The one question that will revolutionize your art

For artists, there are certain habits that we can adopt early on in our artistic growth that can be helpful at first, but over time can actually hold us back. So often when we're getting started in art, whether it's drawing or it's painting or it's sculpture, we get started focusing on building our craft. So maybe we'll try to learn color theory, or we'll focus on composition, or we'll study anatomy. And when we're doing this, we often do studies, we do exercises, and we often ask ourselves the question, is this good or bad? Did I do it right? We have this idea that there's this metric that we're measuring our work against. It's a skill that we're trying to build, and we can do better at it or we can do worse at it, and hopefully we're growing in that skill over time. But kind of implied in this skill building is that there is a right and wrong way to do things. There's a good way to do it and a bad way to do it. And we can develop the habit of continually asking ourselves, is this good or bad? And like I said, this can be helpful when we're trying to build that initial skill, and when there really is a metric that we can measure ourselves against. But over time, as we grow as artists, this same habit of asking the question, is this good, can actually kill our creativity. Why is this the case? Good is often tied to what worked in the past. Good is kind of a metric of what was successful before, what other artists have done that have worked, that we like, that resonates with us. But in that same way, focusing on what we think is good can keep us stuck in this sort of traditional, sort of past focused mindset. And that's not helpful to us when we're trying to grow and develop as artists. I've seen this come up in my own work. Oftentimes, if I'm making paintings for a show, I can start to get into this mindset of thinking, is the work good? Is it going to be successful? And I noticed that it often results in me making paintings that maybe look technically more polished, maybe though, the painting, the brushstrokes are tighter, they're more precise, more controlled. But at the same time, there's something, the paintings almost seem to lack this vital life and energy. There's something sort of stale about the work. You may have experienced this yourself. Maybe you're working on a large, ambitious painting, and you finish it and you realize that it doesn't have that same vitality that you have in your early quick sketches that you did without much thought. That's why I think that if we put too much focus on this question, is it good? It can be dangerous for our art. And even the whole metric of good can be a confusing one to measure ourselves against. What does it actually mean? What does it mean for art to be good? It can even be confusing early on when we're building our skills, because we realize that the work that we thought was good a month ago, maybe we no longer think is good today. And it becomes especially difficult once we've had some paintings that we feel like were really successful. Or maybe we even had a whole show that we felt like was really well received. Then when we ask ourselves about our new work, is it good? This can get us to stay sort of in the safety zone, in our comfort zone, in an area of work or a style of working that we know has been successful in the past. But as artists, we don't want to just replicate what worked in the past. We want to look towards the future. My other issue with this idea of good and bad is that to me at least, it feels very serious. It feels kind of heavy. It has this almost moral tone to it that kind of makes my work more serious and less playful. But oftentimes I feel like the work that I make that is the most compelling, the most meaningful, it comes out of, not out of a serious place, but out of a place of joy and experimentation. So if this resonates with you, if you're stuck in the habit of asking yourself, is it good? Then how do you get out of it? What question can we ask ourselves instead? Let's stop asking ourselves, is the work good or bad? But instead let's ask, is it interesting? Making the shift from good to interesting may sound simple, but I think it's a powerful mindset shift. While good can be tied to this idea of success and failure, interesting is something different. Interesting peaks our curiosity and it encourages us to get outside of our comfort zone, to explore new areas we haven't traveled before. It implies something new, something unexpected, something exciting. Good is often associated with things that are technically correct, polished, or familiar. Interesting, on the other hand, is provocative, it's questioning, and it's experimental. And interesting usually involves risk. So your inner critic may look at a work that you're doing and say that it's bad because it's taking a risk, it's doing something new and weird. But that can make your work interesting, which can make it even more compelling and meaningful. Meanwhile, a technically good painting can actually be pretty boring if it's just playing it safe and doing what worked in the past. To me, it relates to this key tension between are we solving problems or are we expanding possibilities? In school, a lot of us spent time solving lots of problems, especially in math class. You're taught to take all this information, to take these formulas, and to work to find a specific solution. There's one specific answer to the question, and it's either right or wrong. But if you approach art with this right or wrong problem solving mindset, then that eventually leads to a dead end. And this gets at the main two types of creativity. There's convergent thinking and there's divergent thinking. Convergent thinking is like the creativity we use when solving a math problem, where we need to come up with a solution and we need to find that one right answer. Divergent thinking, on the other hand, is when it's not like we're just going for one right answer, but instead there's many different possibilities. And the goal of this divergent thinking process is to actually expand the number of solutions that are out there. I think our art practice isn't a funnel that's sort of narrowing options down into one specific point, but instead I think of it more as a tree with branches that are branching out and bifurcating and constantly growing and expanding. And this is why asking the question is it interesting is so helpful, because it helps open our eyes, open our minds to all of these possibilities that are out there. And in that, it can help us reclaim our sense of joy and play in the creative process. Bob Ross used to say, there are no mistakes, there are only happy accidents. And I think that this perfectly encapsulates the interesting mindset. Because when it comes to interesting things, there really isn't a mistake. Every sort of mistake is just a new path that you can take. It's a new option. Mistakes can actually open the work to new possibilities. If you're following a certain formula, a prescription, maybe rules that you learned to find good or bad art in the past, if you're doing that on the canvas, then I think that it can take away our sense of exploration and our curiosity. And I think the audience feels that. So when we're stuck on a piece, rather than asking ourselves what the next good brushstroke will be, we can ask ourselves, what would be interesting? What would be unexpected? Maybe what's something different from what I've done before? Take a risk. Try something random or unexpected. I think art that makes us curious, that kind of throws us off and makes us question things, is a lot more impactful than art that is technically proficient. So as you look at your current works in progress in the studio today, ask yourself, is there something I can do that makes this more interesting, even if it might make it less good or less perfect? Maybe you can try adding a color that you wouldn't normally use, or using a tool or implement to apply the paint that gives the painting a new texture that you're not familiar with. Our best work always lies outside of our comfort zone, and following our curiosity will get us there. So this is what's been on my mind recently, and I hope these thoughts resonate with you and you find them helpful. And if you do, one of the best ways that I find to get into this is it interesting, curious mindset is through developing a sketchbook practice. Sketchbooks are a great low-pressure way to experiment and try new things, and to dive into new territory, new places we haven't been before. If you've been wanting to develop a sketchbook practice, but aren't sure where to start, then check out my online course, Starting a Sketchbook Practice. This course walks you through lots of demos and exercises that you can do in your sketchbook, so that you'll never be intimidated by the blank page. Check it out at the link, and I hope to see you there. And as always, a huge shout out to my supporters on Patreon. This video doesn't have any corporate sponsors, and it's supported by people just like you. On Patreon, you can see these videos early and ad-free. You can also get exclusive content, and we do Patreon-only Q&As, where I answer all of your questions about art practice and the business side of things. So if that sounds good to you, and you want to support the channel, then be sure to check out my Patreon. Thanks again for watching, happy painting, and I'll see you in the next one.