Have Nothing To Fear🫶🏻

I don't know about you, but my week is off to a bang! I finally caught up on my business to-do list after recovering from a bout of a stomach virus that annihilated me and my daughter early last week, aaaand now my husband is down with Covid. Oy!

Although
I'm happy to be back in the studio, transforming my hobby and passion into a business hasn't been without it's challenges, and I was feeling that this past weekend for sure!

In an effort to change the energy that was weighing me down, I decided to tackle something I have only ever done once before, a HUMAN portrait. A human portrait on watercolor ground! (Can you already tell this sounds promising?)

I decided on one of my favorite Lord of the Rings characters, Aragorn. I made my sketch and asked my husband if he could tell who it was. After an initial guess of Jesus, he finally got it right, and I happily started planning a color palette.

I started with the eyes, like I always do, and tried to stick to small sections, like I always preach to my students. Buuuut it quickly got out of hand and soon I was all over the place. a little bit here, a little bit there...and before I knew it, Ted Danson was staring back at me.

I was really starting to feel like my effort to shift my energy was backfiring. This was not going well, AT ALL.

Luckily I had been listening to a podcast while painting. The man who was being interviewed mentioned that he coaches athletes and always shares a message with them before every game. At the very moment of my crisis, he said

"If you're okay with EVERY outcome, then you have nothing to fear."

I gasped. I immediately wrote it at the bottom of my sketchbook page.

I had been so wrapped up in needing a certain outcome with this painting, holding myself to a ridiculously unrealistic (and unfair) expectation; that I was going to paint a subject I NEVER paint, on a surface I RARELY paint on, and it HAS to be amazing or I will not be okay!

And all of the sudden, Ted Danson was HILARIOUS! I laughed out loud like a maniac, all alone in my attic studio and INSTANTLY, I felt this immense load lift off my spirit.

We often cling to the need for a specific outcome in order to feel secure or to feel 'good enough.'

I invite you to release that grip. Embrace the idea of being okay with whatever the outcome may be. And that goes far beyond art! 

...................................................

XO-ASHLEY