Consider Educating Others

Why would you want to teach what you don’t really understand you do?  That is to say; sometimes our art just comes out and we don’t really know how we accomplished what we did.  Why would we want to show people what we do when we don’t begin to understand it ourselves?

Sometimes I start my students with a photo to paint from but, I make them work from it up side down.  It gives their brain another way to solve the problem of recreating the image.  Teaching is like that, you end up approaching the project from another perspective entirely.  While you are figuring out how to show people what you do and how you do it, you learn what you have been doing.  It goes from a happy accident, through discovery; to an actual technique that you can replicate and control.

Every class I teach, I begin to understand more clearly what it is that I am doing.  My students are making me a better artist! Who knew that would happen?  My class this last week was amazing.  I was able to explain not only why you don’t do something, but why you might want to do it on purpose.  Too much pastel on a surface can make it hard to layer color but, if you have multiple layers you can push and pull the colors with your finger tip.  They were thrilled and I was so pleased for them.

It is scary to stand in front of a group of people and tell them what you do.  It is hard to put yourself out there as an artist and teaching makes you feel even more exposed.  Consider though, it might end up being the one thing that pushes your ability farther.

Keep creating!