Not because I’m lazy. Not because I can’t commit. But because the second I say “thirty days of painting” out loud, something shifts. This grey cloud shows up. Heavy with obligation. And suddenly I’m not painting because I love it — I’m painting so I don’t fail myself. Those are two very different things.

So I stopped doing that.

Now I just have an intention: paint every day. Not for my followers. Not to fill a streak. Because painting is mine, and I want to keep it that way.

What I’ve figured out is that the days that matter most aren’t the inspired ones. They’re the days I really, truly don’t want to. Those are the ones I show up for anyway — put paint on the palette, make one mark, see what happens. Not because I’m disciplined. Because I know that if I wait until I feel like it, I’ll wait forever. And after those days? I’m the most proud of myself.

No cloud. Just a brush and me.

But there’s another kind of day. Honestly, the hardest kind.

When you were ready. You had the idea, the energy, you cleared the time — and nothing came out. You sit there staring at the canvas feeling like a fraud.

That one stings in a different way.

I’m still learning to be okay with it. Still learning that a bad painting day doesn’t mean I’m bad at painting. That sometimes your hands and your head just aren’t synced up, even if your heart wants it. It’s not a sign. It’s just Tuesday.

Not every day is going to give you something. But every day is still part of it.

The empty days too.

Here’s what’s actually happening when you “search for your style”:
You’re waiting for permission. Permission to draw messily. Permission to not know how it’ll turn out. Permission to be recognizable before you’ve even recognized yourself.
But style isn’t something you find. It’s what remains after you stop trying to control it.
That’s not my idea. It’s something I heard from dozens of artists — and eventually believed.

So how do you actually find it?

I pulled together everything I’ve heard from artists whose work genuinely moves me and tried to turn it into something practical. Not inspiration — a system. Here’s what I came up with.

Step 1. Collect 30 works that make you jealous.
Not works you “like” — works that make you jealous. That sharp, uncomfortable feeling of I want that. Almost every artist I’ve listened to says this: collect honestly, without filtering for what counts as “serious enough.” Pinterest, Instagram, wherever.
Then look at everything together and ask yourself: what do these have in common? Color? Mood? The way shadows are handled? Write down three to five words. That’s your compass, not your map.

Step 2. Copy — but with a question.
Copying isn’t cheating, it’s a tool. Every master I’ve studied learned this way. Pick five works and draw them — not to replicate them, but to understand why the artist made those specific choices. What would you do differently? Where do someone else’s decisions feel too tight?
The discomfort you feel inside someone else’s style is a clue about your own.

Step 3. Draw one subject ten times in a row.
This is advice I kept encountering over and over, from different people in different forms. Don’t pick a favorite. Don’t stop. Just do all ten. The subject can be anything — loneliness, morning, exhaustion. What matters is that it’s yours, not just “pretty.”
Somewhere around the eighth or ninth sketch, something clicks. You’ll notice you keep making the same decisions. That’s you.

Step 4. Make a series of five pieces — and don’t explain them to anyone.
Don’t ask if people like them. Don’t justify your choices. Just put them side by side and look: is there something consistent that you didn’t plan? A color that keeps coming back? A shape that keeps appearing?
What shows up without your permission — that’s your style.

I didn’t invent any of this. I just spent a long time listening to people who had already walked this path — and put it all together.
Style emerges through repetition, not through searching. They all say the same thing. Just in different words.

I write about this every week — collecting thoughts from artists who inspire me and trying to turn them into something you can actually use. If this resonates, subscribe.

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Next time we’ll talk about narrative in art — why work that’s “just beautiful” gets forgotten, while work that tells a story stays with you long after you’ve looked away.

And let’s be honest: your art will never be perfect. Period. It will always fall short of that divine image you’ve painted in your head. But here’s the trap: if you’re only hunting for masterpieces, you’ll be left empty-handed. The greatest act of mercy you can show yourself right now, my dear friend — is to give your art the official right to be terrible.

It’s only among the failed strokes and disappointments that your true power hides. It’s time to finally tear down those barricades of perfectionism. They’re not protecting you — they’re only feeding your procrastination. You set yourself an unreachable bar, and then tell yourself today just isn’t the day to reach for it.

We are incredibly good at deceiving ourselves. Because creativity is the risk of coming face to face with your own powerlessness. We’re afraid that we’ll fall in love with our work, and the world will stay indifferent. Or that you’ll bruise your own ego when you get back something other than what you expected from yourself. That fear — of being exposed in your own imperfection — is exactly what turns procrastination into our life jacket. We sabotage the magic just to avoid feeling the pain of possible disappointment.

I know this very well, because the most terrifying question that paralyzed me for years was: what if I finally allow myself to act, give everything I have... and the result turns out to be awful?

Over all the years I’ve been painting — and that’s since childhood, by the way, and I’m already 33👋 — I have not created a single painting of my own that I’ve shared with the world, one that reflected my own idea. I was constantly learning, collecting more and more information, compiling guides, saving thousands of paintings by other artists for inspiration. I never wanted to simply create until I was ready enough. I wouldn’t allow my attempts to be bad — everything just went straight in the trash. I was procrastinating by doing things that didn’t need to be done. I kept putting off painting my own piece, stuck in learning and perfecting everything, refusing to move forward. And I didn’t realize I was doing it. I believed that if I didn’t have perfect knowledge of color mixing, flawless proportions, and mastery of every technique, I could never make a good painting. Fear held me so tightly that it simply stole an enormous amount of time from my creative life — and who knows, maybe it took away quite a few wonderful paintings that could have been mine.

One simple question from someone — “Are you an artist?” — and I instantly become a little girl waiting for a grade in her report card. That question threw me into a stupor. I was waiting for someone to come and issue me a license for that title. At minimum — a certificate of genius; at maximum — tickets to Paris for my own opening. Because without external validation, calling yourself an artist felt like audacity I had no right to.

So I would drop painting altogether and tell myself: I’m not talented enough, too bad it didn’t work out, and go live a dull office life. For a long time I thought the problem was time. Or the circumstances of my life, or the fact that I was “not yet ready enough, not talented enough.” And that sounded like a perfectly respectable reason to betray myself. Convenient.

And then I’d go back to watching other artists — all my follows are artists — and feel such envy, such deep sadness. I tried to ignore my emotions, just reassuring myself that this was a life that wasn’t meant for me. And yet, after some time, I’d pick up a brush again, be disappointed again, and go around in circles again. And so it only confirmed my stories about myself. We often label ourselves, which gives a certain sense of control and stability — like: stable untalentedness;)

And you know what’s actually funny — those attempts were so short, so chaotic, made in a rush and under enormous pressure. How could I possibly judge myself based on such small, pitiful tries. I often started painting with great excitement and ended in frustration. I’d notice I was becoming hypersensitive to sounds. My breathing would turn shallow, my body would lock up. It was making me sick.

I often promised myself I’d create, then broke that promise — and then felt like complete shit. It destroyed my connection with myself.

If any of this sounds familiar, I’m here with you, and I want to genuinely share the realizations that changed me.

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Coming Home: Why This Time I Won’t Walk Away from Art✨

1. I got absolutely clear on WHY I want to create art.

What is your “why”? Why do you create? Procrastination becomes a million times more tempting when we don’t know why we’re doing what we’re doing. Be honest with yourself — you already know the answer. This matters deeply. Have you answered it?

Every emotional reaction is a “trail” that leads to a part of you that wants to be seen. Look at what triggers you: money, rejection, criticism, competition, attention, discipline, self-respect.

2. Your beliefs become your creative reality.

Creativity takes everything inside you and makes it visible. All your strengths, fears, traumas, habits — they all become part of the work. The way you create is the way you live. Your creativity is the sum of thousands of small choices: what to say, what to show, how to show it, to whom, when, why. Over time, those choices become your style, your aesthetic, your reputation, your income — your creative system.

And all of them grow from your beliefs: about yourself, about money, about whether you’re worthy of recognition, about whether you can live from what you love.

Beliefs → Choices → Results.

3. I began to see my creativity as something sacred.

Don’t waste yourself on random things. Your priority isn’t in tasks — it’s in who you become in the process. This is true devotion. If you truly want something, you will find a way to make it yours — even if in others’ eyes it’s a waste of time, unattainable, or not valuable enough to work for. In the end, only you will have to take responsibility for your life. And if someone else walks the path first, they may find things there that would have genuinely made you happy — if only you hadn’t been afraid to try.

Thinking that sacred work is only for the chosen few is like believing only a handful of people carry the gene for green eyes. When we do our sacred work — we don’t suffer from meaninglessness. And if we do suffer — it’s for something: transcendent, alive, different, and at the same time deeply our own.

4. I always ask myself: “What do I know for certain I should be doing — but am avoiding?”

That’s exactly where your next level is. You’re undervaluing your work. You’re not putting yourself out there with full belief. You’re sabotaging action by hiding behind “searching for inspiration.” You’re putting off the things that could actually change everything. This isn’t laziness — these are signals.

Action. After awareness comes practice. Life offers endless opportunities to practice being who you want to be.

5. Give your art permission to be “shit.”

Art needs permission to be bad. It’s only in that chaos — among the failed strokes and disappointments — that your true power hides. It’s time to finally tear down those barricades of perfectionism. Stop setting an unreachable bar and then telling yourself today just isn’t the day to reach for it.

We stay small not because we lack ambition, but because the shadow is comfortable. Yes, you heard that right. Creativity is the risk of coming face to face with your own powerlessness. We’re afraid we’ll fall in love with our work and the world will stay indifferent. Or that we’ll finally be confronted with that terrible “fact” that we’re mediocre. That fear — of being exposed in our own imperfection — is what turns procrastination into our life jacket.

But here’s the secret: the moment you get bold enough to create something “bad,” you’ll finally get your freedom. Now you can go back to the work and make it better. You learn not from successes, but from attempts. Edit, play, make mistakes — that’s how your art becomes honest, vulnerable, and truly yours. Even if today turned out worse than yesterday — you’re already a head above, because you tried. Your taste sharpens in the struggle with details. And if you dare to show that process to the world, it will respond — because there’s more life in imperfection than in sterile beauty.

It’s a messy road where things sometimes fall apart — but it’s the only road to magic. To deny yourself that chaos is to deny yourself the right to be an artist.

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6. There’s a strange thing about creative work: the most important things we try to create almost always feel slightly larger than us.

As if that work exists somewhere ahead, like the horizon. You feel it, you can see its shape, but you can’t yet fully contain it at your current level.

And that’s not a problem — it’s the very mechanism of growth.

Real work almost never comes from the level we’re already at. It emerges from the tension between who we are now and who we’re still trying to become. By attempting to create something larger than ourselves, a person begins to grow to that scale.

7. Creativity doesn’t have to be easy.

Every day you run into them. Lack of ideas. Loss of inspiration. A client who doesn’t understand your vision. A project that doesn’t pay on time. Doubts. Comparisons. Exhaustion.

It never stops.

But that’s not what causes the pain — what hurts is the resistance to the process.

Somewhere deep down you think: “I shouldn’t have to go through this. Creativity was supposed to be easy.” But that is exactly your opportunity to grow.

The faster you accept that problems are a natural part of the creative journey, the more calmly you’ll start moving through them. Because you’re a creator. You work with chaos, uncertainty, risk, and money that comes in unevenly. That’s not a flaw — it’s part of the game.

To be without challenges means to be without a living process. Your art is alive.

8. Maybe it’s actually working in your favor to stay unrealized?

Secondary gain is the unconscious benefit a person receives from their problem — from the problem itself, not from solving it.

If you’ve been talking for years about unrealized creative potential, you get sympathy, understanding, the status of “a person with big dreams” — and I recognize myself here. It’s pleasant and socially rewarding — and it’s completely safe, because as long as you’re “trying,” you can’t be blamed for failure.

But if you actually realize your potential, you lose that status. Instead of “an artist with a big future,” you become simply an artist — one whose work gets evaluated. And that’s an entirely different game.

9. Moving at your own pace, which is often no pace at all.

Moving in silence also creates a false sense of comfort. Everything feels comfortable when no one can see it, question it, or potentially demand more from you. It’s far easier to claim you’re working on something nobody can see. There’s no accountability, and you’re allowed to move at your own pace — which is often no pace at all.

10. A deeply uncomfortable paradox: the less you overthink everything, the more you create.

I’m serious. Studying all of this — both what I write myself and what I see around me — I can clearly see a pattern: people with a sufficient level of not-giving-a-damn and lightness achieve more than those who constantly think, analyze, and dig into themselves.

And because of that, the phrase “the world is unfair” starts to sound not even tragic, but funny.

Because it’s not a feeling — it’s an observable fact. And there’s no injustice in it. There’s only an error in what we consider valuable. People who overthink too much often want the world to pay them for the complexity of their inner life. But the world doesn’t pay for that. It pays for results that can be used.

Remember — choice is not only what we do, but also what we consciously choose not to do.

If this resonated with you and maybe even stung a little — I’m hugging you. You are ALREADY enough, and you have so much to say to the world through your art, right now🫂

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