Go Long!: The Power Of Play In Your Art

Introduction 

Our art form is a hard task master — demanding, relentless, and unforgiving. You get it right or go home. Indeed, when perfectionism is the baseline, equine realism isn’t for the faint of heart! And this is great and all — it’s resulted in stellar artworks that stun and inspire us, even get us to do a double-take, thinking the piece is a real horse. But this is a problem as well. Why? Well, when we’re so fixated on getting things perfect — when we’re fearful of making mistakes in a creative pressure pot — we’re going to miss an essential component to truly great arting: Play. Make no mistake, play is critical to all art, especially to our art form, and especially in the making of masterpieces. In a very real sense then, it shouldn’t be perfectionism at the forefront of our priorities, but play — always play! Why? Because only through play are three necessary qualities injected into our work most potently: Your Voice, your boldness, and a mysterious quality we can call "life," an energy that amplifies a whole lot more. So dare to play! It's the best thing that can happen to your art!

So let’s talk about how play factors into our creativity and why it’s such a prime directive to keep alive in our work to not only create the best work we can, but to always fail forwards. Because that’s what each new piece is also about — an opportunity to successfully fail in order to learn something new! As Ed Gonzales wisely advises, "Each piece is practice for the next." So in that spirit then, play on!… 

Imagination and Inspiration 

When we lean too much into our own comfort zones, when we actively dampen our own penchant to step beyond our own boundaries, we’ll find that our well of inspiration and imagination tends to dampen in kind. That’s to say, play and imagination go together. So if your inspirations are harder to come by lately, try injecting play back into your arting, and in heftier and more frivolous doses. Go into your art without the stranglehold of perfection and simply explore uncharted territory to mine some fresh ideas. What does that look like in our art form? Well, try a new medium, for starters. If you’ve worked in acrylics this whole time, try taking some classes on oil painting, loose pigments, or pastel work. Become a learner again. Lemme tell ya, that newb energy is intoxicating! Classrooms are a tremendous way to get our inspiration revved back up again, so jump in! Another way is to literally simply play with your art. Like I approach my NaReViMo horses as more low-key maquettes intended only as pure art play where perfectionism doesn’t even have a seat at the table. With that little attitude adjustment comes a huge payoff — a geyser of imaginative inspiration driving the making of lots more NaReViMo pieces. But more importantly, that great energy spills over into my actual work as one informs the other. This is the power of play! So consider having some play-filled projects on the side from time to time to help keep your inspiration curious, energized, and exploratory because that freshness will seep into the rest of your work in welcome, unexpected ways. And don’t you notice that inspiration wells up best in a more lighthearted atmosphere? When our expectations are less intense, when we’re more open to possibility without the undue chokehold of perfection and it accompanying anxiety, inspiration just seems to flourish in fuller force. In this way, play has the ability to get us arting again by reigniting our inspiration and priming our pump as only it can. Inspiration may be our match to our creative fuse, but play is the lighter fluid to our creative flame. Apply liberally. 

And lastly, when we’re too careful, when we seek approval and certainty over our daring to explore, we tend to squish our imagination and inspirations outright, or they don’t stretch as far as they could…as far as they should. But the opposite is true, isn’t it? When we stop worrying about making mistakes and subsequently what others will think, we reorient our art back where it needs to be — on us — and with that comes bolder strokes and more ambitious ideas. Art and fear are rarely good bedfellows, and definitely antagonistic when it comes to things like this. So kick fear to the curb! If you intend to play in your art then, there can be no room for fear! Just jump right in the game and kick that proverbial ball! It doesn’t matter what direction or how hard you kick it — just kick it and see where it takes you! 

Happy Mistakes 

We all make mistakes when we create a new piece. No biggie. They’re part of the creative process and indeed, they’re intrinsic to how we learn. So it’s really no small stretch to say that mistakes are learning itself, pure and simple. Like have you ever watched a painter in a time-lapse clip? How they go over areas again and again to get it just right? That's literally the process of making "mistakes" to get to the final product — that's how it's done. Embrace it! No one gets bingo right out of the gate when it comes to equine realism...there's a slew of adjustments to be made. So never be afraid of making mistakes — therein lies a new lesson for you, a whole new horizon of understanding! As such, mistakes are truly one of your best learning pathways. Now if we’re truly lucky, we’ll make a “happy mistake,” an error that has a beneficial outcome that’s far better than we originally envisioned. It’s a surprise blunder that actually improves things, maybe even expands our knowledge base or skillset. But if we’re too afraid of making mistakes — if we’re reluctant to play — we won’t be making happy mistakes very often, and maybe not at all. This is a disaster on two fronts. First, it shuts down our ability to surprise ourselves which becomes a long-term motivation-killing grind. In fact, it can inspire boredom and so we may drop arting over time, feeling like we’ve gone as far as we can go. Yikes. Then second, it can shut down our willingness to take risks, to stretch and push our own boundaries which can result in creative plateaus, homogeneity, and the amplification of blindspots and stylistic biases, all of which inhibit our progress and evolution. 

So we need to remain open to happy mistakes and it’s play that lays the fertile ground for them to flourish. In this way, the more play you inject into your art, the more happy mistakes you’ll make and so the faster you’ll learn and progress and the fresher your work will be. Best of all, you’ll continue to surprise yourself and so your art will always be that source of wonder and elation to keep you engaged like a joyful addiction. In short, play sets the stage for you to fail forwards in compelling ways. Hey—you’re already going to make mistakes, right? So why not design a scenario with play where those mistakes will actually help you get a jump on the ball? 

Exploration 

When we’re playing, we’re less rigid in our expectations and our thinking, and so we’re more flexible and exploratory in our arting. In a sense then, play is a kind of exploration in itself, it’s a means to test boundaries, to ask “what if?” in the most low-pressure way. For instance, when we choose to play in our paint, we’re more likely to experiment with color to see where new hues and mixes take us. So think about switching out a color or two on your regular palette just to see what happens, for instance. Like what would happen if we use Van Dyke Brown instead of Raw Umber? Or Payne's Grey rather than Ivory Black? What if we added a bit of violet, blue, green, red, orange, or yellow to our mix? Or when it comes to sculpture, perhaps the interesting way that muscle group is manifesting piques our curiosity, or the novel way the mane is tousled or flipped trips our trigger...chase it! Explore! Discover! Find those surprises! 

When we’re playing around with our art, we’re simply more prone to challenge our own habits and take bigger risks, always a smart long-term strategy. And, in particular, when it comes to equine realism, exploration is everything! It keeps our knowledge base evolving and growing, it keeps our work fresh and authoritative, and it deepens our appreciation for this lovely animal in ways only discovery can. Because when we’re explorers, we remain learners, too, as that electricity of discovery drives us forwards and keeps our portfolio lively. To tell the truth, if a new piece isn’t about a kind of exploration, we’re falling short of our potential, aren’t we? Because pushing ourselves doesn’t have to be a high-stress, pressure-cooker endeavor. Nope. Pushing ourselves can look like play instead!

Recommended reading:

The Perfectionist Paradox

Demonslaying Parts I-VI

Moving Forwards With Fear

Experimentation

One of the most powerful ways play influences our work is through experimentation with our media, inspirations, methods, and sensibilities. Similar to exploration, experimentation actually formalizes the processes with methodology in order to repeat it, even to teach it. So while exploration is looser and more a free-for-all, experimentation has a structure to it so we can control variables and find targeted solutions. So think about it as answering the question "what if?" but with a system, one we may or may not adopt, depending on its success. In this way, experimentation can be a powerful problem-solving and innovating tool in our skillset, so never hesitate to run one!

Recommended reading:

Let's Do An Experiment!: Sculpture-Painting The Equine Eye

Fire And Ice: The Power Of A Warm And Cool Palette

Pop n' Glow: Waking Up Your Paintwork With Color

Black Magic: A Versatile Powerhouse

A Cacophony Of Color: The Magic Of Unlikely Pigments

Special Effects: How To Create Tricky Aspects Of Horse Color For Beginners Part I to Part VI (just hit "newer post" at the bottom of Part I and subsequent posts to get you to the next part)

Put Through Your Paces: My Top Five Artistic Exercises

Challenging Convention 

Conventional arting is rooted in fear. It’s safe, accepted, not prone to rocking the boat. And believe it or not, despite being based on objective facts, our art form is riddled with conventional ideas about how to express reality from the painting of hooves to the proportions we fix into our sculptures. But if you do a lot of field study and really learn to See our subject, you quickly begin to See all the safety built into our expectations…and that’s a long-term problem. On one hand, it can stifle our expression of more objective reality in our own art, and on the other it can homogenize our art form to a point where it will prejudice us against more factual depictions as “wrong.” What's more, it can make us deaf to the surprising science happening today that's disproving quite a few of those conventions, so why not listen?

But play is the surefire countermeasure for convention by forcing us out of our comfort zones and habitual expectations. It asks us to risk, to embrace the unexpected, to face uncertainty, and best of all, to challenge accepted norms and formula. By always asking “what if?,” play confronts our collective habits and gets us all asking new questions, and that almost always leads to leaps forwards in our art form. In other words, play gets us working along fresh new pathways simply for the fun of doing it and it reciprocates by uprooting our own prejudices and biases as it directs us towards a freer, more authentic expression in our art. Playing it safe hardly ever gets us where we want to be in our art! Indeed, playing it safe typically leads to homogeneity, regurgitating the same errors, and entrenching a problematic artistic style. In this way, the conventions we first need to challenge most are often our own, and it's kicking that proverbial ball around that inspires that progressive metamorphosis.

Innovation 

When play has us exploring with a fired up inspiration open to happy mistakes and an eagerness to challenge convention, we’re inevitably going to innovate. It’s a given. So innovate! Never be afraid to stretch farther to discover new ideas and push the materials and methods. You’ll never develop a new way of arting if you play it safe! So venture into that uncharted territory and put that new idea to the test. Create that new methodology or expectation — both your work and our art form will benefit from it. And quite often, you’ll find that play is a fun and handy conduit for innovation for precisely these reasons. 

And while it can be intimidating and scary introducing a new thing to the public — because the public is the public after all — never be afraid to contribute to our art form! Your Voice is unique in all of space and time, and just as much, your discoveries will often be unique as well. And this art form really isn’t so constricting — there’s plenty of room for a lot of ideas, methods, aesthetics, and styles, and so there’s plenty of room for your new thing, too.  Indeed, there are many equally convincing ways to convey reality, so explore them!

Organic Chaos 

When we’re more willing to actually play around in our clay, for instance, we’re going to generate more “organic chaos” which is a boon for recreating textures and that sense of living hide and flesh. Our sculpting becomes less formulaic and rigid, less literal and more natural and organic, which is ironically a leap forwards in realism. That’s to say the less we sculpt like a literal anatomy chart, the more realistic our work tends to become in a funny twist of irony. Because equines aren’t literal depictions of anatomy charts — they’re living flesh full of moment and happenstance and morphing life — and it’s playing around in our clay that helps us get there. 

Likewise the same can be said for pigment. When we choose to play with our paint, we’re more likely to test new waters and in so doing, perhaps discover new ways to inject a more organic, non-regimented, "organically messy," living quality into our paintwork. For instance, maybe we'll discover a new way to do sabino or roan ticking that lends a more natural result. Likewise, playing around with the color sampler tool in a photo editing program to spot-sample our reference photos can reveal a lot of very surprising color families. Like did you know that many dark hooves are in the green family and a lot of dark skin is in the violet family? But if we don’t play around with things, we miss those discoveries. 

Never be afraid to steer into left field from time to time. Really, the more we playfully push our clays, brushes, pigments, glazes, and airbrushes, the faster we'll tease out organic chaos in our work. 

Recommended reading:

Now About Those Anatomy Charts Parts I and II

Knowledge Base And Skillset 

Put all this together and you’re automatically expanding your knowledge base and cramming new skills into your toolkit, aren’t you? In this way, always remain childlike with your arting! Indeed, to a child, play is very serious learning, and so should it be for art, too. In a very real sense then, it’s the most childlike artist who progresses the fastest. And I don’t mean childlike in their artistic style, but childlike in their unending capacity for curiosity and putting things to the test through play. So grab those proverbial tinkertoys and get to tinker toying! See what new configurations to discover and boundaries to bust past, push those materials and ideas beyond their limits, make mistakes and learn from them, surprise yourself over and over again, and above all, feed that curiosity and let it inspire new questions. Like, never stop asking “what if?,” or "why did that happen?," or "why not?" It’s not only super fun to ask these questions as we work, but it keeps our knowledge base flexible and ever-expanding while keeping convention at bay. So if we find that things just aren't progressing like we want, chances are it’s because we’ve stopped asking these critical questions and have probably plateaued by leaning too heavily on our own comfort zones and conventional thinking. This is the inevitable outcome when we forget that inner creative child that yearns to explore the possibilities. Indeed, FAFO, or futz around and find out, is far more valuable a habit than many artists may realize!

So how do we boot ourselves off that plateau if we can’t even see the edge of it ourselves? Well, take classes and workshops to learn a new medium or technique. Classes are a great route to glean a new ways of Seeing and doing things by being exposed to a lot of fresh new ideas from the teacher and the other students. And no one — no one — has been at this long enough to no longer need classes. Everyone benefits from a classroom! Heck, it’s said that Michelangelo quipped at eighty years old, “At last my apprenticeship is finished, I am ready to begin.” You are never too old or too advanced to no longer be a learner! There’s also a ton of online resources at your disposal from YouTube to Zoom. So get back into learner mode! Also absolutely get back out there to do some field study, up close and personal. Maybe your friend or family member has horses — go visit them and bring your camera. Or go to shows, expos, fairs, and rodeos as they’re a great way to see horses up close and personal, too. Grooming horses can also be a great way to learn about structure and color hands-on, and many horses seem to really enjoy it. Or just sit out there in the pasture with them for a long quiet moment, and it’s also so good for the artistic soul. 

Amusement 

Of course, play is supposed to be fun fun fun and, in turn, this can make learning fun fun fun, too! So…have a blast with it! Indulge play to your heart’s content simply out of pure delight. But then again — hey — there will be times when you don’t even want to have a goal, right? No objective? And that’s okay! Because really, sometimes you just want to play around with your art simply for the sake of playing around with it and that’s always a good idea, too! Make FAFO work for you!

Overall then, do whatever you have to do to release pressure so that your play can be truly productive and enjoyable. Let me repeat that: Do whatever you have to do to release the pressure. Because our art form imposes so much pressure on us, doesn’t it? It’s a lot. But as numerous studies have found, when we’re under stress or anxiety, our ability to learn and loosen up enough to explore diminishes in kind, making for a very counterproductive environment. That’s to say, the fastest, deepest, and most creative learning happens in the absence of pressure! Or in short, it's through play we learn best, not pressure! Never forget this! So always show yourself grace. Allow yourself to have fun again in your arting, to explore, to ask “what if?", and to even make mistakes. Who knows where that wrong turn will take you! Honestly, some of my biggest discoveries have been the product of a big unintentional detour. "Don't worry about mistakes. Making things out of mistakes, that creativity," said Peter Max. Spot on! So stop caring what other people are going to think! Who cares? Who do you create your art for — them or yourself? Dump that baggage then and just get back to playfully arting full bore! Ultimately, you’re the only one you need to please with your art, so keep yourself and your own sensibilities front and center. 

Recommended reading:

The Critic in the Creative Space

Pickled Art

Arting In A Bubble: An Empowering Way To Create Art

Recommended viewing:

The Power Of Vulnerability - Brené Brown

Why Your Critics Aren't The Ones Who Count - Brené Brown

Your Elusive Creative Genius - Elizabeth Gilbert

Success, Failure And The Drive To Keep Creating - Elizabeth Gilbert

 

Conclusion 

Creativity is cultivated in courage, not in caution, not in hesitation, and not definitely not in convention. Playing it safe squelches innovation and creative thinking by limiting our willingness to explore uncharted territory where newness is found. We’ve got to be willing to take risks and ask “what if?” if we’re going to really get somewhere in our art! We must "dare greatly," as Teddy Roosevelt urged. So keep playing around with your art by stretching yourself just for the fun of it. Never ever stop being childlike in your art! Keep that curiosity fired up and your penchant for play revved and ready to go. And never forget: Always put everything you’ve learned to the test and push it. You’ve learned these ideas and techniques, sure, but do they really stand up to reality and to your evolution? Do your own comfort zones, do your conventions really hold water? And do they continue to vibe with your Voice and development? So challenge them, test them, and expand on them, asking yourself what you can discover simply by playing around with them.

Perhaps even better, creative play tends to purify, expand, and amplify your Voice, that critical component to all great art. Because make no mistake, there's nothing more special in your art than your Voice! In this way, playing around in your arting gives your Voice fertile ground to grow since you'll also be discovering who you are as an artist and a person, a deeply meaningful exploration that gives your art depth and authority. 

Altogether then, play is a powerful factor in progressive arting. In many ways really, progressive arting is essentially play itself, the two being nearly synonymous even for our stringent art form. So go long! Go way long! Way out there! No—keep going! No more…waaaaaaaay more! Ok — here it comes! Incoming! And don’t worry — you win even if you drop the ball! So get to playing around in your art. It’s rewarding, it’s beneficial, it’s refreshing, it’s surprising, and most of all, it’s super inspiring! It absolutely gets your creative ball bouncing 'round and shootin' through that goalpost of truly great art and a truly great time creating it! So game on! Let's play! 

“Serious art is born from serious play.” 

— Julia Cameron

Go Long!: The Power Of Play In Your Art

Busting Open The Box: The Case For Taking Art Classes

Introduction

Creativity is a funny thing, a really funny thing. It’s mercurial, unpredictable, and often spontaneous. Even more, it typically takes on a life of its own. In fact, that actually means we’re doing it right! But perhaps most curious of all is how it cross-pollinates with, well…everything. Literally everything informs it and it informs everything! Really, if you brass tacks it all, creativity permeates every aspect of our lives from the design of cars to the books we read to the shows we stream to the music we enjoy to even the graphic design that creates advertising. Creativity is a fundamental part of all our lives.

What does this mean? Well, that literally you can improve your equine art from pretty much any source! How cool is that? Or put it another way, if you’re really paying attention and digging deeply, you find that even basketweaving has lessons to offer simply because arting is arting.

This means that we instantly have an expanded horizon, don’t we? If everything informs our art then anything is fair game to learn from, right? Yes! Double cool! So let’s consider this possibility further.

Growth and Development

Here’s the deal: If we want to grow as creatives, progress in our work, and expand our possibilities, it’s a really good idea to bust out of our proverbial creative corral. Sure, we can figure things out on our own, but why take all that time, headache, and waste when taking some classes provides all that information right out of the gate, plus more? Quite literally, life is too short not to take classes!

Classes can also demystify something, making it far more accessible to open up whole new horizons for you. For example, for decades I thought oils were just too much of a chemical-laden headache. Ugh! But once I took an oil painting class on a whim, I soon discovered that this wasn’t the case at all. Murphy’s oil soap, galkyd drier, and linseed oil — that’s it. To think, all those years fighting acrylics when oils did a great job far easier and in half the time. I was doing it the hard way this whole time — argh! But this is the power of exposing your creativity to a host of new things — you just never know what sort of revelation awaits you. Like, maybe some new process, medium, or perspective makes your creative life far more easier, enthusiastic, and fascinating, or perhaps it'll take you in a whole new exciting direction! Who knows, right?

What’s more, pretty much whatever you learn in any classroom setting, even in a paint ’n sip session, you can bring back with you into your regular equine art. New techniques, new media, new training, even new philosophies and new attitudes await you in a class, and who knows what kind of enlightenment they hold for your equine art.

There's this, too: Classes can be just the ticket for kicking you out of an artistic block or perhaps even squelch your burnout. Both block and burnout can be devastating and quite stubborn to boot, but few things can get our creativity ramped up again as effectively as learning a fresh, new artistic thing. And it can have nothing to do with horses or our art form! Just as long as you get creative again, in any direction — that's the goal. It's the doing that matters, not the outcome. You see, creativity thrives on momentum so just get those gears going with a creative class of some kind, and you might be surprised just how quickly those artistic drives come back to you.

But perhaps most importantly, taking various classes keeps your creativity resilient and adaptive, two qualities that spell only one thing: Progress, and a lot of it. Really, you evolve and grow so much faster when actively putting your creativity through its paces because the more you use it, the more you get! You see, creativity is one of those curious qualities that grows the more you tap into it, making it an everlasting pool of possibility if you’ve got it geared up. 

What’s At Stake

And that’s nothing to shake a stick at! Why? Because the vigor of your creativity is far more important than you may suspect. It can be life-changing, even life-defining, as Brené Brown so astutely observes…

“I’m not very creative” doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don’t. Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear. The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity. If we want to make meaning, we need to make art. Cook, write, draw, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing—it doesn’t matter. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning.

Bingo! You can imbue your life with so much more depth when you engage your creativity! And why is that? Because, what you’re really doing is three-fold. First, you’re tapping into your inner essence of all that is wonderful you! You’re excavating, extracting, exploring, and revealing into the light your soul, your heart, your mind, your spirit, your instincts, and your moxie. All of you is infused into your art. You are your art, and your art is you — what a blessed pairing! Indeed, you were gifted with a creative Voice by the Universe, a Voice that is unique only to you in all space and time. Think about that for a moment, how profound that is. Yes — that’s within you. As Martha Graham put it…

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. 

And there you have it — your duty tasked to you by the Universe. It’s not perfection, and it’s certainly not to be the “best.” Your whole job instead is to simply use your unique Voice courageously and boldly, keeping that channel open. That’s it, that’s all. And we help to keep that channel open and clear by keeping our arting vigorous with challenges, growth, exploration, experimentation, and variety which also happens to be served up beautifully by a classroom!

Second, you’re fulfilling your genetic heritage! Indeed, this may be one reason why creativity can be so darned satisfying and fulfilling. Truly, you were born to be creative — creativity is programmed right into your DNA, right into your bones. Indeed, you’re descended from countless creatives who made bows more ornate than they needed to be, cups more beautiful than were necessary, rugs more colorful than was required, hair combs more lovely than function demanded, bridles more decorated than was essential…and on and on! As Elizabeth Gilbert explains…

If you’re alive, you’re a creative person. You and I and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. Decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem-solvers, and embellishers—these are our common ancestors. The guardians of high culture will try to convince you that the arts belong only to a chosen few, but they are wrong and they are also annoying. We are all the chosen few. We are all makers by design. Even if you grew up watching cartoons in a sugar stupor from dawn to dusk, creativity still lurks within you. Your creativity is way older than you are, way older than any of us. Your very body and your very being are perfectly designed to live in collaboration with inspiration, and inspiration is still trying to find you — the same way it hunted down your ancestors.

And third, creativity is good for you. Very very good for you. Studies have found time and again how wonderful creativity is for your brain, your mood, your psyche, and even your sense of purpose and meaning. For instance, arting returns us to a resting state tied to the parasympathetic nervous system, calming us, reducing cortisol, and pumping up dopamine and seratonin, improving our well-being. A recent study even found that engaging art regularly has the same efficacy against biological anti-aging as daily exercise! How could it not be though? When you’re fulfilling your tasked duty, following through on your ancestral heritage, expressing your inner essence, making a connection, and indulging something your entire being loves to do, of course there'll be wonderful benefits!

The Bottom Line

So now that we understand what’s at stake here, what’s the bottom line? Well, to step back and Big Picture it all, quite simply, it’s just plain smart to take classes. And it can be literally anything creative! Like think about taking a class sculpting other animals — why not? Or a class making art journals or scrapbooking — why not? Or a sewing or gardening class — why not? Or a glass-blowing or enameling class — why not? Take a flatwork class — why not? Go to a paint ’n sip — why not? Take a dance class — why not? Take a writing course — why not? Take a cooking class — why not? Like I took clay hand-building classes. We made pumpkins, platters, planters, cups, and bowls — nothing to do with horses. But oh, the ideas now for horse stuff in hand-built clay! Never forget that whatever new you learn, you can always slap a horse on it, our beloved motif. You just have to know how to make the thing first, right?

The point is then, get your artistry involved in lots of different creative outlets, really put it to work! Why would we really want to do that then? What are the specific benefits? Well, lots of them, actually…

• A new experience: Getting out and living life is good for you so quit doomscrolling and get out there to experience new things! We are the sum of our memories, and classes can make amazing ones!
• Fresh inspiration: There are few things that can get your inspiration going again as well as a classroom experience. The learning, the lessons, the structure, and guidance, the new things, the fellow students, the insights of the teacher — it’s a whole wad of inspiration fuel in one place.
• A new skillset: The more skillsets we add into our repertoire, the more options we have in both our equine art and our problem-solving. This isn’t to say be a “jack of all trades, master of none,” but in seeking further learning, we’re really scouring life for those things that can further our art, trouble-shooting, and creative drive.
• New possibilities: It’s exciting to dive into whole new art forms or new angles of creativity because you just never know what’s possible until you’re in the thick of it! Like if you take a jewelry-making class — who’s to say you can’t make horse earrings? Or if you take a book-making class — who’s to say you can’t put a Unicorn on the cover? In a new creative adventure, you learn new ways to apply the equine motif, and maybe even come at the subject with a whole new aesthetic.
• A new perspective: When you dive into a new creative avenue, something curious happens — your mind loosens up to soak it all in. New concepts and philosophies and styles seep in to flavor your own creative sensibilities and before you know it, you have a whole new perspective on your art.
• New aesthetics: Many times each new medium does best with a certain approach in style, detail, contour, and whatnot. Like watercolor has its own capabilities as does oil and acrylic and pastel and color pencil and so on — they each have their own “look” born of their unique properties. In exploring these capabilities then, we get to explore new ways of interpreting our subject and that can be tremendously useful for problem-solving, exploring effects, inspiration fodder, or amping up our regular work.
• New environment: A classroom isn't just about learning, it's about what happens when you're there. When you're surrounded by like-minds who are observing, questioning, and working the same challenges, your progress accelerates, your inspirations click into place, and the processes and ideas become clearer than by going it alone in your studio, struggling on your own. And interacting with like-minds, discovering the shared experiences and challenges, builds confidence and more trust in your own processes and Voice. It's incredibly synergistic, and that only means great things for your work! Indeed, learning in isolation has its place, but if you really want to jump to the next level faster, beyond slogging through needless trial and error, reinventing the wheel needlessly, it's a classroom that's going to elevate your work by providing you with countless moments of clarity and new options.
• A potential new obsession: Hey, you just never know what’s going to trip your trigger until you try it, right? Like throwing pottery — that’s become my new fixation all because I took some classes to learn this new skill. In turn, the clay taught me a host of new skills from “feel” to more organic lines to a stream of philosophical outlooks that boosted the enjoyment of my equine art immensely.
• Renewed motivation for your regular work: It’s so interesting how creativity’s momentum will spill over into other areas of your creative life. Because that’s another curious thing about creativity — get it speeding along and it creates its own momentum which pulls everything else creative along with it. Really, do you need to become inspired again in your equine art? Take a class in something else creative! It works!
• Refreshed and informed regular work: I often find that after a class, its lessons — practical and philosophical — have rubbed off onto my regular work in the best ways. I also find myself rejuvenated in my equine art not only from the break, but because my creativity has been so revved up. 
• An improved process: Often times the methods, technologies, and media of a class can be applied to our equine art to actually improve our own way of doing things. New approaches can often bode new great things in your work!
• New tools: You never know what tools you’re going to come across in a class that can prove incredibly useful in your equine art. I’ve actually discovered three new tools through my classes that have become very handy in my regular work.
• Mental stimulation: It’s good for your brain! Indeed, if there’s one thing the brain loves to do most, it’s to learn something new and then apply it in practice. So give it things to tinker with! You really should be learning a new skill every year or so to keep your brain stimulated and resilient, so why not put it through its paces in some classes?
• Breaktime: Getting out of your own head for a couple of hours a week in a class can be one of the best things you can do for your mental health. Classes also get you out of the isolation of the studio to carouse with like-minded creatives which develops its own positive energy. 
• Newbie magic: A classroom asks you to become a newb again, and lemme tall ya — that newb energy can be tremendously beneficial on so many levels. For instance, it can pump up your curiosity and sense of adventure if you frame it correctly, and that attitude can splash over into your own studio work. You can discover new-found kinds of confidence and courage, too, and that definitely influences your equine art. Newb energy is especially good for established artists who think they know enough because believe me — no one knows enough! And it's so wonderful to find out just how much you don't actually know!
• New people: One of the best things about taking classes is that you get to meet fellow creatives who are as passionate about arting as you are, and that kind of enthusiasm is infectious! It’s great energy! Just as much, each student brings with them a creative heritage that you can learn from, making an art classroom an incredibly dynamic environment.

In a nutshell then, taking creative classes literally breaks your old habits and routines, creative or otherwise, and that can be a very good idea from time to time. It shakes your own tree in the best way, and whatever shakes loose can be discarded to make room for new growth. And believe it or not, all of this will influence your horse art in really positive and unexpected ways. Creativity is just like that — it cross-pollinates with everything around it, literally turning anything into something potentially useful for your art. Exploit that by exposing your creativity to lots of possibilities, lots of fuel, then just watch it explode in a blazing array of enthusiasm and surprising new horizons. And perhaps just as much, taking classes boosts your moxie and courage because you see you can learn new things — you can do it! And believe me when I tell you, that refreshed attitude can influence not only your studio work, but also your everyday life in such affirming and positive ways! 

For example, I regularly attend a paint n’ sip just to play around with arting and get out of my head for two hours. It’s all super low-key with zero expectation of perfection because, instead, it’s more about the experience and simply having some fun with creativity. And trust me, that creative no-pressure environment is rejuvenating and incredibly inspiring! It’s also generated more spontaneity in my own work which has lead to a lot more desirable organic chaos that makes my horses more realistic. See? One artform informs another in the most unexpected ways — stay open to it!

Conclusion

Clearly there are tons of tremendous reasons for taking classes! There really isn’t a downside come to think about it. It’s pretty much all positives. Now sure, breaking your everyday routine can feel a bit jarring, but stick with it. Sometimes breaking your routines is good for you. 

And it’s okay to feel anxious, uncomfortable, insecure, unconfident, and a little bit lost in a new classroom. There’s a lot to take in and a lot of peopling. That’s a lot of stimulation. So pace yourself, take big breaths, muscle through it, and lean into the positives. It’s all about your frame of mind, so attend to that religiously because — believe me — the benefits to taking a class can far outweigh the emotional challenge. So frame the experience as a new adventure, spinning it into an artistic safari or treasure hunt laden with a trove of insights for you! Really, just enter the experience in the spirit of excitement and curiosity, and you’ll ping the best mindset for a great outcome.

There’s this, too: When we enter a classroom, we have our own expectations to contend with, don’t we? We expect certain standards of ourselves most probably. Well — stop. Seriously, just stop. Go into every classroom as a damp sponge because that absorbs more than either a dry one or a wet one. In other words, stay completely open and expectation-free so you allow every possible bit of information to flow in without your sensibilities filtering them out because of biases, blindspots, or knowledge gaps. Curiously, this is where attending paint n’ sips can be particularly helpful because they train you specifically to not have predetermined expectations with your creativity. So just go with the flow and let things evolve as they were meant to evolve. Ease up and chill out. Dive into spontaneity and chaos more, and develop more economy of arting. In short, let go of rigidity and perfectionism and embrace wabi-sabi and organic chaos, and that only comes back into your equine art in the best ways! So enter every classroom as a blank slate with zero expectations, allowing the full breath of the experience to inform you more completely. Make it more about the process, curiosity, experimentation, and exploration and you’ll find you’re going to glean a lot more out of the experience.

What’s more, proactive education isn’t just good for you and your art, it’s the hallmark of a thoughtful and farsighted artist who takes their work seriously. Indeed, you can tell a lot about an artist’s dedication to their artistry by how prone they are to dive into continued education. This is because the classroom is a pillar of our long game, and every smart artist knows that it’s the long game which holds all the promise of a fruitful, fulfilling, and exciting art life. Absolutely, no artist knows enough! Don't allow your competency to be built on complacency! There's always that extra tidbit of insight that can take you to the next critical step.

But perhaps most of all, artistic learning is a kind of creative play. It’s an opportunity to test your mettle, to shake off what’s no longer serving your art, to expand your potential, and to explore some new mindsets, all in an exciting, dynamic, and fresh new circumstance. And make no mistake, playing around in your art is a powerful pathway for progress, growth, and innovation! “Creativity lives in paradox: serious art is born from serious play,” observed Julia Cameron. Spot on.

So whether on-site, at a paint n’ sip, or online through Zoom, absolutely consider taking some classes and workshops! A kaleidoscope of potential and exploration is simply waiting for you to dive in — so cannonball! And the truth is that no one has been at this madness long enough to no longer need their tree shaken. Even if we’ve been creating equine art for a hundred years, there’s always room for growth and evolution. Like, it’s said that Michelangelo quipped at eighty years old, “At last my apprenticeship is finished, I am ready to begin.” You can be the most established dog in the room and still have untapped potential! Absolutely then, there’s no perfect time to start your new educational path — just start now! So check out all the classes available in our own community while also exploring those locally or even those that may require travel. Tap into everything you can — the options are limitless! So don’t just think outside the box, bust it apart! And classes are your sledgehammer — grab yours today!

“It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.”

— Claude Bernard

Busting Open The Box: The Case For Taking Art Classes

The Monster In Your Mind: Fifteen Ways To Corral Creative Intimidation

Introduction

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been creating your art. It also doesn’t matter how good you are at it. And it certainly doesn’t matter how often you’ve created a certain kind of work. It’s all the same, or rather, it’s all subjected to the very same monster that exists in your head: Intimidation. 

But here’s the thing: That sense of being cowed in your creativity is normal, and normal with all artists no matter how wildly successful and established they are. I guarantee that on some level, they all have that daunted sense with every new piece. At least they do if they’re doing it right, if they’re pushing themselves into unknown territory to spur growth and evolution. Metamorphosis is often a messy business.

So the real trick is to start and keep going despite the intimidation, but how do we do that? How do we create our art even when it intimidates us almost into inaction? This is a pretty big issue in our demanding art form as recreating realistic little horses is about as difficult a creative task as they come. So let’s talk about it in the hopes of dampening some of those trepidations to get you arting full bore!

The Truth

Here’s the bad news: That monster will never go away. It’ll always be there, usually at the start of every new piece, but sometimes at the start of a new technique or media, or the next tricky stage in the process. One way or ‘nuther though, that monster will show its face to stare at you right in the eyes. That’s just the way of it. Art and trepidation are natural companions. "The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize," observed Robert Hughes. But why is that? Because we have this amazing vision in our head we chase, right? That perfect vision that drives us to create it in tangible, permanent form — that all-powerful inspiration. And we want to do right by it, yes? We want to bring that perfect vision out of the ether and into reality as pristine as it exists in our mind’s eye. Nevertheless, deep down we probably feel two things in response: (1) Fear of failure, of making fatal mistakes to ruin it and, (2) that pesky “not enough” voice whispering in our ear that we’re really not capable in the first place. That’s a terrible one-two punch! And it comes with every piece we'll ever create no less. No wonder so many folks struggle with arting, or why some never even start. It's a lot to carry.

So how do productive artists do it? How do they create their work with this defeatist dialogue going on in their heads? How in the world do they even keep going to finish, and then repeat it all again and again to create a body of work? What’s their secret?

The Tricks

Here’s the good news: There are many effective strategies that anyone can launch to mediate this unhappy dialogue to steamroller right over your intimidation! But there is a prerequisite for all of them, one precondition you need: Your desire to make art, the depth and power of your love for arting. How committed are you? Do you really want to fight for your art? Do you want to defend your creativity? Do you have that gumption inside of you to really go to battle for it? Because to go up against your intimidation, that’s what it’s going to take in some way, and often in some very personal way.

Now if you don’t, it’s time for reflection and recalibration. Something is blocking your desire, and don't you owe it to yourself to uproot that blockage? Dig deep. Ask the hard questions. Like instead of asking, “Why don’t I have any talent?,” “Why can’t I create as good as so-and-so?,” “Why am I so bad at this?,” ask these sorts of questions instead:

• What is the driving force behind my desire to create art?
• Who or what seeded my insecurity and fear, and why is that still important to me?
• Why do I indulge negative, defeatist self-talk? What purpose does that serve?
• What would I feel like if I was creative? 
• What do I think success would be like if I was creative?
• How can I make my work authentically my own? How can I find and develop my voice?
• Why am I comparing my work to that of others, and so negatively? Why do I frame it that way?
• What creative challenges am I willing to take on right now? Which ones am I not willing to tackle right now? Why?
• What would my art be like if I learned not to care about other people’s opinions of it?
• What’s one small creative project I can do right now, just for fun?
• What’s the next skill or media I want to learn to use?
• Can a classroom help me take the next step?

Yeah—those kinds of questions, actionable questions. I know, I know, it’s going to be hard, but use them to really dig into that insecurity and expose it to the light. It won’t be easy, it certainly won’t, but it’ll be worth it! You brilliant art is just on the other side!

But now if you do have that battle-ready gumption — you’re set! Nevertheless, those deep-digging questions are still useful to ask even if we’re eager-beavers. They help to amplify that pluck inside us and may even help to tease out our Voice more, and that’s always a worthwhile exercise from time to time.

Any which way, there are fifteen tricks we can implement to thwart the intimidation monster, and we can deploy as many as we wish simultaneously — they’re stackable and come at the beast from different angles, so let ‘er rip! So let’s dive into each one…

First, your work isn’t a masterpiece. Just create you art and follow your original inspirations to the best of your ability. Quit with this unreasonable demand that every piece be a masterpiece. Yes, a lot of hardwork and skill go into masterpiece-level art, as does a ton of sacrifice, research, and blood, sweat, and tears. But the hard fact is — masterpieces just happen. They cannot be forced or contrived. Like I’ve seen so many artists work their fingers to the bone and into near madness creating their masterpiece only to end up with…well…not a masterpiece. The reality is that a masterpiece is something gifted by the Universe for mysterious reasons — they just happen. And yes, you can set up the right conditions and give it your all, but still either come up short or have it appear like magic. It’s a mystery! All we can do is the best we can, passionately and earnestly, and that’s all we can ask of ourselves. As Vincent Lombari wisely observed, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” And as David Bayles observes, “Art is human. Error is human. Art is error.” So quit trying to achieve a perfect masterpiece! Just create your art! If you’re lucky, you’ll create something extraordinary when you’re least expecting it, but if not, don’t sweat it. Masterpieces are overrated anyway. The truth of our Voice is to be found in the full breadth of our work, even in the smallest and most “inconsequential” pieces, so pour yourself into each and every bit of your art with sincerity, curiosity, gumption, and love, and let the creative chips fall where they may. It’s a lot less pressure and a lot more fun!

Second, imagine three steps ahead. Often times, imagining ourselves a few steps ahead and the way those finished steps make us feel can do a lot to keep us going through the tedium or scary steps. Because let’s admit it: A lot about creating equine realism is un-fun tedious work. Sanding, Dremeling, prepping, waiting, reworking…there’s some drudgery involved. On the other hand, some steps are just plain scary! Talk about intimidation! So imagine how you’ll feel past all that — pretty good, huh? Ride that feeling through them. Allow that feeling to realign your fears into action and move forward — you can do it! Yes, you can!

Third, practice wabi-sabi enthusiastically. Embrace the Japanese concept of imperfection and the love of the creative process with zeal. Create simply for the joy of creating art, and let the rest go. Truly, it’s good for you and your art. Heck, it not only improves your experience, it somehow inexplicably improves your art as well. Perhaps it acts as a proverbial jaws-of-life to release that vise-grip our perfectionism has on our necks. Maybe it recalibrates our priorities where they better belong, on the process, not the outcome. Maybe it’s a pressure-valve for the tensions and burdens we place on ourselves as we create, allowing a more natural expression to come through. Who knows — it’s a mystery! But it works!

Fourth, baby step. Start small and with something immediately actionable. And create without judgment or expectation — just art, and allow it to take you wherever it wants to go. You can even just create art in fifteen or thirty minute sessions. Make a schedule if you want to because maybe that kind of structure will help. It can build momentum, and once your creative momentum gets going, it becomes a glorious creative steam-rollin' freight train! And celebrate every accomplished step! Even if it’s messy or not what you wanted or even if you think it’s “ugly” — celebrate it! You created something that’s never existed before and that’s such an amazing thing!

Fifth, experiment and explore. In fact, make experimentation an easy 50% of all the art you create — make it a happy habit! Indeed, I make all my work about exploration, every piece is a fresh foray into something new and uncharted in my skillset, narratives, or design sensibilities. This creates a nice balance between your innate creative curiosity and a challenge that pulls you forwards with its own momentum that somehow makes you more comfortable with making mistakes and pushes you out of comfort zones. It’s an experiment, remember, something new to explore and so any mistake, detour, or wrong note is a potential new discovery, not a catastrophe. And even if it gets hosed up — so what? It was an experiment! And in experiments, even “failures” are a tremendous opportunity to learn!

And exploration can come in near any form. Like try a new technique or medium. Hey, try something as unexpected as color pencils, oil pastels, alcohol markers, or watercolor — why not? Or try painting or sculpting or prepping or whatever in a different way, a new process. Switch out the colors on your habitual palette. Start small if you need to, like using a new kind of sandpaper for prepping. Starting small isn’t so much to bite off and will inspire less anxiety. Breaking things down into smaller steps to see how you can tweak each one can be helpful too in finding new ways to experiment.

Sixth, create for yourself first. “The audience comes last,” said Rick Rubin, and he’s 100% right. Create the original art that inspires you most, and only you. Forget about everyone else! Seriously—just forget about the opinions and expectations of others, even those closest to you. The only person in the room you should be creating for is yourself, and just yourself, all the time. “I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free,” said Georgia O’Keeffe. Spot on! Along those lines, you can now separate out your self-worth from your art because if you’re creating it just for yourself — who cares, right? You love you work, you know your Truth, you enjoyed created it, and that’s all that matters! Indeed, that’s all that will ever matter.

Seventh, take breaks. If you start to feel overwhelmed, that’s a form of creative exhaustion — you need to step way to do something else for a time, creative or otherwise. Time to hit that reset button and recharge! So indulge another skill like writing, knitting, journaling, cooking, gardening, whatever. Or relax and read, swim, play with your pet, take a walk, listen to music, spend time with friends or family, whatever trips your trigger. Then when you’re ready, return to your art with renewed passion and inspiration.

Eighth, take a class or join an arts community. So often growing with others and group learning can be a great source of recharging your batteries or bolstering your battle-readiness against intimidation! Also, too, the structure those avenues offer can be quite helpful for giving you timelines, goals, and instruction that helps to create more actionable steps.

Ninth, journal your fears. Writing through your fears, intimidations, and insecurities can be incredibly helpful in finding some enlightenment and release, helping you reconnect with your creative passion and maybe find some insights to really help you grow.

Tenth, remember your art isn’t forever. Nothing in this world is permanent. It all decays after a time. Even all the art in museums is degrading no matter how hard conservationists try to preserve it. Heck, Pollock paintings are shedding paint dots every year. It’s just the nature of things — that wabi-sabi again. Embrace the impermanence of life and release that anxiety about getting your work just so for posterity. There is no forever.

Eleventh, realize you can always try again. If you hose up, no biggie — whatever you create you can often re-create. You’re the maker here! Nearly every medium gives you a second try most of the time — even third and fourth tries, or more. Nothing is precious, and everything is up for grabs, remember that. There is no shame in restarting and trying again. Besides, if you create art, you come to realize that the real process is mostly trusting yourself to fix things as you go, starting again over and over and over in connected micro-steps. Like, have you ever watched a time-lapse video of the creation of a single piece? All those little corrections made along the way? Yep, that.

Twelfth, dump the second-guessing. Try not to live in regret wondering how your piece might have turned out like had you done it “right.” Sure, we have our beautiful vision in our head, but it’s an impossible windmill to chase so let it go. Because here’s the thing: If that piece could have turned out any other way, it would have. Think about that for a minute. If that piece could have turned out any other way — it would have. What a liberation! So quit with the regret! You tried your level best and the Universe — the mystery of arting — had other plans, and that’s absolutely okay! In fact, a lot of our best work happens that way when you really brass tacks it. As Martha Graham astutely advises…

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.

So as long as you kept that channel open and created in your authentic Voice, how ever your art turned out is exactly the way it was meant to turn out. Let that sink in.

There’s a flip side to regret, too — you wonder how your piece would’ve turned out had you followed a tickling instinct, had you taken the creative risk. If that would still bug you five years from now — take the risk. See what happens. As long as it’s not dangerous or catastrophic, try it! You’ll feel a lot better having tried it — success or failure — than having not if it means that much to you. Like I took a risk trying to paint oils light over dark for a white grey — I failed miserably the first time, but oh…what fun I had faceplanting and learning! Then on the second try, I took what I learned and spun it into a new risk with a new approach and lo!…it worked! Triumph! But had I never taken that risk, none of this good stuff would’ve happened — failure and success — would it? Don’t deny yourself that same fascinating journey! More times than not, we don’t regret the creative things we did, we regret the creative things we didn’t do.

Thirteenth, instead of fixating on what could go wrong, ask yourself, “What could go right?” Focus on the possibilities, not on the potential failures. Sure, things can go wrong — we all makes mistakes and correct them as we go, but also think about all the things that will go beautifully right! Why throw the baby out with the bathwater? Be bold, be audacious, delve deep into that moxie, and just dive in!

Fourteenth, practice art play. Adopting a playful mindset when you create your art is far more important than you may know. It keeps you “light” and less weighed down by your expectations and judgments, and it releases the perfectionist pressure you place on yourself. Like if you want to rediscover art play for reals, draw with your child! Children get it, and you can remember it, too. Indeed, all the best art is a product of art play, when the artist has just released their burdens and simply creates in joyful abandon!

Fifteenth, recognize that action conquers fear. This is the most crucial component to understand — you’ve got to move forward to conquer intimidation, which is really a form of fear. You see, your fear wins when you stop. That’s its goal, that’s the point of its existence, to keep you from arting. Don’t give it that satisfaction! Because on the other hand, taking action — of designing actionable steps to a goal — breaks the cycle of fearful inaction, procrastination, or regret, and you’ll move forward. You’ve got the take the first step! Start anywhere! Even blindly and despite all the “what ifs,” even when you have no idea of the outcome — take that step! It’s a leap of faith. Then take another, and another, and another, and soon you’ll have primed that pump and your creative momentum will take over, and off you go! And every productive artist takes that leap with the creation of every new piece, over and over again, and before they know it, they have a body of work. Because yeah — the most effective antidote to intimidation is just doing it, just starting, just taking that risk despite it all. What have you got to lose? Darn the torpedoes and full steam ahead!

Conclusion

You see, there’s lots of strategies for blowing right past your intimidation every time it tries to get the upper hand! You can even corral it with these boundaries to keep it hemmed in if it gets uppity. Now it may not calm down completely, but it can certainly be kept at bay. And here’s the great news…the more adept you get at all these strategies, the better a monster-handler you become — it does get easier! You gain confidence and boldness, you start to really trust your wings and become more courageous, and in light of all that, your intimidation isn’t so insurmountable after all.

So keep at it, keep strategizing around your intimidation and then just watch how much art you can actually bang out as a result! You see, creativity feeds on itself, it gains a force, an unstoppable energy the more you use it so even when intimidation shows up — as it inevitably will — you have the means, motivation, and moxie to blow right past it to forge ahead, fully creative, coasting along on a new kind of compelling momentum! And with that powerful powertrain propulsion, you can outrace your intimidation monster in no time! Beep beep!

“When you hold back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes.”

— David Bayles

The Monster In Your Mind: Fifteen Ways To Corral Creative Intimidation