Incompetence to Expertise...

6/26/2021 2:29:53 PM
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I recently read a blog by Clint Watson called "Dance At The Edge Of Incompetence." It was a timely blog for me. I had just gotten back from an artist retreat where we did plein air painting. I'm not a plein air painter, I'm a studio painter. I paint in layers and I'm slow. Plein air painting is a different animal, it's done on location, is done mostly in one layer and it's painted quickly. All opposites of what I do. I enjoy going outside and painting with my friends, at least when the weather is good but the quality of those paintings leave much room for improvement. Mostly that's okay with me. I'm there for the enjoyment factor and I know that time and practice will make me better. This time though I felt agitated about my painting. When it was done, I looked at it and knew I could have done better. I was agitated days later.

That's when I read the blog. In it he described how he played racquet ball at a local community center. The players were in divisions labeled A, B, C, and D. The players could climb up the division by winning games against those in a higher division. He was a D player. He moved up slightly but not much. He asked the A1 player to play with him unofficially and over time he got much better. He then noticed that those who played the players close to them in ranking didn't really progress, they just kept changing places. So the point of the blog was that by continuing to stretch and challenge ourselves and "dance on the edge of incompetence," we improve.

That blog reminded me to take the advice I give my students. There is a learning curve to everything. Learn and push yourselves and over time you will get better. So (when the weather is nice) I will continue to paint with plein air painters who are better than me and I will learn from them. I will take workshops and over time I will improve. I'll just be a bit incompetent for awhile.

By the way, the image above is one of my successes and I painted it in three hours.