10K Hours

Baking cookies makes me very anxious. It is not easy for me.

I have a 10K Hour Rule.

It is a rule that I use to explain my experience. I have not baked cookies for 10K hours. If I had, I would be Christie’s competition (the cookie company, not the auction house). You might think that I am a little nuts…read on.

Not often do you perform a skill for the first time and the result is awesome. A natural. Gifted. You know the old saying, “practice makes perfect”? The more times you do something, the better the result.

Seldom are you that naturally gifted person to do something to perfection the first time. For most people it takes a lot of time and hard work, commonly described as effort, to achieve whatever that greatness may be. And do not get me started on “luck”. I do not believe in luck (except in a lottery and even then, it is really a matter of odds).

I have done my 10K hours of painting in watercolour. I think that I am pretty good at painting flowers and landscapes. I think I have a “style”. One clue is that the flowers look like flowers and the landscapes look like landscapes, (if it looks like bananas, it’s probably bananas, that is my motto). As for the cookies, call me if you need some pucks to shoot around on the ice!

Some of my paintings take hours and hours, ditto that. Others take a few minutes. But don’t be mislead. The ones that take only a few minutes and are successful paintings are supported by the many, many hours of painting. And believe me, not all paintings are successful. I do have paintings that did not work out, which I keep as a reminder.

When I demo, (short form for demonstrate in the art world), a painting, I am told by fellow artists, students and on-lookers that it looks so easy. I have no choice but to make it look easy. If you do something repeatedly, it should look easy to the audience because it is easy, i.e. 10K hours.

So, if you want to improve your painting skills, paint more. It is as easy as that. The more you paint, the better the painter you will become. Eventually, you will achieve these 10K hours. And anyway, what else do you have to do? Buy your cookies. Paint. Repeat. As someone said to me years ago, “it is a better use of time”.
Copyright © 2015

Heather Gallup

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