Paint like a musician

My wife is a musician (that's not her in the picture by the way!) and sometimes practices and works at a piece of music until she gets it right. Only then does she feel ready to let the general public hear it. All those wrong notes, all those pauses and mistakes while she perfects the piece go unnoticed and no-one ever knows that they happened. All the public hear is her performance piece - perfect in every way. So they imagine that she always plays like that. 
This is the normal way of things if you are a musician.

But if you paint, then every practice piece becomes something that people want to see. No-one would want to hear my wife practicing, but everybody wants to see what you have just painted! And when we are learning, (and we all are!), then we create lots of 'wrong notes' and 'pauses and mistakes' in our paintings. But there they are, preserved for all time and for everyone to see. We can't hide from them like a musician can.

My point is this: Don't worry about your bad paintings! They are a normal part of learning. We all have off days. We all paint badly at times. We all create paintings that are mostly OK but have this part or that part that ruin them. Don't worry! You are normal!
And don't feel the need to show anyone your bad paintings!  Even professional artists often only show a small percentage of what they create.  Treat them as points on the learning curve, analyse them and see what went wrong and where you can improve, and then hide them away! And then, when you create something you are really proud of, show it off! And everyone will think you are a great painter!
Paint like a musician and you will be free of the fear of the bad painting!

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