Overcoming My Fear of Painting Rocks

'On the Rocks'         18x6       pastel       ©Karen Margulis
available $150

Just like trees I avoided painting rocks. It is funny how we sometimes avoid the thing that we struggle with instead of doubling down and making an effort to improve. Sometimes the struggle isn't even real....it is something in our head, something we told ourselves we couldn't do. Then we start to believe it and it becomes a reality.

For me it began with my first pastel classes and workshops. The instructors excelled at landscapes and trees and rocks in particular. I would look at my own poor renditions and would be frustrated. I had much more success with flowers. So I convinced myself that I was a flower person and trees and rocks were beyond my reach.

It took years but my trees gradually started to improve. Much of this came about because I was learning things such as not having spotty values and how to make green more interesting and how to create depth. Mastering basic art concepts definitely helped. And that takes time. It also takes practice. I painted every day so these concepts became intuitive and I became a more confident painter. I started to apply what I did well with flowers to my trees. But I still avoided rocks!

I had to convince myself that I COULD paint rocks if I wanted to. I simply had to observe them carefully and apply what I have learned over the years. I had to remind myself that rocks were like flowers.....shapes of color and value and edges.....If I could paint a flower I could paint a rock!

A close up of my rocks