - Oh, I could add a splash of a red color in the background.
That could be really cool. But I know that it's a big risk to put a splash of red color in the background because I just spent one hour on the drawing and this could completely ruin it. So it's kind of this struggle of, do I want to take the risk to ruin something? I just spent an hour or 2 hours on, or do I just leave it alone and always wonder what it would have looked like?
And for myself personally, I don't want to wonder what it could have looked like because just like in strategy number two, I can always try again. So the simple solution was to put some red in the background. Really try it. It could have ruined the drawing, but it could also make it 200% better. Right? It could really bring life to the entire drawing.
#4 - Ask yourself what could go right?
I think for most of us artists.. Maybe not for everyone, but there's a lot of us out there that are intimidated by the blank sheet of paper or the blank canvas or whatever it may be. We never stop to ask ourselves what could actually go right. Start thinking of all the possibilities of how your art could improve if you actually start being bold and experimenting instead of having this fear of ruining every piece that you do.
So try this mindset for the next month. Try to always think what could go right? If I try to experiment and push my drawing a bit more and see how it'll change your work.
#5 - You'll feel better when you experiment, even if it's not what you wanted
Even if you experiment and it gets ruined, you're going to feel better that you at least tried.
You gave it a shot. Might feel bad for a little while, but imagine thinking that you didn't try at all. And that's going to be more regret. That's going to be worse, I think, in the long run because you're going to have these stagnant and boring drawings. I never usually regret the things that I do, but I usually always regret the things that I don't do.
#6 - Start with a very small experiment
So I would start just shading a different direction. I used to do a lot of vertical hatching. That was one of my experiments. So I would do a whole drawing with just using vertical hatching, and I ended up really loving that method. And that's kind of how I do a lot of my drawings.
It's becoming incorporated into my own style, and then I started adding color into the background. So every time I experimented, it was only like a 5% change to the whole drawing. It was something very small and you can be more bold and challenge yourself a lot more once you get used to experimenting. But I think having small changes like that will kind of build up, build up your experimentation muscles so you get used to it first.
So it's not such a big task and it won't cause you a lot of anxiety.
#7 - Try experimenting on at least 50% of the art you create
So this kind of gives you a nice balance of creation and steady growth with what you're comfortable with. But it also gives you challenges, pushes you to be comfortable with making mistakes, getting out of your comfort zone, to experiment.
And you'll also grow from all the knowledge and mistakes that you make. You also grow and learn from those, and soon you'll be able to experiment with way more of your art if you want. I think that’s a really great balance to work with.
