Guest Contributor - Carol Marine Art Tip

This is the first of an ongoing series of guest contributors.  At least once a month, I will have guest post an art tip.  It won't always be an artist but it will be related to art.  I'm so honored to have Carol Marine be the first Contributor.

               

Carol's Tip 

"Getting the Most out of a Workshop"

1.      Leave your ego at the door. It is completely normal to worry at a workshop what other people are going to think about your work, especially the teacher. You only have a limited amount of time in which to impress them, right?! “What if I screw up?! What if the person sitting next to me is much better?!” If you can ignore those voices in your head and focus instead on simply learning, you will be much better off. Forget about how others might judge you (they’re just as worried about what you think). And believe me, the teacher is consumed with teaching, not judging!

2.      Be willing to let go of everything you learned before. Every teacher has opinions about the best ways to paint. Often these opinions collide. It could be that something you heard from a teacher years before and took as fact, doesn’t indeed work for you now. Be willing to let go of those things that don’t work and hear an alternate way of doing something. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt.

3.    Let yourself be uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable in a workshop means you are trying something new; experimenting. You may fail, and that’s ok. You may fail lots of times. But eventually you will have a breakthrough, and you would have never gotten there had you not allowed yourself to be uncomfortable.

4.    Follow up! The absolute best way to get the most out of a workshop, is to keep working when you get home. If you put away your tools for a month (or more) when you get home, you will likely forget what you learned, and lose the momentum and inspiration from the workshop. Carve out time for it. You invested time and money in the workshop, don’t waste that!

Thanks Carol for taking time & sharing some good information.

If you're unfamiliar with Carol, here's a little about her...

Carol lives in Eugene. Oregon with her family.  She has a BFA in Studio Arts from the University of Texas, Austin & since 2006, she has been creating one small painting almost everyday.  A popular teacher, Carol conducts several workshops a year across the country.  To find out more about Carol & her work, visit her blog & website listed below.

Carol's Painting a Day Blog -http://carolmarine.blogspot.com/

Carol's Website - http://www.carolmarine.com/