Perfecting Your Craft

The most freeing way to think about perfecting your craft is to understand that the process itself is perfecting in its own right, because true perfection is not realistic, attainable, or even intriguing. In the world of smiles, for example, a crooked one is my favorite.

I have been wanting to pick up the art of drawing again like I used to when I was younger. At the time, it didn’t matter that I drew outside the lines or that my faces were illogically created or proportions were off, because it was so much more about the act of drawing than it was about the final drawing itself. Mostly, I liked getting messy and I liked looking at the drawings of my fellow art students as we walked around the room at the end of each class. I liked how the subject was always the same, but no drawing looked like another. I liked the music my instructor played and I liked the way my mom reacted to what I had created. None of my joy was derived from the satisfaction of a job well done.

I purchased a sketch pad and pencils over three months ago with the undeniable itch to draw again, but as soon as I realized that drawing is nothing like riding a bike – I hardly remembered how to hold my pencil with ease, let alone draw into existence a believable mouth – I became discouraged. I expected to glide with ease back into the craft, but instead I was anxious and overwhelmed and irritated with myself.

But, as frustrating as it can be (and more often than not, it is frustrating with a capital “F”), I’m trying.

Without the pressure to produce, perfecting your craft becomes much more satisfactory. As a perfectionist, letting go of the stumbling in my craft is difficult, but certainly not impossible. I know I will get better – each stroke will become more fluid – but avoiding my pencil in fear of not fulfilling my own expectation is unfair to my inner artist. She’s in there! Deep, deep down! For one, it is completely impossible to become a better one without ever creating art, but even more devastatingly, I am withholding joy from myself. I am afraid of not being perfect, but, spoiler alert: perfection doesn’t exist. Not anywhere in this world, at least.

I’m not ready to sell any pieces to an art gallery, or even show my mom my latest drawings, but if the worst that happens is I tear out a piece of paper and start again, it’s really not even a loss at all.

My own own fear of self-rejection is what stops me from taking risks before anyone else even has the chance to criticize. I have been believing a lie that if I never start something, I don’t have the option to fail. This is true, although never starting something also means I don’t have the option to succeed, either, nor do I get to do something that I enjoy doing just for the sake of enjoyment. And, really, between trips to the dentist and hair appointments and work and folding the laundry, how often do we get to do things we love just because we love them?

Much like I would encourage my friends to do something they take joy in, I’m choosing to be my own best ally. Entertaining any other thought is doing my art no good, and it’s doing me no good, either.

I’ve started drawing on nights that I have free because I love it. I get frustrated and irritated and overwhelmed, but at least holding my pencil is becoming familiar again. Right now, in my infancy as an artist entering back into the game of art, that in itself is worthy of celebration and of sharing, even if my drawings aren’t quite there yet.