The Artist Learning Curve | SHW #7

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made and see other artist’s make in their art journey is judging their future potential based on what they’re capable of doing today.

Learning how to draw can be incredibly challenging because the learning curve is so non-linear. It’s not really a predictable curve at all.

Many people describe it as a logarithmic curve. You see lots of growth in the beginning and then things kind of level out. I think that’s true at a macro level. If you zoom all the way out of your journey, it will look something like this:

However, if you zoom in, the curve is much more confusing and unpredictable. It looks a little different for everyone, but it's totally normal and common to experience something like this:

The troublesome thing about a learning curve like this is that we often compare what we’re capable of in the future based on what we’ve already done and are able to do right now. If we were at a peak a few days ago, and now we’re in a dip, our minds can often trick us into thinking that we’ll never reach a higher peak than the one we’ve already explored.

So many of us will quit, right in the middle of the dip. But if you do, you’ll never know that the rest of your journey would have turned out like this:

My wish to you this week —

Don’t judge the potential of your future based on where you’ve already been.

Being in the dip isn’t a sign you’re not on the right path. It’s actually a sign you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. If you never go through the valley, you’ll never reach the next peak.

Have a great week, friends. Best wishes 💙