The day you became a painter (learner)

I was going to a painting course when I was kid. I loved the smell of oil paint, the texture, and the visual manipulation that can be created through it.

I was fascinated with painting natural scenes, and I was heavily influenced by Bob Ross. He taught young painters to work in layers. Lay down the background first, add mountains on top of it, add trees, grass, maybe a small house over there, and come closer to the viewer step by step. This layered approach was important for me, but the thing I was most fascinated with was his approach toward creating a smooth background. There were no limitations while painting the background, and I remember that I had a tremendous amount of joy spending my course hours building the background and mixing sky colors smoothly.

My mother was picking me up after the course. One day, my teacher was talking with my mother, and she mentioned that she was criticizing drawing teachers and their methodologies as she thought one of the worst ways to teach someone how to draw was to give them a painting book. I still remember what she said.

Painting books, or drawing books, already provide the main lines in which the painter should paint. It creates a nice visual with the sacrifice of killing creativity. 

After her comment, I closely checked my environment for my friends who loved painting and drawing. My friends who got used to painting books were never able to draw a realistic figure by themselves. On the contrary, my friends who were drawing by themselves on a blank paper progressively got better, and eventually took important steps to build their own style.

I think this short anecdote is a good analogy of contemporary approaches to learning. Making a student learn does not occur through giving a well-prepared context or a structure to be memorized. People learn by staring at blank pages and trying to figure out their own path by themselves.

Whenever you were given a painting book and a blank page in life:

Understand that the painting book may look better.

But pick the blank page and move on.