My art of failure

I want to be an artist.

I want to create art, show it and sell it!

But first I have to learn the technique, how to use the material, what material to buy, what paper to use.

A ton of excuses not to start right away.

I have to watch lots of videos, because if I have this doubt, then other people have had it before me.

And that’s where I fall into the trap of content recommendations and instead of creating, instead of doing, instead of trying to fail! I prefer to be passive and watch a sequence of videos that reassures me. Yes! I feel ready for anything, now I have all the recipes I can apply!

But I don’t apply them.

Why? Because I keep looking for the ultimate video that will continue to feed the fantasy of the artist I’ll never be.

I’ve been that person, and today that’s history, I’ve set myself a challenge with objectives, to paint every day with the same palette.

Constraints have one advantage: they allow me to spend less time on preparation. I pick up my tools, turn on Spotify, set my stopwatch for 20 minutes, and dive headfirst into the dizziness.

30 paintings, for 30 days, using only 6 oil pastels.

I’ve done 11. It’s a failure.

No, it’s not a failure, I wasn’t aware of it yet, but that’s precisely why I took on this challenge: to fail.

Thanks to this challenge, I realized that I liked painting people, painting situations, painting contrast, painting movement, painting silhouettes.

I realized that I really love to paint.

I’m an artist.

Not because I sell work, not because I’m represented by a gallery, but because I create every day.