Mark E Shellshear.

You must understand you do not have to paint a masterpiece every time you pick up the brush. So many Artists place themselves under so much pressure by doing this, because the fear in us wants us to never try and do anything challenging, different or outside the box, it wants us to be safe, quiet and average, so the best way to get you to do that is to tell you that you must make every painting a masterpiece. If you do that you will put yourself under so much pressure that you will become so discouraged at not being able to produce a masterpiece or the perfect painting, that you will eventually find every time you go to paint you will get painters block or the fear of the white canvas and you will stand and tell yourself, I don’t know what to paint? So never try to paint your masterpiece or the perfect painting, but make all your paintings over your lifetime your masterpiece, that’s your contribution to Art history and take the pressure off yourself. Be grateful that you a...

  Getting great ideas on how to market your Art is not the issue as we all have good ideas and we might believe in them, but the big challenge for many Artists is acting on those good ideas to make them a reality. Otherwise they are just good intentions, day dreams. Faith without works is dead. * . . * James 2:26.

When we take the time to take a look around, we see that most people are nice. Most people are kind and friendly. Most people are caring. Most people are generous. These are the correct character attributes, yes you may not get rich doing them, but you will grow a lot of good fruit on other people and be a wonderful blessing to them. When we help others, we help ourselves. When we love others, we are loving ourselves. Giving of ourselves, our time and our money is far more important than taking. Take a little time today to think about how you define true success for yourself? Give expecting nothing in return, that’s wisdom applied. Give and it shall be given to you. .

When things are going well and the Art sales are coming in, it is so easy to be positive and enthusiastic, but it is in the down times, the quiet times of slow sales, everything you do seems to be so hard that questions come up and you think it would be so easy to give up and you already have the excuses ready in your head, this is when it matters what you do. In difficult times, use this time to look for new opportunities in new places because how you react in these hard times often determines how long they last, opportunities are often wrapped in difficulty. Good times don’t last forever and bad times don’t last forever. Accumulate in the good times and look for new opportunities in the bad times. .

Fault finders and critical people say more about themselves when they find fault, than the people they find fault with and reveal more about their own character, than the people they criticise. People reveal their character and their inner flaws by their words. Negative influence is not good for you or your Art and will bring you down, learn to walk away, better run away from these people. Be wise in learning and realise that sometimes for the your own Art career and positive outlook, you just have to cut off some relationships. If every Artist would strive to be positive and encouraging and make the necessary personal changes for personal improvement, we would change our world. . *Mathew 12:34.

It is in these times, the seemingly endless times that opportunity comes and is usually disguised in difficulty, if we are ready to give up we will miss it, but if are determined to never give up then we will see the opportunity because we are looking for it not for a way out.   Giving up is never an option, it’s to easy to do, but if you need a couple of days off then do that, but don’t give up, what if tomorrow the breakthrough comes? You see life has taught me that this too shall pass, be it in a week from now or a month from now, it will turn around, day always follows night. .

Doing your Art is more important than waiting for a good idea or inspiration. If you truly believe you can do more, you will. If you truly believe you will accomplish your goals, you will work hard to see them become reality. You see if you do the challenging work, most times it will workout for you, but if you don’t do it, you are just be playing it safe and listening to the fear. Don’t hesitate and don’t run to that safe place, because that is not where the magic of creativity happens. To do magic you cannot hesitate, it is in your imagination where magic happens. Your are more creative than you can ever imagine. .