If you want to make art, go right ahead and do it.
It doesn’t matter what other people think. If you have the urge, go for it.
A lot of people get hung up on, “I’m not good enough”, “I didn’t have any training”, “I’m not allowed to, because I didn’t go to school for that”.
Nonsense!
All you need is to be authentic.
If what you make is an authentic outpouring of your heart, it’s going to be great.
Don’t compare yourself to other artists. You’re not trying to be them, you’re trying to be you.
One can get trapped in a diminishing cycle of trying to earn the right to be an artist, thinking that, if you could only be as good at technique as that famous artist, then you would be allowed to make art.
Technique will carry you only so far. It’s a framework; to carry, convey and contain the wonderful stuff that’s coming out from inside of you. When there is a mastery of technique without the soul, the results can be pretty empty, and cold, and dull.
I made the picture above with my daughter’s sharpies, which she kindly lent to me. We were traveling, and I didn’t have anything else to make art with. So, in the middle of the night, I grabbed the pens; and the freedom from seriousness that sharpies can afford, opened the floodgates, enabling me to make something new, with lots of energy, and joy and originality.
When you’re painting with oils, you can get into comparing yourself with some great, old, oil master, and then your rational brain is going to butt-in, and try to convince you that you will never be that good, and, who do you think you are; aspiring to such things?
There’s only one you. The stuff inside of you, can only come out from you. It’s that rare, that unique, that special! Find yourself some sharpies, or a pencil; everyone can afford those. Tear off some paper from somewhere, and show the world what you’ve got!
Soul Made Magic 