Do You Paint to Express or Impress?

You probably know those paintings where something just works, so you step back, you feel this rush of giddiness. You absolutely love what you see. But then almost immediately you pick up the brush again and try to perfect it.

I used to think that was a technique problem. But I discovered it goes so much deeper than that.

So I want you to ask yourself something... and try to answer it as honestly as you can.

When you sit down to paint, who are you really painting for?

Most of us are so busy trying to create something perfect that we don't even stop to ask. We get so wrapped up in fixing things once we hit the messy part of a painting, and when we struggle we start wondering if it's good enough, or beautiful enough, or something someone else would admire or want to buy. And without even realising it we start chasing that instead of what we actually feel.

And that is why you keep losing the most honest part of your paintings.

A few years ago I painted a painting I called Birthgiven. I dedicated it to my parents, because they both loved to paint and they gave me that gift. When I started that painting I wasn't thinking about what it should look like or whether anyone would want to buy it. I was painting from a feeling so deep and so real that I couldn't have painted it any other way.

That painting led to a whole series about my relationship with my mother. Work I never would have made if I'd been sitting there thinking about beautiful or about what someone else might want to see. And it sold. But more than that...  the people who saw it felt something. Because it was true.

That's what painting inward does. And it's what becomes possible when you stop chasing the version in your head and start trusting what you actually feel.

This week's video is the most personal thing I've put on YouTube in a long time. I share Birthgiven, and what happened when I finally stopped painting outward and started painting from the inside.

I hope it helps you do the same.

Click on the image below to watch the full video.