Make Bad Art

Welcome to Creatives Anonymous, a weekly newsletter that explores what it means to be a modern-day creative. It inspires, encourages, and empowers readers to take back their creative power.

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On my recent trip to Greece, I aimed to create a travel sketchbook to practice my drawing skills and document the trip. But something happened when I went to put pencil to paper.

I froze. 

It was like performance anxiety, fear, and cringe all rolled into one. 

Why am I telling you this? As much as I like to write about pushing through fear and creating, I still get caught up in it as much as any other creative person. 

The funny thing is that this sketchbook is for my eyes only. I’m not planning on sharing it with anyone (maybe a few good sketches here and there). So why was I so anxious about what it looked like?

The answer is simple: I had too high expectations for the project. 

Part of me believed that I was going to magically become this amazing artist and be able to recreate exactly what I saw in a sketch (yes, I know, it’s delulu). And boy, that was not the case. If anything, I forgot all the drawing fundamentals I learned the second the pencil hit the paper (it also didn’t help that I kept trying to recreate complicated landscapes way above my skill level, leaving me more frustrated). 

The first few sketches, I cringed. They were so hard and so bad that they mentally blocked me from wanting to continue the project. The expectations of having this beautiful sketchbook, as I saw from artists on Instagram, were holding me back from creating any art in the first place.

Two conflicting beliefs were going through my mind: 

• Everything I sketch is going to be bad 

• The only way to become a better artist is to create bad art

So I wrote a reminder in big, fat, black marker on one of the pages: “Reminder: Make bad art. It’s the only way to get good!

I won’t say the mantra magically fixed my expectations and hesitations. Still, it did help me shift focus to having fun, experimenting with art styles, and seeing the project more positively. 

It’s a friendly reminder that everyone starts somewhere, even the artists whose work we see in galleries and on Instagram. At one point, they even made bad art. 

One of my favorite scenes that depicts this is in The Bear. In season two, episode 6, “Honeydew,” Marcus meets Luca, a pastry chef in Copenhagen, and asks him how he got so good at his craft. 

He replied: 

“You only get good by making a lot of mistakes. Failure is a part of the job. It’s not a bad thing, but you need to be okay with trying stuff and knowing that it might not work out the way you pictured it.”

Pushing through the bad requires three mindset shifts from us: accepting the level that we’re at, letting go of expectations, and being brave enough to try. 

When learning a new skill, we need to accept our current level. It’s hard to see people ahead of us and at the skill level where we want to be. But we must remember that they’ve been doing this longer than we have, so we must give ourselves grace. If anything, it motivates us to improve our craft.

Meeting ourselves at our skill level means starting simple. Instead of drawing the complicated, detailed landscape, you opt for something simpler. Not only does it give us a quick win, but it also gives us the momentum to keep going. While challenging ourselves is great for learning new skills, it can also lead to frustration when we don’t get the desired result. 

I noticed a massive shift when I sketched simpler landscapes with simpler shapes aligned with my skill level. I created sketches I was proud of, which made me want to draw more. 

Secondly, we need to let go of our expectations. Better yet, we should go in with the expectation that something will be bad. Mentality is one of the biggest tools and superpowers we have as creatives and can be the thing that makes or breaks our experience. 

We need to approach creating with a beginner’s mindset and embrace being a student who doesn’t know everything. We need to let ourselves play, where we try things without knowing how they’ll pan out. Letting go of expectations means inviting experimentation and trusting the process. It also means failing. A lot. 

Lastly, we just need to be brave enough to try. I like to equate creating to going to the gym—the hardest part is just starting. Once you get into the groove, it’ll be hard to stop. As adults, we never want to try new things. We always want to do the same things with the same people because it’s easy. 

We’re always preparing for the worst-case scenario when, in reality, we’re preparing for our reaction to the worst-case scenario.

We can’t be afraid to be bad. We have to climb cringe mountain and know that our reward for reaching the summit is getting better. Creativity is a marathon, not a sprint. And it takes a long time (some say 10,000 hours) to master a skill. Patience is key. 

If I’ve learned anything from this experience, I want to incorporate more of an art practice daily and weekly so that next time I go on a trip, my sketchbook turns out a bit better than it did this go round. 

I know I’ll look back at this journal one day and cringe at the old sketches while simultaneously being amazed at how far I’ve come. 

CREATIVE CORNER

• 🎞️ What I’m Consuming: I’m reading F1 Confidential: Inside Stories from the World of Formula One by Giles Richards and really loving it so far!

• 💡 What I’m Loving: My new branding for my business. It looks SO good 😍

• 🎨 What I’m Working On: Documenting my wardrobe with the app Whering so I can moodboard my outfits.

• 💭 Weekly Musing:

Thank you 💕

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I’m so grateful for all of your support!

Alexa Phillips is a writer, brand strategist, and multi-passionate creative. She is the founder and Chief Brand Architect at Bright Eyes Creative, a creative studio that helps creatives monetize their zone of genius and creativity.

Where to find me:

• Join the waitlist for my new offer, Musing to Monetized, launching soon!

• Listen to my recent podcast episodes here