In our modern Western culture, there’s a heavy emphasis on success—and success only means “getting it right” (sometimes “getting it right the first time”), “making it big,” and the general sense of a report card showing “all A’s.”
This isn’t normal. It isn’t how human beings live, function, and grow—and it certainly isn’t humane to hold ourselves or others to such standards.
And for art, it’s deadly.
The Homeschool Art Club is a community of life-long art students coming together to practice the skills of drawing creatively and from imagination. All skill levels are welcome—jump and experience the joy of drawing!
Failure Isn’t Final
Failure, mistakes, and the occasional “swing and a miss” are all signs of growth.
The only way to avoid the discomfort of these societally-conditioned “negative” moments is to not try. Do nothing. Stay stuck in a rut. Never leave your comfort zone.
It is impossible to make art (or do anything creative) under those conditions.
Art lives on the edge—and sometimes over it. It develops through failures and “mistakes.” Even when you know what you’re doing and can do it well, every work you’ll ever make teeters on the brink.
Every artwork begins with a blank page—and a blank page can end up anywhere.
Reframing the Negative
One of Bob Ross’s most enduring legacies is the catchphrase, “Happy little accidents,” which you can hear in conversations even outside the context of art-making. It’s in the culture.
Part of the power of that phrase is that it re-frames a negative. Instead of a “mistake,” it becomes an opportunity for creativity. How can I incorporate this “accident” into my painting, find the positive in it, and make it a “happy” thing?
My mom, a knitting teacher, had a similar phrase for the same situation. She called them “design elements.”
Here are some other possible ways to reframe our perceptions:
In a culture that has been captured by all-or-nothing thinking about success and failure, it’s very important—especially for creative people—to continually renew our minds to this kind of positive (and more accurate) thinking.
What are your negative thoughts about success or failure? How can you flip it around? What positive thoughts do you want to replace that with?
Celebratory Moments
One of the things I’ve struggled with the most regarding success and failure is simply recognizing success when it happens. I’m one of those creatives who’s always chock-full of ideas—which has pros and cons like anything else. With so many ideas, I tend to either get distracted, ditching a current project to chase after a shiny new idea, or I finish with the latest thing and go haring after the next with hardly a breath in between.
And I get discouraged easily.
One of my favorite productivity books is called Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything, which I found out about in a podcast interview with the author, Dr. BJ Fogg. One of my biggest takeaways from the book (and interview) was his concept of the celebratory moment.
Fogg found in his research that one of the most significant factors in the establishment of a habit is not time, not effort, but the emotion we attach to it. Six months of doing something with negative emotions is not enough to make it a habit, yet he found doing something once with a positive emotion could be enough to form a lasting habit.
My big AHA! moment when I learned this concept was the realization that I wasn’t taking note of any form of success, big or small.
No wonder why I got discouraged! No wonder why I’d quit before I finished! No wonder why new ideas were so much more alluring. No wonder why I felt so down even though I was trying, learning, and growing.
Stop and Smell the Flowers
Regularly taking stock of tiny wins, all the way up to recognizing major milestones, has transformed my life and my creativity. I can’t recommend it enough!
It’s something I wish I’d learned as a kid and grown up with, and I take every opportunity to advocate to parents: Start now! Teach your kids how to find the positive in every failure, how to celebrate even tiny steps forward—and that even those tiny steps are worthy of being celebrated.
This is one reason why I love teaching drawing to kids.
It’s impossible not to experience failure when you’re learning to draw—and you can’t get around it. It doesn’t matter how many people say it’s fine, either. You know when you missed the mark. And unlike learning music or sports, drawings don’t evaporate into memory—the paper persists, and the failure lingers.
In order to keep going, you’ve got to face the failure and learn how to deal with it.
Drawing is a relatively gentle way to teach this important life skill, which builds character and emotional resilience. Not everyone needs to be an artist, but I do think everyone would benefit from learning how to draw—if only for this reason.
Social media is a big factor in this warped perception of success/failure, and it’s a part of the mental health crisis that social media addictions are becoming linked to. These mental health problems particularly affect young people, and contribute to youth suicide.
And it’s not enough to leave or limit social media. These trained thought patterns stay with you.
The hit Christian single “Somebody to You” by Rachael Lampa speaks to this issue. “They say you’re only as good as your last success/And failure’s not an option…” I’ve been hearing this song everywhere, including on secular playlists and in public places—which is a testimony both to its powerful message, and to the widespread impact of the problem it’s addressing.
More than ever, we need habits and pastimes that help us stay positive, renew our minds, and keep our thoughts aligned with reality.
For me, it’s drawing. What do you do to keep your thoughts on track?
Milestone Moments at the HAC
There’s always something more to do, to learn, to grow in. Taking the time to recognize and be grateful for how far you’ve come gives you the energy boost to keep on going.
I achieved a big milestone this past Monday here at the Homeschool Art Club. Thank you so much, to all of my subscribers, for helping make this vision a reality!
I started the HAC last year in February 2023. And I bit off more than I could chew. I was burned out by April and my posts petered out in mid-May. Month after month stretched on with no new posts.
But was it a failure?
Yes, in the sense that I didn’t do what I intended, which was to post twice a week continuously. But no—because I learned and grew a lot. And I made things—27 posts worth—that are individually successful. I’m still linking back to them, sharing them, building on them, and excited about their concepts. I made things with lasting value.
Focusing on the negative—that I stopped posting for a little while—takes away from all the good. Truly, there was so much more good happening than that one little “bad” thing. I tried something new. I pushed myself beyond what I had previously thought possible. I grew, as both a person and an artist.
“Quitting is fundamentally different from stopping. The latter happens all the time. Quitting happens once. Quitting means not starting again—and art is all about starting again.”
—Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
by David Bayles and Ted Orland
Read that again:
Art is all about starting again.
I had some personal things to work through—and I’m glad to report major milestones there, too—but mostly I just needed to pause and percolate a bit on all the things I learned last spring. Sit on the compost heap for a bit, until the new thing, the new iteration or version, could grow and flourish.
This week I am celebrating my 12th post in 12 consecutive weeks, plus a couple bonus posts. One post per week. The posts are crisper, more focused on a single concept.
And I’m not burned out. In fact, I’m stoked. I can’t wait to show you all the next iteration of this cycle of drawing drills—and more!
FYI and ICYMI:
The drawing drills have all been posted to a sub-section of the HAC Substack called Daily Draw. This’ll make it easier to find on the website, and it also allows you to manage your subscription preferences.
Just go to https://marksbymallory.substack.com/account and toggle notifications on/off to suit your needs.
I don’t want to be spam! This option will help you customize your experience at the HAC, and receive only the emails you’re interested in. You can always return to your Account to change your preferences at any time.
Exorcise the “But”
Posting consistently for a whole quarter is a big milestone. But it’s important to recognize the small ones also—and in my experience, the small ones usually have a bigger impact over time. (Even the ones that seem laughably tiny!)
Some of mine from this past quarter:
Learned how to make PNGs with transparent backgrounds
Made a 2-minute video and learned how to do a voiceover!
Drew a page of drawing drills every day for a week
Learned (and verified experientially) that I really enjoy drawing with brown fountain pen ink
Started writing stories that require greater vulnerability
Some of those are really small; some are seeds planted that aren’t even bearing fruit yet. All of them are successes in their way.
And each and every one of them—if I let it—would have at least one “but” following after it.
Learned how to make PNGs with transparent backgrounds—but those ones in that last post sucked.
Made a 2-minute video and learned how to do a voiceover!—but only one video. And it was only two minutes. And it doesn’t have music in it.
Drew a page of drawing drills every day for a week—but what about all those days I missed?
Learned (and verified experientially) that I really enjoy drawing with brown fountain pen ink—but I didn’t get around to any of the drawings I really wanted to do…
Started writing stories that require greater vulnerability—but I didn’t finish any, so I don’t have anything to show for it…
The negative voice is the real agent of failure. At times, it’s prevented me from recognizing success, feeling successful even when I do see it, and pressing on to the finish. In other words, it creates failure where there wasn’t any.
Your turn!
We’re halfway through the year—if you can believe it—and it’s a great time to pause and reflect.
What have you learned?
Where have you grown?
What have you enjoyed?
What have you started?
I find it helps to write out the whole thing. Answer these questions, and write down all the nasty little “but” statements that follow after.
Then draw a line through each “but” statement. The positive part at the beginning is your success!
Acknowledge and celebrate those milestones—no matter how tiny they may seem to you. They’re worth it. You are worthy of it.
Then ask yourself:
What have you failed at?
What is something good about that failure?
Turn the “but” statements on their heads. “I failed at this, but…” And notice the good things that happened or came out of the experience. Meditating on these good things will teach you how to celebrate those failures!
And find someone to share these with who will celebrate with you. I know I didn’t feel half as great about some of my accomplishments until I got that high-five from my dad!
P.S. The HAC is returning to Locals!
Locals is a community-based platform where I can provide a variety of content in a feed, form playlists, and engage with supporters directly.
Locals has several things in common with Substack, but it has a lot of different features and ways to share drawings with you, including livestreams, more video support, and the ability to share PDF attachments. I’m excited to explore some of these additional options in the future!
If you’re already on the platform or are interested in checking it out, become a free member of the HAC Locals community to follow my shenanigans over there. You’ll be able to view all free content as a Member, or you can become a Supporter.