Allowing yourself to make mistakes.

Cling film placed on wet watercolour

My friend crashed his racing hovercraft in practice. We thought there was no need for this, the exit from the water was smooth and clear of any obstructions. Instead he choose to take a wider line through the reads and long grass to the side of the exit. As he came back with his hovercraft on a trailer, and the front all smashed up it was obvious this was not a good idea.

Why, we asked him had he tried such a line? His reply astonished me. He explained that during a race he might need to overtake a craft there and so he had to know if such a thing was possible. I had always concentrated on “the racing line” trying to always find the perfect line. Always trying to get my hovercraft to go as fast as possible, any deviation was a mistake. He was already was a fast driver, so he had started to experiment. This meant during a race he had more options, when faced with a hovercraft he wanted to get past he knew where and when he was able to. As hovercraft have no breaks, sometimes it was a choice between overtaking a slower craft or crashing. 

Salt makes little stars

Now when I am painting I take time to experiment, to allow myself to make mistakes. Last week I allowed a whole class to spend the afternoon just making a “mess”. As I explained we were not there to make a masterpiece – although if we happen to make one accidentally that would be OK.

We played with salt, cling film, granulating medium and much more. Everyone had a lovely time, they learnt many techniques they had not tried before. Although no one did create a masterpiece, everyone had some samples of something they could use in another piece of art.

Cling film can make good foliage.

I have learnt sometimes I have to give myself a safe environment where it is all right to make a mistake, because I will learn something from it, even if the only thing I learnt is not to try that again!

Cling film was used to create this dry stone wall

Have you allowed yourself to make any mistakes lately?