Things Don’t Always Go As Planned
When we make art, things don’t always go as planned. We might make a mistake while drawing or painting, the colors may not turn out as expected, or we may have other issues with materials or design flaws. Materials, especially, can be unpredictable, for example, watercolor paint can be hard to control, and we may make errors or wrong choices when working on a piece of art. The solution to these issues is to always try again.
This is a good reminder that in life, things don’t always go as planned, and sometimes, we need to make alterations or change course in order to rectify a mistake that we’ve made. Whether the mistake was intentional or unintentional, we may have to make changes that force us to try whatever we’re working on again, whether in art or in our daily lives.
We Can Always Make Alterations and Choose Differently
Art also reminds us that we can also make alterations to the art that we’ve already created, and we always have the option to choose a different way. We may make a version of art that we dislike, and we can choose to alter the original piece in some way, such as by adding textures or other elements, painting over the original piece, or making choices that are different from our original intentions in our art.
Life, similarly, reminds us that we can make choices that alter our course and take us on a different path, sometimes as the result of a mistake we’ve made or a challenge we’ve faced. We can also always make a different choice than one we have made in the past. Even if our past decisions were along the lines of our values and priorities, we can always try again with new information and a new approach.
We Can Make Something Old into Something New
In art, we may also no longer have the use for something we’ve created, and when this happens, we can take what we’ve made and change it into something new. One intervention I like for this is taking old drawings or paintings and turning them into recycled paper, symbolizing our resourcefulness and reminding us that we can start again.
In life, we can also use the endings of certain chapters of our lives, and the experiences we gained from those times to turn our lives into something new, gaining new experiences, perspectives, and memories.
We Can Always Try Again by Starting Over Completely with Art
If all else fails in our art, we can scrap what we’re working on and start over completely. No matter the reason that something went wrong, there is always the possibility of a new piece of paper, canvas, or lump of clay to start our process all over again. There is no failing in art, but if we find ourselves with a piece that we truly don’t like, we can start again.
In comparison to the way we live our lives, we can also start anew. At any point, we have the ability to choose a new path–to start a new career, attend school, end or start a relationship, move, or start a new goal. When we get to a place where we no longer like or value, it’s completely okay to start fresh and to always try again.
About Samantha Nolan, MA, LPC, ATR- Barnum Counseling
Image by garetsvisual on Freepik