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How to Paint with Confidence

Confidence is an intangible but essential quality to good painting and drawing. Telling someone to paint more confidently is equally as useless as telling a shy person to be more outgoing: and yet, confident brushstrokes and artistic decisions telegraph through the layers of paint and improve the finished work in a powerful way. With that challenge in mind, here are some tips for becoming more confident in your painting. 

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Achieving Flow: the Pomodoro Technique

I love painting faces. Every face is a new challenge. As I become more and more absorbed in the task, years of studying facial structure, expression, color theory, watercolor technique, and anatomy emerge and seamlessly offer me solutions to problems one stroke, one moment at a time. I feel like a painting superhero. 

And then when it’s over, it’s…over. I go back to thinking about the energy bill or washing dishes or doing the laundry. Life continues.

This experience is common to all people, and yet it yields uncommon results. It has been called by many names, such as “the zone” or “the pocket.” Scientists have another name for it: Flow.  Continue reading “Achieving Flow: the Pomodoro Technique”