The learning of art … and the art of learning

I watch as the teacher’s brush flicks and glides gracefully across the canvas. “Use confident brushstrokes for the wash,” she says, “… Be generous with the viridian, and add a drop of cobalt”

I peel my eyes off the dance of that brush, and proceed to slash my own paintbrush across my canvas, willing my strokes to look confident. Having “washed” the canvas in teetering strokes, I now set my sights on the “still” that has been arranged for me. A lamp that is too treacherously symmetric for my untrained hand. And a brass ornament that sits sedately, challenging me to glean the secrets of its complex structure.

I groan inwardly at my luck, and stare at my neighbour with a twinge of envy. Her still is an overgrown plant, so reassuring to a novice in its absolute lack of shape or symmetry.

To call myself an amateur in most things art is to understate the case… an affront of sorts to amateurs of any standing. Pencils have been known to whimper in protest at my attempts at sketching. As for recreating life-like colours out of the 12 standard tubes in a box, it was, or so I thought, firmly beyond the perimeter of my ken.

Yet, there I was, blind-contouring and palette-creating… and plodding along, even when at times the perfect colour tone or that right brush stroke seemed just out of reach.

But how do I explain the exhilaration that I felt? The sheer joy of discovering that I could learn how to make tertiary and even quaternary and other derivative colours. The way time warps as I become engrossed in learning. The calm that envelopes me when I lean in to my novicehood and seek help, letting go of my fear of being judged. The sense of accomplishment when I finally manage to coax symmetry into my pencil strokes.

The small but satisfying feats that can be accomplished when one leaves the burden of perfectionism behind…and embraces the act of learning something utterly, liberatingly new.