“Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.” -Leonardo Da Vinci
If perfectionism is the enemy of progress, the question is if Leonardo was a perfectionist. He had problems finishing his projects. However, that has nothing to do with perfectionism. That was because he was a creator and innovator. Someone who can start projects is highly intuitive but not very good at finishing. Of course, that wasn’t available as knowledge at that time in the Western World. It did in the Chinese world, and it is called I Ching, being in flow, which was brought forward by Jung.
Perfectionism, however, really comes from every corner of the world in different forms. I hear it in many forms, and I have felt how it works for me. You can be so dreaded by showing up daily in your art studio. You feel that you do not make progress on your portraits or self-portraits or other art you work on for whatever reason you tell yourself; it is never good enough for yourself. This is called PERFECTIONISM.
Perfectionism is the enemy of progress. My favourite popular culture artist, Michael Jackson, definitely struggled with perfectionism. If he hadn’t had Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien with him, he probably still would have worked on the most-sold album in history ‘Thriller.’
The word perfectionism is not always used because people are perfectionists. It sometimes is used as an excuse to tell them that they can’t live up to their standards. Perfectionism kills the joy, the practice and the growth.
Often I hear and read the phrases: “I can’t draw a straight line” or ‘I am not creative, or I am only good at landscapes or still life or wildlife or abstract. Let me tell you this, you are not, because everyone can learn how to draw and paint everything. That does not mean you need to become a professional artist. That is a whole different ballgame. That means showing up daily, also when you do not feel like it, that means studying all aspects of the topic you will choose. It means ploughing through when it does not work as you want it to. And…It definitely means you have to let go of perfectionism.
Let me tell you a little story. Rembrandt himself has drawn, painted and etched many self-portraits. He clearly sees himself differently all the time and is trying to find likeness. Often he is also portrayed by his studio apprentices, and there are still portraits that are ascribed to him as self-portraits but probably are not.
Every artist has to learn and starts from the beginning. As I have said before, talent is highly overrated but seeing and learning how to see is very underrated. The practice still makes the master, but in a short amount of time, with the proper teaching and mentoring, you can learn how to see and actually draw objects and yes….self-portraits.
The fun thing is that in all the years I have worked on portraits, some 20-odd years ago I started, I was either full-on and got the confidence or I struggled and left it to later pick it up again. What I learned during that process is that first of all, I needed to keep practising. Many think that once they have learned how to draw or paint a portrait, they are ready. But it is as with music, you keep practising.
Perfectionism is debilitating, especially when it doesn’t look exactly as you ‘think’ you have to see yourself. What we do is go in defence, and we start to judge ourselves. We make up a story about how bad we are. That story becomes very apparent in our heads, and before you know it, the story has become you.
Julia Cameron, whose books I worked through, always talks about it. What can you do to surpass this? First of all, praise yourself for the effort you took. Celebrate every little step, and last but not least, keep going. Look for people you admire and learn from them. Copy the greatest in a museum and study everything you want to know. The best question is, how did they do this? How can I come to a solution?
But the very best I always tell people I mentor or teach is to learn to enjoy the process.
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