Practice, Practice, Practice ...

Kia Ora Crafty Chums.

I thought I would write a little piece on practicing, drawing and painting.
Now, I just have to talk about my son here who is a pretty good guitar and piano player and I don't think that's just his Mum talking. But since he was small I got him to take piano lessons, not because he had aptitude but I just think that if you can play an instrument it gives you a measure of achievement and pleasure. Well that's my warped thinking anyway. He seemed to enjoy it and spent a lot of time practicing. I thought he was quite good so invested in an electronic piano for him and I say invest because it was a few hundreds of pounds. Anyway long story short, and this just dumbfounds me,  he can't read music, he never progressed at school with music exams because of this. Some of you will have heard his music on my videos and I often link to his band music as well. Someone said to him once you're so lucky to be able to play like that, I wish I could. His response to that was that it isn't luck it's hours and days and weeks and years of practice. And it really isn't luck or something he was born with, he practices a lot, in fact he works jolly hard at it. As a child he would play his piano and guitar for hours and hours a day, well, he used to play his guitar until his fingers bled and he split his nails from the ends to the cuticles. That's not luck it's perseverance and a willingness to put in the hard yards, whatever it takes really.

So, onto drawing and painting. I'm still at the practicing stage, and I may never get beyond that, but I know that for every two or three average or just downright fugly pieces I produce I will produce one that is ok. Now I shall show you what I mean, I really want to master watercolor, yeah good luck with that I hear you say. Yesterday I drew and painted 2 ATCs

This was the first one…

It's not too bad but it's not good, it would be ok as folk art or what ever it's called but I thought I could do better so I tried again ….

Number two was, to put it bluntly worse, it is out of proportion, I almost threw it in the bin but decided not to, why? Well, because it serves as a reminder of what not to do lols.. Anyway as you can see it's not good. So today I decided to give the picture another go and this was the result..

 Now I am happy with picture number three, the scale is good, the drawing is good and I have little touches in the water coloring that make me just darn happy. All I need is a consistency now and that takes practice. I put the three ATCs together in the next picture and to be honest it looks as if 3 different people painted them and that's because I have no consistency with my art. So I will keep on practicing, practicing, practicing and one day I may become as good as my son.

P.S. I failed art at school. I didn't just get an F (fail) I got ungraded which meant they couldn't even give me an F…….. 

Have a good day

Keep Well

Nicky x