Three Fears About Making Art and How To Banish Them for Good

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"If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced” ?

Who said this? You guessed it - it's attributed to the famous Starry Night painter Vincent Van Gogh himself.

If the quote is right, he's not wrong. Any artist will tell you the best way to improve is simply to make some art every day by maintaining a daily drawing practice in a sketchbook.

Except we all know it's not always as easy as that.

As an artist and art teacher working at the point where art meets wellbeing, I meet lots of people experiencing fear around artmaking. At the time of writing I have delivered around 600 hours of community art classes for people of all ages and abilities, plus a shed-load of beginners drawing & watercolour classes, and more than a handful of classes on painting with oils, acrylics and gouache. My Art Life Journalling course is another place where participants feel comfortable talking about what's blocking their progress.

So, I reckon I have a decent overview of the type of thing people worry about when faced with a blank canvas. So here are many people's three biggest fears about making art - and how to banish them for good!

Their concerns are usually one or more of these three things:

1. "I don't know where to start"

2. "My art teacher at school told me I was rubbish"

3. "What I draw won't look like the thing it's supposed to look like"

Sounds familiar?

Of course, what all these fears are really about is confidence- or rather, the lack of it.

So at this point I'm going to quote another famous artist, Georgie O'Keeffe, who said,

“I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from a single thing that I wanted to do.”

But even if, like Georgia, you're going to feel the fear and do it anyway, you may need some practical pointers. So here's how to get rid of those fears for good.

Fear One: "I don't know where to start".

Fear of the blank page is a real thing. And a sheet of perfect white A4 paper is the worst culprit. So you need to trick yourself.

Don't start with a blank page. Mess it up a bit. Get some watery paint and slosh it on in a big puddle to give yourself a colourwashed background.

Or, lightly quarter the page in pencil, or crumple it a bit, or, with your eyes closed or your non-dominant hand (or both!) make a really faint, quick outline of what you'll be drawing - then whatever you draw next will definitely be an improvement. Winner!

Or if you can't even decide what to draw- don't. Let the colours decide for you with this painting exercise for letting go of control:

• Pick a light, medium and dark colour.

• Load up your brush with one of them, close your eyes and draw a big, curved shape anywhere on the page.

• Open your eyes, reload with another colour, close your eyes and make an angular shape overlapping the first shape.

• Then make a line with the third colour, anywhere on the page. Repeat until you've marked the page with a curved, an angular and a line in all three colours.

• Step back and see what you've got. Can you see any forms emerging? eyes? animals? figures? landscapes?

• Now you can add in any missing bits, fill any gaps with contrasting colours- or take a marker and outline the recognisable shapes, or add words for interest. Bingo!

Even if it's a bit of a jumble, at least you'll have got going, and a couple of new synapses may even have crackled into life...

Fear Two: "My art teacher at school told me I was rubbish"

Well, to be blunt, b*llocks to them. That was years ago, schools were harsher then, they might have been having a bad day themselves, or they might just have been a complete *rsehole. You're a grown-up now, with your own agency. YOU CAN DO THIS.

But we all know how hasty words can cut deep and have lasting impact. So, to build confidence, start small for an easy win or two. Here's a few ideas to get you going:

• Grab a kiddies' colouring book (or print one free from a website like Pinterest) and colour as neatly as you can. Taking care with your mark-making will train your muscles for accuracy.

• Draw freehand circles as circular as you can make them, fill each circle with a spiral and colour each one in.

• Draw flowers and leaves of different shapes from your imagination.

• Draw squares of all sizes, overlapping and turning, and fill in the background with patterns. Make it all bright, bold and perfectly imperfect.

This process will remove the fear of 'doing it wrong'. It's YOUR design, YOUR colour choices - you are in charge here. Experiment. Make it silly, make it scary, but just- make it. And then move on...

Fear Three: "What I draw won't look like the thing it's supposed to look like"

Of course it won't. If you wanted an exact replica, you'd take a photo.

As an artist, you're here for the process as well as the product.

I believe that a drawing or painting can't help but contain a bit of you in it - that's what makes it special.

Imagine you're drawing your grandma's favourite vase. Every mark you make and every colour you choose will be subconsciously influenced by multiple variables; things like the light in the room of course - but also your mood, how you felt about Grandma, and even things feeling hungry or needing the loo will affect how you draw.

Everyone operates the art tools differently too; whether you're left or right-handed, or the amount of pressure you put on the brush or pencil - everyone's drawing will be different.

But you probably do want Grandma's vase to be recognisable as - well, Grandma's vase.

That's where careful observation comes in. My advice is:

• REALLY look at it, or your brain will take a shortcut and deliver a vaguely vase-shaped thing rather than what it actually, truly looks like.

  • check where your eyeline is before you start and always observe from that same level.

  • ask some questions: how much does the belly of the vase stick out? Is the top of the vase wider than the bottom? How much wider or narrower is it? How much of the open top can you truly see? Does the top edge curve up or down? And so on.

  • keep questioning, keep looking, and be patient with yourself.

• A few bits of foundational knowledge about proportion, perspective, and shadow is also useful, not just for drawing, but every art form.

  • try How-To videos on YouTube (use discretion - some are better than others)

  • find a class near you for a more personalised approach. If you're in Norfolk, UK, here are mine.

And once you know the theory, you just need to practice, and regularly.

Sorry not sorry, as they say.

Now for the science bit...

The thing is, to allow creativity to happen we have to go through four stages- collecting, reflecting, incubating and creating.

This is the four-stage model of creativity that underpins my Creative Reset: Art Life Journalling course.

• The collecting can be collecting information and learning new skills, or trying different media as in all the suggested activities in this blog.

• The reflecting is equally as important; asking yourself what you did or didn't enjoy, whether you've got recurring shapes, colours of motifs that emerge, and wondering what you'd do differently if you made that bit of art again.

• Incubation is when you do nothing - as Einstein said, his best ideas arrived when he was playing the violin- because stopping and doing something else allows your brain to process all that collecting and reflecting and suddenly ping a fabulous idea into you head.

• Then finally the CREATING can begin!

So if you don't know where to start, it may be that you're jumping in at the creative stage when your brain needs to do a bit of a warm up first!

Hopefully these tips will be helpful! To find out more about my Creative Reset: Art Life Journalling course which uses the collect, reflect, incubate, create model to help arty people rekindle their spark, click on the link to my webpage here.

And remember- Art Is Good For You!

Rachel Duffield is the Founder of Community Art Clubs CIC. Her podcast Art is Good For You is available on YouTube & Spotify. Her signature Art Life Journalling Course runs twice yearly and information about this, and her partnership working with and for museum, gallery and school communities can be found here on her website. You can contact Rachel on WhatsApp 07943476788, via email rachelduffieldart@gmail.com or by DM on Facebook.