Self-Development Through Art

SAM GUAY creates a poem-inspired painting and tells us why self-evaluation is an important part of her process with personal projects

Over the past few years I’ve been fortunate enough to spend my time focusing on my personal work – whether it be my tarot project, gallery art, or things that are just for fun. With each piece I create, I set goals for myself, experiment, and evaluate my piece when I’m done. Though these things aren’t obvious when you look at my final paintings I consider them just as important to my process as the technical part.

Setting goals for my work, such as drawing a challenging subject or working with unusual colours, gives me a gauge for the success of my piece. By evaluating my own work I can document my growth, think critically about my choices, and maintain a healthier relationship with my work. If I’m happy with a piece I can identify why that is – I don’t need to rely on social media for any validation. Often I’ll feel frustrated with a piece, so instead of dismissing it and considering myself a failure, writing about my art gives me a better perspective and forces me to answer why it’s not working and what I can do to create paintings I’m happier with. Plus, if I do consider my piece unsuccessful, at least I’ve learned from the experience and can plot the next steps forward.

Choosing something small to experiment with in each painting enables me to slowly integrate new techniques instead of making a drastic change in my work. I don’t paint on my original line-work, I scan the line-work and print it onto watercolour paper. The benefit of this is that if an experiment goes wrong and I need to start over, I don’t have to draw the entire piece again. This time I experimented with using SpectraFix, and it worked out for me.