Make the best mistakes you’ve ever made

This is my charcoal portrait from a recent Art Room life drawing class.

You might notice the ‘ghost lines’, the mistakes of my previous drawings underneath the finished portrait.

With each iteration and each unsuccessful effort to produce a drawing I was satisfied with, I rubbed them out, but not completely, layering up until the final picture emerged, using the mistakes of the previous effort as a guide to the next attempt.

With art, as in life, our failures are our best teachers.

My advice, don’t be disheartened by previous failures, start again.

Start drawing, start writing, start leading…start something.

Make mistakes.

Rub them out.

Go again.

Make better mistakes.

Go again.

Make the best mistakes you’ve ever made.

Go again.