Artistic Evolution

I was going through old watercolor paintings today and found quite a few that had evolved and changed over time.

The first evolution: I am Living the Dream. It’s clear I was learning how to even use watercolors and learning different styles of lettering. These were my first ‘real’ watercolors – my previous experiences being the crayola washable watercolors for children.

The next evolution: Get Messy. At this time, I was learning new-to-me watercolor techniques via YouTube videos. I love this one where I used a straw to blow the watercolor into the ‘splat’ shape. I was also further expanding my lettering skills.

It’s fun to go back and look at old art and see how things have changed and progressed. I really had no idea what I was doing at the beginning. As a recovering perfectionist, it was hard to even start knowing that it wouldn’t be very good. But, like my art, I’ve changed and grown and I now know that everyone starts at the bottom of the barrel when learning something new. And I’ll never get to where I want to be if I don’t try. It’s doesn’t have to be perfect or even good – I just have to start.