Be true to yourself
After I left school my life was too busy to do very much painting with college, marriage, children and career taking precedence, but the urge to paint became stronger and stronger.
In 1993 when I began drawing and painting in earnest I could only share my paintings with family and friends. There was no facebook and hardly anyone had computers. “Artist” friends told me that my paintings were too much like photographs and if I wanted to display my paintings in galleries I would have to loosen up my style and find a style that was unique to me. Botanical art societies were very strict and stuffy and hard to get into. So I spent many many years trying to loosen up my style.
How wonderful it is to be able to share our paintings with like minded people. Thanks to the wonderful facebook group Botanical Art Lovers founded by Helen Campbell and the Flower Paintings facebook group I have finally seen that people other than my family do appreciate my work. Their wonderful comments have encouraged me to write this blog.
The most important thing I have finally learnt after all these years is :
Be true to yourself.
Don’t let other people’s casual comments upset your balance and cause you to doubt yourself. We are all on our own journey. Paint or draw what you love in whatever medium (or mixture of mediums) makes you happy. There are no rules in painting . What ever works for you is what is right for you. You cannot paint to please other people.
But above all keep painting and drawing.