Why you should love your "ugly" paintings

Thoughts on progress, self-judgement, and making "mistakes" in art.

Hello again, from Sweden. 👋🏻 It's so warm here, it's scary. We should be having snow, or at least frost, by now, but it's been warm and rainy this whole autumn. September/October weather, but with bare trees and withered grass. It's depressing. The only upside to it is that we've barely had any mice. Yet. Previous years: One or two mice almost every day from late September to late November. This year? Only two mice total, so far. Maybe they'll all come in January instead...

Anyways, enough depressing climate talk. I'm doing...okay, healthwise. I'm slowly getting to the root of my muscle imbalances, and working on them everyday. But there's still some pain and bad sleep and anxiety and way too much time spent researching and looking things up online. I don't really have the focus and peace of mind to sit and paint and draw, which is very frustrating.

Luckily, I painted and filmed a lot during the previous two months, so I still have more footage than I know what to do with. And I realized that one of the charcoal portraits I made is a new version of one I made two years ago. The Dracula portrait that hangs in our hallway. And so I thought it might be interesting to compare the two and talk about what I've learned about portrait drawing since then (which is a lot.)

Old drawing to the left, recent one to the right.

This is the most exciting part about being an artist for me. Getting to look back on my progress. It's what kept me motivated in the beginning, when I was very self-critical, but I knew making "failed" paintings was a necessary part of the journey. And the longer I go, the more art I have to look back at.

But it's not about pulling apart my old work and laughing at "how much I sucked back then". I still love a lot of my older work. Some of it, I'm still amazed I managed to pull off. And for the rest, it's like flicking through a photo album and remembering how those moments felt. Old paintings and drawings are memories of time and place and maybe even mood and background music. I can sometimes remember how that particular practice session felt. It had nothing to do with the "quality" of the resulting drawing, but everything to do with my mindset and mood at the time.

Of course I still judge my art, and I get frustrated with myself just like most of us. Especially when I'm sitting there, erasing and re-drawing, erasing and re-drawing and STILL not getting the likeness right. Eventually, I toss the drawing into my closet, on the growing pile of "failed" art that I never want to see again. But I will, of course. Otherwise I would have tossed it in the trash. The only art I throw in the trash is half-finished stuff or really messy sketches. I hold onto my "failed" drawings and paintings just as much as my "successful" ones, because I know all of them are just as valuable to look back at in the future.

I try not to judge my younger self and her art. And I try to take a more neutral stance on everything I make now. Neither obsessing over its flaws or thinking it's the best I've ever done. Because what does that even look like?

Do any of us have a clear image in our heads what the perfect version of something looks like?

What makes us so sure that those mistakes we just made were really mistakes, and not fun quirks that make our work interesting?

Maybe what you consider a "success" now will seem incredibly dull to you in a few months? And a "failed" drawing might actually make you feel something.

A charcoal portrait I hated so much when I'd just made it that I almost tore it in half when removing it from the easel. Now I find it kinda cool. 😜 It's weird, and wild, and has character. It’s fun to look at. Why is that a failure

What I'm trying to say is: Our tastes and preferences change. And progress can look a lot of different ways. It's not just about learning specific techniques or methods, or finally getting a particular facial feature anatomically correct. It can also be about letting go of what we've learned and trying something else, or doing the opposite of what we "should" do. Inventing our own way of doing something. Going for what feels best, instead of what looks best.

Only you can know what true progress looks like for you.

And the less judgement you have about what your art is supposed to look like, the more open you can be to all possibilities.

Makes sense?

I'm curious: How do you feel in your creative practice right now?

A. I love doing the work, but I'm unsure about if it's any good or not.

B. I'm so self-critical, I barely get any work done.

C. I'm aware of my shortcomings, but I'm at peace with where I'm at right now.

D. It shifts like a roller coaster.

That's is for this week. I hope you'll have a restful weekend, and we'll talk more next Friday. 🖤

With love,

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New video: 5 things I've done to greatly improve my portrait drawings

New course: Portrait Drawing for Beginners

My portrait drawing class is now available as a standalone course! If you want to get started with portraiture, but don't want to get overwhelmed and intimidated by anatomy lessons and complicated "methods" that leave your sketches looking like geometry calculations, this might be the class for you. 😊

You can still find the course on Skillshare if you're a member there. But I’m currently in the process of moving away from Skillshare, because of reasons I’ll get into more in next week's video. Buying my courses directly from me is also a way to support me, and help me be less reliant on exploitative content platforms… 🙄

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Reading:

I want to recommend a newly started Substack from a friend of mine, Vera Golosova:

She's a Russian artist, art director, and YouTuber, among other things. A fellow multi-passionate and sensitive soul, and this post is a great way to get to know her:

Something to be said about me

Bookwise, I'm back to reading The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. Trying to regain the focus and peace of mind needed to read fiction again. 🙈

Watching:

My friend Kelsey Rodriguez recently dropped a really great one:

If this doesn't get you excited to start (or re-commit to) a YouTube channel, I don't know what will.

YouTube is far from a perfect platform, and I wouldn't say it's the best platform for everyone. Especially if you're not at all drawn to the video format, and you much prefer to express yourself in writing.

But. I used to be one of those people myself, and I ended up loving making videos. So don't rule it out it entirely for yourself just yet. If you're longing for a way to show your art, talk about what you love, challenge yourself creatively, express your personality, make friends, build an audience and a body of work... You absolutely should consider YouTube. If I could do this, with my anxiety, awkwardness, camera shyness, and non-native-English-speakerness, you can too. Trust me. There are many ways to make videos. It's an art form. One that I'm finding myself more and more drawn and committed to as I'm doing this work. And I'm actually planning a series of videos to help other artists and creatives start a YouTube channel and learn video making. Stay tuned for that if you're curious about YouTube, but would like a little support and hand holding. I've got you. 🥳

Listening:

I got an epiphany while listening to Andrew Huberman's recent episode on meditation.

I've been meditating (on and off) since my highschool years and thought I knew most of what there is to know about it. But he talks about something I've never really reflected on, and that's the difference between introspective meditation and more outward-focused meditation.

If you are a naturally inward-focused and introspective person, like I am, doing more of that in your meditation isn't always a good idea. Especially if there's pain in your body, or lots of intrusive or stressful thoughts.

This explains why I've always struggled with those "body scanning" types of mindfulness meditations. They don’t relax me at all. I just get overly sensitive to the sensations in my body, and feel compelled to move around or scratch a neverending series of itches. I stress out over my heartbeat or breathing, or I get caught up in thoughts or memories or some damn song I can't get out of my head.

Meanwhile, being in nature and just watching, smelling, listening is so healing and calming for me. It brings me outside of myself and roots me in the real world. And that is actually the type of meditation that would be better for me to practice.

So that's a tip for you, if you want to meditate but have been struggling with it. Try out a different form of meditation. If you're way too caught up in what's happening around you, try going more inward by listening to your breath. And if you're already hyper-aware of what's going on inside you, keep your eyes open and try focusing on your surroundings instead. A slow walk through a park, listening to birdsong can be a really effective form of meditation.

Gaming:

I love playing Deep Rock Galactic with my sister right now. She lives hours away and we don't meet IRL very often, so being able to hang out with her like this is such a luxury. And as we all know: Sisters who do intergalactic mining and monster slaying together, stay together. 😌

I also can't wait to get back to our Nemesis (https://awakenrealms.com/games/nemesis/) game tonight... I'm obsessed with it. I know it sounds absolutely insane, but this space horror board game is my new happy place. Putting on the Alien Isolation soundtrack in the background, lighting some candles, and playing this game with my partner... The creeping suspense, the strategic decision making, the tragic/heroic tales that unfold as we play... Pure, masochistic bliss.

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