How to review your progress
When we gradually develop our skills in something like painting, it can be difficult to notice how much improvement we’re making.
Unless... we make an effort to take a step back and consciously review our progress.
Reviewing where you've improved is a really rewarding process, and understanding areas you still need to improve in will inform you on where to take your creative practice next in a way that’ll keep challenging you and helping you to grow.
You can choose to do this as often as you like, but Anna recommends you do this at least every ten paintings or every six months, whichever comes soonest.
It helps if you write the date on the back of your paintings or photograph them when they’re finished so your camera captures the date. Of course, if you’ve uploaded your paintings to the Nature Studio, you’ll be able to see the dates you uploaded them when you view the paintings from your profile page.
How to do it
Pick out a piece of work from when you first began painting, or from the time you last reviewed your work in this way, and place it next to your most recent painting.
Look at the two paintings side by side, step back a few paces, and score the following aspects with marks out of ten:
- The subject’s form - how realistic and 3D does it look?
- Brushwork - how realistic do the textures look?
- Brushwork - how neat and crisp are the subject’s edges?
- Colours - how vibrant are they?
- Your view - what’s your overall satisfaction with the painting?
It’s likely that your newest painting will score higher in most of these areas.
Note: Also consider the complexity of the painting
If you just moved up a 'level' with your painting, the complexity of the new one might have caused a drop back in scores in a few areas. So another thing to consider is the complexity of what you're able to tackle right now, even if it's not yet to the standard you're hoping for.
Any low scores will be really helpful pointers for areas to focus on developing in your next paintings, especially if there are any areas where your scores haven’t shown as much improvement.
Keep a note of these scores for next time. You might find that in the future, your overall satisfaction with an old painting decreases in score and this shows a development in your judgement and your creative eye, which is no bad thing.
You can do this exercise on your own, or if you have an art buddy then it’s a really fun thing to do together.
So why not give this exercise a go right now, or pop a note in your calendar to do it soon?