I became a self-taught watercolour artist at 30 | You Can Teach Yourself Anything 🌿 Plein Air Art

Hi, we might have met already, but those I didn't. Let me introduce myself. My name is Daria, and three and a half years ago I left my life in big city and moved to a quiet village in the English countryside. That was the beginning of many new things I never thought I'd experience in my life as a city dweller at the time, but mostly it was a pivotal moment for my own personal change deep within. One of the biggest changes that happened is that I finally found confidence to pursue art, something I never believed I could do, and I am determined to make my life filled with as much beauty as possible. At the time, I was already a skilled photographer and filmmaker with years of experience, and I always told myself that I can't paint with a brush, so I do it with my camera instead. But who was I kidding? I actually always wanted to see what it would be like to create something physical, come out of my digital shade and actually paint with colours and brushes. This was about a year ago. I was in the very last few months of my twenties, and the prospect of pursuing something new at almost thirty was quite scary, I must say. But you know, I realized that I inevitably will turn thirty anyway. The question was whether it happens with or without that new experience I secretly always wanted to have. This is a good way to take yourself out of that too-late-or-too-old type of mindset. Age and life will inevitably catch up to you, whether you do that thing you always wanted or not. I can turn thirty being an artist, or I can turn thirty still scared. I chose the former. So a year ago, I picked up a brush for the very first time. Apart from photography and being a visual person anyway, I didn't have any traditional art background, and if anything, I never thought I could be an artist at all. Whenever I tried to draw or paint anything, I quickly became disappointed and thought this just isn't for me. When I was a child, I loved drawing. I was pencil sketching every now and then until I was about sixteen, but never seriously. At sixteen, I stopped and then learned about photography and filmmaking, so I was still creating something visual, which helped me to learn about framing, colors, light, and more importantly, noticing, seeing, capturing beauty with my eyes. I still believed, however, that I'm not gifted enough to pick up traditional art, and that traditional art is some kind of elite medium of expressing yourself and can only be achieved through a traditional school. Perhaps the biggest blocker that stops many of us on the way of pursuing that thing we really want is belief, or disbelief. A simple lack of belief that you can do it, you are worthy, and whatever you want to learn is achievable. We often think, oh no, I'd really like to, but it's not for me. Well, but what if it is indeed for you, but you simply are stopping yourself without even trying? Another thing that stops us is not knowing where to start. Do I need to go to an art school, find a teacher? Where do I begin? Begin where you are, on the internet, on YouTube, in nature, in cities and galleries. Simply put a conscious effort to notice the little beautiful details all around you and find inspirations and resources online. It's okay to learn by simply copying the existing art. We always frown upon copying, but when you're learning there is literally nothing bad about it. That's how all of us learn. Copy until you develop your own vision. Just don't falsely claim your copy is your own, but do study from the masters. And then practice. Practice, practice, practice. Oh, I don't have time. Oh, well, neither do I. I don't know anyone who has time for anything at all. That's why we make time for the things that we want and the things that we like. Today you can make 10 minutes, tomorrow you can make 30 perhaps. However much time you can allocate for it is better than zero. The day you decide you want to pursue art, you become an artist. Not after 10 years of experience or after that degree or course. You're not an aspiring artist either. That word feels like a safe haven that removes the responsibility for your own development, gives you room to not be an artist because, well, you're just aspiring, right? No. Once you've decided that this is who you are, you have to be it fully. Of course, none of us start out as professionals. But if you are an artist, you will have to stick with it. You must continue to create. In my latest art video, I mentioned something called the plateau of learning. And I want to expand on this concept today because I think that's something all of us inevitably experience when we are trying to learn a new skill. Some hit us sooner, some later, but I don't really think that there is a way to go without it. It goes something like this. You decide that you want to learn something and you suddenly are super excited about it. You spend all of your time doing it and experience that first timer's high. Things even might come quite easy to you and you might feel like you're learning very fast for a beginner. Then, inevitably, you hit the wall. That first excitement wears out. You don't have much time to do it and you might even feel like you're not making any progress. And after a short while of seeing no development, you might even fall into despair and sort of get that confirmation bias thinking, well, I thought so. This isn't for me anymore. And gradually or pretty suddenly, you just quit doing that thing you were so excited about for a couple of months or weeks prior. This is the plateau of learning, when most people quit and the excitement just quietly burns out. This happened to me many, many times with so many hobbies that I pursued, with jewellery making, with pottery, with drawing, with chocolate making at some point. I just fizzled out and didn't notice myself how I quit that thing I put so much effort into or might have bought some supplies for. If you imagine the plateau of learning as a line, so initially you start going upwards like that, and to some it might be like that, to some it might be like that. But at some point you will hit this straight monotonous line when nothing is happening anymore. This is the line when there is no improvement and no motion and you start thinking that, well, that's it. This is not meant for me after all. First of all, you can't hit the plateau without actually doing anything in the first place. So it's a good sign that means that there was the motion and you have been improving all this time. It often happens when you've actually already acquired some building blocks of your chosen craft and to move forward you now need to find new ways of learning, find new ways how you can push yourself from where you were to that new level. You will have to find any source of information that will help you push just a little bit further. This is exactly where the natural ways of learning or natural predisposition, so to speak, no longer plays any vital role whatsoever and further progress only depends on discipline, habits and deliberate action. This is where the new learning systems need to be developed for you to progress further. To some people this might be exactly the time when it's a good idea to go to school or find some kind of courses, be it online or in a physical space or I think another good way is to find some kind of like-minded people or go to, you know, there are these one-day courses where you can just come and paint in a social atmosphere. I think finding like-minded people who are in the same boat as you are at this stage might be actually very helpful or if you are good at managing and disciplining yourself you might want to find some kind of little challenges that will help you take it further. For example, it is at this point when you might want to start learning about color theory and there are just so many courses and so much information available for free online so really there is no excuse not to progress and not to push yourself further in any kind of way. I think another very fun way and it is something that I really want to do is to set a challenge for yourself, for example, to paint 30 mini paintings for 30 days, every single day, so you have an entire month when you paint something new and something easy that will just keep your creative juices flowing and you do it every single day, that's that discipline that is needed for you to take yourself out of this monotonous routine. Another thing that I personally already did is start painting something that I was initially scared of, for example, faces or animals or still life or experiment more with lights and shadows. I found that that really excited me as well because I initially started painting the landscapes only and painting that detail and experimenting with new methods, for example, I started using masking fluid, that was actually quite exciting. There are actually so many ways, for example, yet another way is to take yourself out of the familiar environment. So, for example, go out and paint outside or paint at a cafe or in a museum. Quite simply put, you just have to take yourself out of that safe familiar environment which you've reached once you hit that advanced beginner stage or whichever stage you're at actually at this moment because the worst or perhaps the best thing, depends on how you look at it, is that the plateau of learning happens many times throughout many stages of development. It's not just this, then this, and then this again. It's going to be this, this, this, this, this, this, and it's going to continue like that endlessly. And I think that's an exciting bit because there is always something to overcome as annoying as it might initially seem and discouraging as it might be for some of us. Sometimes I just had to give myself time to stop and take a breather and go away from it for a week, two weeks, a month sometimes, but inevitably I came back to it and I found ways to discipline myself and do progress. If you think about it, it's always like this in life. Every progress is followed by a period of downtime and for whatever reason we are always taught that it's only the progress that matters and that stillness is somehow scary, but it is just a part of life. We have to learn to appreciate and love and enjoy that stillness because it comes inevitably after every high. Our life can't just consist of only highs. We have to love and appreciate and understand the value of that low, of that downtime, of that calm period. So this is what I wanted to leave you with today. I hope you enjoyed this video and I would love to know and learn about your experiences. So let me know what you're currently working on in the comments and whether you ever experienced this kind of plateau of learning. Thank you so much for being with me here today and I will see you next time.