One of the reasons for the high initial self-expectations is that the creative process of (new) amateur artists is sporadic. By definition of being amateurs, they are are not thinking as professionals. For pros, the workflow is largely focussed on showing up and consistently delivering a large volume of work rather than waiting for mysterious inspiration. Here is Julia Cameron again: “Great Creator, I will take care of the quantity. You take care of the quality.” In other words, the pros trust the routine of honing their craft. They know that if they keep at it every day, the inspiration (and greatness) will come eventually.
The beginners, on the other hand, don’t have the psychological safety of the large volume of generated work. Therefore, each painting they produce is very precious to them.
Ultimately, the way to deal with over-attachment to one’s own work is to produce more work on a regular basis. Another trick is to set up the framework of practice from the beginning. One way to do it is to use very cheap or disposable media, the kind that typically would not be associated with a museum-quality masterpiece. I saw the ultimate expression of this concept in Beijng, where calligraphers write elegant Chinese characters on a sun-heated sidewalk using water. They can barely finish writing a poem before the first characters start to disappear as the water dries up.
These days, I am playing with an airbrush, learning freehand and stecilling techniques. In airbrushing, the mistakes are difficult if not impossible to recover from. Once too much or too dark of a colour is sprayed, there is no way of removing it. So I made it a point to use newsprint paper – the medium that many professionals recommend for practicing airbrush techniques. I use newsprint even when I think that the result could be a unique painting. I also don’t hesitate to use subjects that have no potential for standing on their own as a piece of art, like copying fragments of famous paintings that were originally done in a different medium.
The idea of using newsprint paper came to me when I was looking at the paintings in Mauritzhuis earlier this year. Adrian Coorte, in particular, often painted on paper, instead of canvas or wooden board, which were typical media of the time.
