5 Lessons Learned from Teaching Watercolor for a year

It all started when I said yes to collaborating with Lauren Hudson on our upcoming women's, wine, and Tuscany trip. I knew watercolor painting needed to be part of the well-being curriculum I’d be sharing. Creativity is critical for well-being, play, sparking a flow state, stress reduction, and so much more. Around that time, I also began sharing my work at the local farmers' market, selling cards and prints. When I shared my work, people often asked me if I taught watercolor too. At first, I was reluctant. I thought, “I’m not a teacher. My sister is a teacher.” Ann taught science and math to 6th and 7th graders. To me, teaching is god’s work I'm just playing with paint.

Plus teaching is hard! It’s hard to break down something complex into steps that others can follow, or into small enough steps that it becomes a process or a map that others use to learn and I wasn't sure I could do that. The idea of teaching watercolor was terrifying to me. Plus, I knew I had the best watercolor teacher ever (S. Larson Watercolors), and Sharon is an incredible teacher, so who the heck was I to teach?

But if I’ve learned anything from teaching yoga, it’s that teaching makes you a better student of whatever you're teaching. The more I teach yoga, the more I understand it and see its importance. If I try to see the subject through the eyes of my students, I can continue to have beginner insights. I hoped that might also be true for teaching watercolor.

And there was something else, I knew I was afraid to teach watercolor. What if I was horrible at it, what if I failed...? But I wrote a book on failure and I know that if there's something I'm afraid to do that is a blinking green light telling me I have to try. It means there's a big ole growth edge for me to play with. So I started with a small semi-private yoga class at my house.

Now, I’ve been teaching a watercolor class on Tuesday nights at my home for the last year. It started as an experiment but has become something more. Teaching is making me a better watercolor artist, a better life coach, and a better teacher in general.

Here are five lessons or observations I’ve made from spending a year teaching watercolor that also apply to life:

1) The thing you dislike most about your painting is normally the most beautiful or interesting part of your piece: Much to my dismay, students will talk about what they don’t like about their work, and in a disparaging way. When they do, I observe that what they don’t like is often the most beautiful part; it’s what makes their piece unique and interesting.

2) Process over outcome: Painting, and all art making, is about the process, and if you paint for the love of the process, you will never have a bad class. You might not be in love with what you paint (I’m not in love with everything I paint either). Each painting is its own journey. Just like life, it is about the journey, not the destination. paint for the love of the process. This is a gigantic life lesson, too. Never take the job for just the money, fame, or some other arbitrary outcome. Never sacrifice too long doing something you don’t enjoy the process of. We know life is about the journey, not the destination, so you had better enjoy the ride along the way. No outcome is promised.

3) Shadows are everything. Without shadows, you can't have a beautiful painting (or a beautiful life): The right shadow will make or break a painting. In life, we tend to think of shadows as negative but remember that, like in watercolor, as in life, you can't have light without shadows. In life, each of us has a shadow side. We often hide from our shadows or hide our shadows from our loved ones for as long as we can or worse, we pretend they aren't there, or we can’t see them at all. In watercolor painting, shadows create contrast, and contrast is beautiful. When you can embrace yourself, shadows, and all, you’re embracing a more beautiful part of yourself.

4) Watercolor pieces always look different the next day: Always sleep on it before deciding whether a piece is done. You can always add more details later. In life, we can’t always sleep on our decisions, but if we can, it will give us more margin to correct errors, add essential details, or let a piece be if it’s done.

5) Always be practicing: Becoming "good,” “great,” or proficient at anything takes time and an investment of practice. The idea that someone is born with a talent for making art is a complete myth. If you want to increase your proficiency in anything, you must practice, and if you have a love of the playful process, you can increase your proficiency and maybe become great. Because I loved the process, I spent over a year doing a watercolor class twice a week, and then I started painting almost every day. The more I paint, the more I like my pieces. The more I paint, the more I learn. I've now clocked hundreds of hours painting. It’s all just practice.