Dealing With My External and Internal Critics

I watched with interest the infamous Logan Paul drama after he posted a Youtube video of him and his crew stumbled upon a corpse of a man who committed suicide at Aokigahara Forest, Japan. Someone on Facebook posted that video on her feed and I watched it. Prior to that video I never heard of Logan Paul and had no idea who he was. However, Logan was heavily criticized due to its viewers deeming it offensive and disrespectful towards the deceased and his family.

I was shocked when I watched it because I thought it was just a joke but apparently it was not. They even filmed the corpse up close (with the face blurred out). Maybe it was just their nervous reactions of stumbling upon it but they did laugh as if it was a big prank. It was disgusting. I agree with all those criticisms he received. Logan was foolish to post that insensitive video. It has been deleted though and YouTube even issued an apology. Logan wrote a written apology and made a video to apologize. You can watch it below.

So what does this has to do with my painting?

Criticism and dealing with it.

As an artist, there will always someone out there who won't like my art. When I share my art on social medias like Steemit, anyone can give their opinion. I can't avoid that because it's fair game out there. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion. It could be positive or negative and I can't please everyone. Some people will like what I do, some don't. I had people commented to me that they dislike my art, said it's tacky and tasteless. It hurts of course but it's just their opinions. If you don't like it, move along to the things you like, don't waste your time on me.

Personally, I think external critics are easy to deal with. I am an avoider by nature and I am VERY GOOD at ignoring people. So if I receive negative comments, I just ignore them and not respond. But what about my inner critic? How do I ignore my inner critic? How can I ignore myself?

"You are your own worst critic."

That's true. I can be hypercritical on myself. I would over analyze a so-called bad painting to the point that I want to re-do the same piece and get it "perfect". Sometimes I draw an artwork and I couldn't get it right so I re-do it over and over again. This is especially true for watercolor paintings because watercolor is an unpredictable medium. You can't really control the outcome. And being a hypercritical person this is very frustrating.

However as I learned to use it more and more in my work, I finally accept that there are things that I can't control, even my own artwork. I have to trust the medium to do the magic for me. And most of the time I am often surprised with the outcome. Even when it is messy it is still a beautiful mess, imperfect and original.

And sometimes people would come to me and said that messy art is stunning and breathtaking. Seriously?

As someone who has a dominant defectiveness schema, I find it's hard to take such compliments. But overanalyzing the compliments I am actually jeopardizing myself. What kind of vibes am I sending out to people? That I am undeserving of any compliments for creating something I am passionate about? Why am I betraying myself?

As I grow older I learned to be kinder to myself. I don't listen much to my inner critic anymore and in return, I become less critical of myself and others.

The painting

Though the woman in this painting is not me but her actions - holding her head and screaming in frustration - show how I would react when dealing with my inner critics.

Medium: watercolor on paper

Here are the progress photos...