Has this question ever occurred to you? It seems weird at first, but I’ll tell you why you should absolutely hang a portrait of a stranger in your home. Portraits are more than an image of a person. They are always pieces of interpretation, of expression. When I painted “Girl in Colour”, I didn’t know who she was, I had never met her. All I knew of her was what I could see on the reference picture I found online: a beautiful girl sat in front of a cityscape, smiling over her shoulder into my soul.

5 quick mindfulness tips my therapist recommended to deal with feelings of overwhelm, pressure, anxiety and stress. These can easily be incorporated into your routine without taking up any extra time.

A while ago I bought Elizabeth Gilbert's "Big Magic", a book that is all about living a creative life beyond fear. I have never started reading it, partly - funnily enough - out of fear that it won't help me overcome my creative fears. The irony. So, I pushed it away and forgot about it. Until I picked it up again recently.

I would like to present to you a little excerpt where Gilbert lists a bunch of the fears that most of us encounter the moment we start flirting with the idea of leading a more creative life.

You're afraid you have no talent.

You're afraid you'll be rejected or criticised or ridiculed or misunderstood or - worst of all - ignored.

If I sit down to create a piece with the mindset of “This needs to be a masterpiece”, it will never become one. Perhaps from the pressure, perhaps from the expectation, perhaps because I am simply not there yet. And there is nothing wrong with that!

Mastering a skill takes time. It takes practice. And it’s a never-ending journey. There is not one point where you are finished. There are always more turns, more developments, more skills to be uncovered.

Recently, I have been feeling out of touch with painting a lot. I didn’t seem to have much spare time and all the spare time that I did have I really did not feel inspired to paint. However, yesterday, I had a few hours free and I felt like it might be good to just do it. Just get back into it. So, I thought, acrylics might be a good way to get my groove back.

Wrong.

I hate the painting.

Any creative will know this feeling. That lingering question: Am I allowed to call myself an artist? Am I “artsy” enough? Or am I just pretending to be, selling myself as something that I am not and, therefore, taking up someone else’s space that deserves it way more than me?