Sort of.
I say sort of because, they aren’t all hard things. They aren’t difficult. They aren’t big. But we have a hard time doing them.
I had, have two topics that come to mind this week. One about doing those things that are hard or scare us, and the other about connecting. As you might guess from the title, I decided to go with the first one.
Several months ago, maybe even a year or more ago, I finished reading a book, I’m not sure which one now, and the message it left me with was to ‘do the hard thing’. Do the stuff you need to do but don’t want to do. The small niggly stuff. It feels good to get that stuff done and out of the way. And I could probably go on with that idea but this time I want to approach the topic a little differently.
First, I want to share a quote, I came across in another book, just a couple of weeks ago. I even looked it up recently to share it with someone. The quote: “Do the thing, and you shall have the power.” It’s attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson in Essay on Compensation. I’d also like to share something I’ve seen Olivia Newton-John say. Or roughly. She used to say that the two things she was most worried about or afraid of turned out to be the biggest and most impactful and successful of her career. Those things were the movie Grease and the song Physical.
I think a lot of times there is something we really want to do or try but for whatever reason we’re afraid to do it or we’re intimidated by some aspect of it so we maybe don’t ever try it. We decide it’s something out of our reach or just too hard. Or maybe we think the effort is so big that we don’t have the time or the money or the stamina or don’t know enough to do it. Ok. Maybe. I’m not going to judge. I’m going to tell you a couple of things I’ve done. And even what I learned.
I’m going to start with something I did a few years ago. Well, it started even before that. When I moved to the Charlotte area, I got involved in a local group called the Charlotte Blues Jam. I participated once or twice a month for several months, possibly close to a year. Then I took a break. I had reasons at the time. To be honest, I might have been scared. After playing with them a time or two, and not getting completely lost, because at the time all I could say for myself was that I knew a basic 12-bar blues, for the first time I actually felt like I could say I was a musician. Fast forward several years and I decide to join up with the group again. The very first day I returned, with a guitar, to play, I ended up also singing. I’d tried that once before and it hadn’t gone well. So, to decide to try it again, that was a bit of a hard thing.
I’ve probably told the story how this happened, but for a refresh. I had learned a Christmas type blues song to play, thinking someone who normally sang might know it. Someone did but they weren’t in my “band”. When we got on stage to play, I was given the opportunity to sing it if I wanted to play the song. I could easily have said to the singer, ‘no let’s just do whatever you want to do’. I didn’t. I said ok. With my hands and knees shaking I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to sing. And it went quite well.
Getting up on stage with the blues jam the way it is put together in and of itself turns out to be pretty intimidating for people. I find it invigorating. But, to get up and sing. That was a different thing. There’s a little more putting yourself out there when doing that. It wasn’t just making sure I played the right chords and stayed in time. I now had to be on pitch and remember the words and really pay attention to where I was. And then hope my voice didn’t crack and that I didn’t completely suck. That was nerve wracking. But the reaction I got from the drummer, who I’d known since my first outings with the blues jam, said everything I needed to know about how it went, and it felt awesome. And yes, I continued to sing and play and get better at both. And I had a blast every time I did it.
Recently, I’ve been working on my art. And I’ve been working on things that might be a little of a challenge or a bit different, but they are things that when I sit down to work on them as a watercolor painting or as a stippling painting, I am reasonably confident I’ll be able to do it. To create a finished piece that will look something like what I have in mind. There is one subject that I would really like to be able to paint, whether it’s in watercolor or something else. Water. Particularly the ocean, however I’ve got some waterfall and stream pictures I’d like to paint from as well.
Many years ago, I did a couple of pencil drawings of some fairly tame water. It wasn’t the main subject. So, I’ve tried it sort of. Now, I want to paint it as the subject and in color. That’s turned out to be a little intimidating for me. I know it might take more time to do or might not come out right and so I haven’t really given it a try because, well I needed to work on things that I know will be good enough to post on my art prints store.
That all changed this weekend. I finally tried it. About a week ago I roughed in an outline of the key parts of this image with the idea of trying to paint it in watercolor. This weekend I sat down with my watercolors and the roughed in sketch and tried putting color to the paper and creating a painting. It went about as well as I expected. Which is to say, it didn’t result in even a beginning of a possibility. However, it was still successful.
I know. Wait. What?
I had to try it and let it go not right. I had to try it and“fail”. We learn so much from failure. Yeah, we learn to get up and try again. But not everyone does learn that. Some just give up.
Even though the attempt did not end with something I think is salvageable and worth continuing to work on, I was still energized by finally trying it. I no longer wondered if I could do it, or if it would be as bad as I thought it would. It was. And it’s ok. It’s like being afraid of forgetting the words to a song you’re singing on stage. Once you forget some of them a time or two and learn to keep going, it’s not big deal. In Taekwondo we tell people all the time, if you don’t fall down at least once doing some of the kicks you’re not doing it right. When it happens, we applaud, ask if you’re ok, and help you up. You have to get past failing, falling, forgetting in order to go on. So, yes. It isn’t worth salvaging. I’ll post a picture of it with this. And I will be trying again.
So why would I try again? Seriously? Have you not been reading this? I want to paint the ocean. So. Of course, I’m going to try again, just not the same way.
When I got done painting for the night, I realized that I could probably do that same painting I was trying to do if I did it in pastels. And frankly, I’m sure it can be done in oil paints or acrylics as well. Neither of those are mediums that I work in right now. I’ve dabbled in oil. And ultimately, I may try it in oil. However, I really prefer the look of watercolor, and maybe pastel. So, back to the pastels. I know that because of the layering that can be done with pastels and the texture I can get; I can make it work. And that was my first thought for the solution of how I was going to paint this image. So, I started thinking about, and plotting how I wanted to try again using pastels. And then…
After the idea of using pastels to create the painting simmered in my head for a while, I remembered that I have a compound that repels water, and therefore watercolor. And it could work for the areas that I wanted to keep clear of color, because that was one of the big challenges I was running into with the watercolors. There’s a lot of white foamy wave soup in the image. However, there are some limitations and challenges to using the compound. So, it may not be the solution for watercolor, but it is an option. And, with a bit more thought I may come up with a way to use it to make it work.
For now, I’ve decided to start from a different image, and I will probably use pastels to do it. It’s exciting for me, the idea that I may have a way to create some of the art I want to and wasn’t sure I would be able to. Do I expect it to be as big a deal as Grease or Physical? No. Not at all. I have no illusions. And it’s not the point.
The point is that I did the thing that was intimidating me, the thing that I was unsure of, that I was afraid of. And by doing the thing, look what I learned. Look at the options I came up with. And I’m excited about trying again. It’s energizing. That’s the point. That’s the power of ‘doing the thing’.
I’ll leave you with that and hope you have a good week. Cheers!
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