I started this journal to help provide some structure to my own self learning program. I want to improve my skills as a watercolor painter. I decided to put my journal online for several reasons. First and foremost, a website journal is much easier to organize, maintain and modify then a hard copy notebook, even a loose leaf one. Second, my journal is easily accessed anytime or place from my phone, tablet or Chromebook. So it is virtually with me all the time. If you are reading this post or any of my other posts you are a beneficiary of my journaling and are most welcomed, but not my primary reason of writing things in my journal. So if I sometimes seem to be lecturing or preaching, trust me, my target audience is me, myself and I. It’s a socially acceptable way to talk to myself, and useful to help me understand and organize what I am trying to learn.

The amazingly talented watercolor painter, Frank Webb, once said that in order to become a competent watercolor painter an artist would have to paint on many acres of watercolor paper. Which reminded me of the famous cartoon creator, Chuck Jones, who said that an artist will make a 100,000 bad drawings on the road to making some good ones. The key to success is persistent practice which drives improvement. Every painting you do is practice for your next painting. Which leads to a thought about perfection. If you are expecting perfection you are delusional because it doesn’t exist and never will. If you are not painting because you know your work won’t be perfect, you are fooling yourself. It never can be, but it can certainly be better next time, improvement, yes, perfection, never. So pack up your fear of failure or criticism and toss it in the wastebasket and move on.

While dispelling myths, if you are looking for the magic art tool or supply there is no such thing. Using the same brushes, paper, paints, palette etc as Frank Webb or Tony Couch or Russell Black or Ron Ranson or Joseph Zbukvic, or David Taylor or your favorite YouTube self promoting guru is not going to make you a painter. It may or may not hurt, but mostly you will waste tons of time and money and you’ll just end up owning a lot of supplies you don’t need. Practice, persistence and thoughtful learning is your key. And if the artist who you admire and want to emulate is promoting the latest greatest art goodies more than actually teaching… run for cover because they are just a huckster. Avoid the folks that claim to be helping you with learning by mostly doing product reviews.

Focusing on supplies and expecting one brand of brush or one type of paper or brand of paint to be the secret to success is a fantasy. It is important to focus on the “why” along with the “how” of doing anything. All brushes or paints or paper are not the same. Understanding the important characteristics of each and how those characteristics contribute to creating a painting is important and useful. If you understand the “why” you will be able to determine what value, if any, you have to gain from one type of art supply Vs another. So a good rule of thumb is don’t rush out to “buy” but spend your time learning the “why”.