When the Student is Ready....

The journey of an artist takes a lifetime.

This blog post is meant to encourage those who want to improve their skills but just feel as if they have hit a plateau. Let me assure you, we all hit that same plateau. We all come to a point where are work seems to be stagnating at one point and we are not able to work past whatever barrier is in our way. We seek out more classes, more instruction, more books, more online lessons and purchase more supplies. But the answer is not in any of those wonderful solutions. Everyone has a different pace of learning and different way of responding to instruction. We all work past that plateau at different rates of speed and through different Euerka moments. Sometines, a student is just not ready to absorb the material presented in a class. But in time, they will recall the lessons and be able to make sense of things. A light bulb will suddenly turn on and the way past the plateau will appear. As I mulled over the words of this proverb it made more sense to me today than it did years ago when I first came across it. There will come a time in your artistic journey where your skills just come together. They are a culmination of the input from all of your books, instructors, life lessons and inspiring moments. The skills will appear and will work together. I know there is a lot of hard work involved and sometimes the investment of time and treasure seems too much. But your skills will all come together at some point. Your hands will be able to create the artwork that you envision. Keep creating! Keep practicing! Never rush the process! You are exactly where you should be.