March 29, 2024
Do you need to be in a creative state to paint watercolor?
No. From my experience, creativity is not a state you have to reach before you paint: it is already part of you, and you prove it in many things you do in other areas of your life. Notice where you are already creative, stop judging the parts of yourself you think hold you back, and transfer that creativity into your watercolor painting.
Where did my idea about creativity come from?
It came from my watercolor program, where I teach my students to paint watercolors that come from them and that they are proud of. The program has 2 parts: a curriculum, with modules on fundamental techniques, telling your own stories and turning real-life subjects into paintings, and the replays of the coaching lives.
In February 2024, many new students joined. I told them to go through the curriculum. Then they asked me: "What about the replays of the lives? What do I do with them?"
What problem did my students have?
The lives had started in May 2023, so there was almost 1 year of replays, and so many of them. Each one answers different topics, like how to paint a forest with light rays or how to create clouds in the sky. My students told me: "I have so many things to do. How do I know where to find the answers to my questions?"
I didn't know what to do. At that moment, I told myself I lacked creativity.
How did a simple document become a creative solution?
Then I remembered a document I had created just for myself: a Google Sheet where I list all the topics addressed in each live, like how to find your style, how to provide more contrast, or direction lines and perspective.
I showed it to my students and they told me: "Wow, this is exactly what we were looking for." I didn't realize that what I did just for myself was so valuable for other people.
At first there were no hyperlinks in it. So I suggested adding them: if you see a topic you are interested in, for example how to paint buckets and garbage cans in watercolor, you click and go directly to the replay. As the discussion went on, new suggestions came, like translating it into English.
Today this database holds almost 300 topics addressed during those lives over 1 year. Some topics last 5 minutes, some last almost 1 hour. With the search toolbar, you can type something like fog, smoke or snow, go directly to the topic, click on the replay and see the solution within a few seconds.
What I thought was not worthy to show is actually where people see the real value. It is one of the most creative solutions I have found with my students, and it didn't take much effort: just a discussion and some questions asked by my new students. That is where creativity appears for me. Not in the forest, not in meditation, not in a morning routine, but in talking with people and trying to solve their problems.
Can a part of you that you judge make you more creative?
I showed this Google Sheet to a friend. She told me she would never do that, listing every topic after every live, because it's so boring. For me it feels so natural.
She told me that what I did here was developing the engineering side within me. By accepting my analytical side, I came up with a creative solution. Yet I always thought my engineering background prevented me from being creative. That conversation made me realize that what I considered one of the worst things for my creativity turns out to be one of the best things to develop it.
So ask yourself: what part of you do you put a judgment on? Maybe you see yourself as a perfectionist, or you find yourself anxious. Maybe this part of you is one of your best assets to be creative in your everyday life, without you realizing it.
How can you bring your creativity into watercolor painting?
When I think about creativity, I find it more on the artistic side. Yes, I'm an artist, but I'm also a dad, an entrepreneur and a teacher. The database was a creative solution on the entrepreneur side.
If I judge entrepreneurship as something where you have to follow frameworks and rules, where you shouldn't let your creativity speak, then I prevent myself from transferring the creativity I already have there to the artistic side.
It's a holistic approach. In some domains of your life you already have this creativity, and in other domains you don't feel as creative as you want to be. In painting, for example, sometimes I don't feel very creative. Realizing that you are already creative elsewhere is really insightful, because you can transfer it into the artistic side.
It also takes pressure off when you sit down to paint a watercolor. You don't have to force yourself to become a creative person: you already are one in another domain of your life. You just put too much pressure on yourself, or judge yourself too much on the artistic side, and that prevents you from being who you really are as an artist.
FAQ
Is creativity something you have to wait for?
No. You don't need to wait for a special mood or a perfect routine. For me, creativity showed up during an ordinary discussion with students, while trying to answer their questions.
Why don't I see my own creativity?
Often you don't realize it until someone else points it out. What feels natural or even boring to you can be exactly what others find valuable and creative.
Can perfectionism or anxiety help my creativity?
Maybe. A part of you that you judge can turn out to be one of your best assets, the way my analytical, engineering side led me to a creative solution.
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