The Importance of your Mindset

When it comes to art, practice is very important but even more important is your mindset. When you want to learn something new or when you want to become better at something your beliefs about what you can or can’t do affects how you learn.

How our Brain Works

I'm pretty sure you've heard before that drawing is a talent that you are born with. That’s not necessarily true, because it’s a learned skill.

Take a look at the picture, the left side of your brain is more verbal, analytical, and orderly. It’s better at things like reading, writing, and math. The right side is more visual and intuitive. It has a more creative and less organized way of thinking.

The skills on the left side are the ones we’ve practiced in school or come across in daily life. But how often do you practice the skills on the right side? If that’s music, creativity, or art? It takes time, patience, and practice to improve but it is possible! If someone is already better at the skills on the right side then they might be able to learn those new skills a bit faster. But how good you become depends on how dedicated you are and how much time you will put into learning. You’ve got to believe that you can do this, you can draw!

Beliefs

Picture this, you’re trying to improve your drawing but your beliefs keep telling you you’re not going to get any better. And with that mindset, you probably won’t?

There are two types of mindsets, a fixed and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is when you believe your skills and interests are fixed and constant. You believe that either you can draw or you can’t. With a growth mindset, you believe your skills and interests can grow and evolve throughout your journey. You believe that if you can’t draw now, you can learn how to draw. 

So if you tend to be too hard on yourself and let your inner critic take over with negative thoughts you will know you have a fixed mindset. But if you keep on practicing you will be able to change your mindset and start growing and develop confidence and trust in yourself. However, this is difficult to do on your own.

Get Support

When you are learning something new you need support. You need someone who can remind you of the positive and encourage you to keep going. That’s why it’s important to do this together and have a community. Without this, we may improve but not even notice it, and lose the motivation to continue. 

I often see beginners that are too critical of their early work. They see where they are now and are too focused on where they want to be. They don’t realize that if you don’t start at the beginning you will fail because they’re not ready for the, ‘where they want to be’, part yet. It’s important to allow yourself to take your time on your artistic journey. 

Your artistic journey is a lifelong journey. You’re always learning, growing, and evolving. Practicing and learning new techniques is the only way to improve your drawing skills, but there is no set date where you will be able to say “I just need to work on this skill for a few more days and I’ll have it mastered.”  

It’s about the process! You need to trust the process! Your judgemental voice, mistakes, failures, are all part of the process of learning something new and growing your skills. I’ve been drawing for more than 5 years and I still learn new things and continue to grow as an artist every day. 

Soooo…  YOU CAN do this! WE CAN do this! LET'S do this together!

In the drawing course within my membership, I will teach and encourage you to practice and improve. Want to join our art community? Check out the details here.

Emmy

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