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Painting the ocean was a change for me. I live in the Midwest, so the view of waves coming in is not something that I see. The water that I paint does not have waves. We were visiting California, so I decided to change things up a bit by trying to capture the feeling I got when looking at the sparkling waves of the ocean water. This was a little change, but a change nonetheless.

I recently emailed someone the words that compose the title of this blog, “you do have a lot of choices, but they are adventures not necessities, so they should be fun”.  The words made me think that maybe I could make a blog out of it. You see, sometimes we get so caught up with thinking about all of the things that can go wrong, of all of the unknowns that might frighten us and we see the risks as scary that we forget to have fun while we go on the ride of life.

This person has had some new career changes presented to her. She doesn’t have to change jobs, but some new positions were presented to her as options. She is very talented in her career and she would be a wonderful addition to any group that she would choose to join. Since she doesn’t need to make a change, she has the luxury to explore, try new options and have some fun. Sounds like what artists go through, doesn’t it?

I think that all too often, artists would like to try something new, but that old fear of failure raises its ugly head and gets in the way. The “if only”, “how will I” and “what if” doubts start to invade their thoughts: what if the new technique doesn’t work, if only I would have started creating my artwork at a younger age, if only I had been accepted into galleries before the art market dropped, or what if my work isn’t considered to be good? You can waste time worrying about what might materialize or what might have been, or you can move on and make changes and have fun doing so.

Mentoring students was a common occurrence for me when I was teaching; for me, it went with the territory. One of the students that came to see me wanted to talk about a very poor choice she had made in her life some years before. She was beside herself in embarrassment and greatly regretted her choice. What could I say to help her? I told her that we all make mistakes…. that’s part of life. The choice in how she handles her mistakes was up to her, and only she could make it. She could worry about it, regret it and feel embarrassed, or she could move on. I told her that we can’t change our past, but we can change our future by the choices that we make. It seemed so obvious to me, but it was an epiphany to her. She couldn’t think clearly because the problem was her own. If she had listened to a friend describe her problem as their own, she would have seen the answer for herself. The look in her eyes was wonderful to see. I could tell that she got my point. Moving on, trying something new and daring to take the plunge of change hadn’t occurred to her. She was focused on her past. Why should she worry about what she couldn’t change? The past is the past. Instead, she needed to focus on what she might be able to alter in her life for the better. Of course she will make mistakes, we all do, but learning from our mistakes is our choice.

Sometimes you point out something that can really have a profound effect on someone, but you don’t realize it at the time. It happens often in teaching, however, you usually don’t find out that it has happened until years after the fact. This time I knew right away.

Are there some issues about your art career that are holding you back? Are you taking the chances that you can handle? Are you wishing for something different but are afraid to make the change? Make a list, if it helps, and write out the pros and cons of the choices that you need to make. Are you making excuses because of fear? Try looking at your choices as if a friend has your options to make. What would you tell them? Your choices may be easier than you think.

 Abstract bull’s-eye is definitely out of the box for me. This is the second pastel that I have created utilizing this technique, only this time I risked using wild colors. A lot of my blogs have to do with fighting the fear of trying new things.  Most of my students avoided risk-taking in the classroom. This was something that I constantly observed during my years of teaching. Many students seemed to want to do only what was tried and true. They shy away from the unknown. Teaching them how to face the unknown was an ongoing effort on my part. One of my students told me she wanted to know exactly what was going to be on the test so that she could study specifically for it. I was shocked. Life doesn’t spell out specifics! She didn’t like it when I told her that I couldn’t do that, since that would not help her in the long run. It was a chance for me to teach her a life skill instead of just guiding her to some facts to memorize. It’s what I call a teachable moment. She was not a risk-taker in regards to studying. She wanted to know exactly what would be on the test so that she would know what was needed to succeed. That would be like my not taking the risk of writing my children’s science books unless I knew what was needed to be a success at it. Doing new things, without the guarantee of success is the sign of an entrepreneur.

Risk-taking is something that you may inherit. The propensity to be propelled forward can also be learned. Just as a naturally negative person can teach himself or herself to be positive, so can naturally reticent people teach themselves to take chances. The form of the risks can vary greatly, however. Someone who takes risks, like that of a daredevil in sports may be very shy and so avoids the risks of public speaking. The person who takes on the gamble of the stock market with potentially high yielding investing may shy away from the risk of relocating to a far away place.  Deciding the areas of risk that you are willing to take on is part of the evaluation process of your career building.

How do you decide what areas you need to take risks? Only you know what you are willing to risk. Have you evaluated your goals? Some people suggest the sink or swim approach with no lifejacket when it comes to the risk of taking on a full-time art career. That may be a great motivation for some, but for other artists, they might never start a full-time career if they thought that the sink or swim approach was their only option. I have friends that have lost weight or stopped smoking that had to find their own way to do so. What worked for one didn’t work for all of them. Some people need the encouragement of others so they join groups for support. Some would rather do it all on their own. One process is not right compared to the other it is merely different. They all had to evaluated the risks and decide what were their best options.

I don’t think that you shouldn’t take a risk that may endanger your life. One of my watercolor workshop instructors made a point on his round brushes with his mouth. The cadmiums and cobalts in the paints finally killed him. He knew of the dangers, but he took them on at his own peril. As a physiologist I was appalled to see his flagrant disregard for his health [it also made me gag, because I was pregnant with my youngest son at the time]. Should you take the chance of not having any money from lack of sales, yet you need to pay for food and shelter? Only you can answer that. A budget is a necessity to follow for financial health, yet some take the risk not making one.

What is risky for you might not be risky for me, and visa versa. If you don’t self-evaluate, how can you expect to grow?  What are the risks that you are willing to take?

Wow…. it’s November already. My former students who were juniors last year are surprised how quickly the year is progressing. I had told them when they were freshmen and sophomore science students that the high school years would go by very quickly. It’s the same way that my summers fly by for me. When you live in a northern biome, you really treasure the summers. Well, unless you are like some of my former students who love snowmobiling and all of the other winter sports here in Wisconsin. I love the heat of summer and the long summer days that are full of light. One of our sons lives with his family in southern Texas, so we are hoping to enjoy some warm weather there this winter while it is cold in Wisconsin.

Grazing in the summer heat was created for the book that I am illustrating about grazing. The hot summer sun shining down on the grazing beef cattle, which caused them to shimmer in the heat waves, led me to the decision that I should do this piece with soft pastel in an impressionistic manner. Soft pastel techniques were what I was teaching myself at the time. Soft pastels could get the results that I wanted, at least I hoped they would.

It seems like I have always had to rely on myself to learn new things. When I first started teaching many years ago, I was coming into it without a degree in education. Our state had a shortage of substitute teachers, so the Department of Public Instruction had opened up certification for substitute positions to people who had Bachelor of Science degrees. After I became a long-term sub for a year in a local school district, the superintendent at that time, created a job for me as the in-house sub/tutor. Eventually, he asked me to be the biology teacher when the former biology teacher left for a different job. My undergraduate and graduate degrees were in science. Going through a certification program that year while teaching science netted me certification in general science, chemistry and biology. I became the biology teacher.

Almost every aspect of the job I had to calculate for myself. From setting up a grade book to creating lesson plans, everything depended upon my figuring it out. No one told me how to do anything. Just like my artwork, I was self-taught. It didn’t intimidate me, because I had been training myself in art for years, long before I started my teaching career. Self-reliance was my modus operandi.

When I started selling my artwork many years ago, I had to figure out a business plan for myself, as well. Never having had any marketing classes, or any other business classes, for that matter, I had to fall back on my prior experiences. Fear of failure should not keep you from attempting what you don’t know. Your inexperience should not be a hindrance to formulating new ideas.  

Now I am writing and illustrating children’s books about science in addition to producing fine art.  I am currently illustrating my fourth book and I am getting new ideas as I do so. Embracing the unknown can lead to a lot of diverse possibilities. Don’t be afraid of the results. Know that you may have to try and fail, many times before you can reach success. Perseverance pays off, so know that success of some sort will come. You will have to figure out for yourself how you will define that success.

My painting, Double delight, reflects how I feel. A chocolate dipped strawberry is just about as good as it gets for a double delight of flavor. My double delight for my love of painting and science are put together in the children’s books that I am writing and illustrating. I have never considered myself a writer, in fact, just the opposite. I have never felt like I explain very well what is in my mind, through writing. Fear of failure looms over me when I write. Now, I have just made one of my published books into an eBook. It is written and illustrated as if a young girl is explaining how her grandparents miss her very much because they live so far away. She sees them through visits by webcam and she thinks that they are trapped in their computer. My first granddaughter said a couple of things to me when we were visiting that inspired this book, Grandma and Grandpa are trapped in the computer! Although computer science wasn’t the science that I studied, I wanted to include it in my books on science.

Since poetry is a style of writing that I like, I decided to write my books in a rhyming format. Reading to my three boys, sometimes all three on my lap [well, actually they were on my lap and beside me] was something that I will always treasure. The rhyming books were their favorites as well as mine. Sometimes I would talk in rhyme long after I was finished reading a Dr. Seuss book!  I have had a passion for reading since before I can remember. My mom told me that I came home crying from kindergarten because they didn’t teach me how to read the first day! 

As I mentioned in my first blog, Combining art with other careers, I became a scientist then taught myself to paint while staying home with my three sons. When I started teaching high school science several years ago, I was shocked at how minimal the exposure of science seemed to be in the elementary grades in our school. I had students tell me at the beginning of each year that they hated science! I told them that I hoped to change their minds during their year with me. Science should be taught in a way that encourages students to explore and seek out facts to sate their curiosity. It should be the best class of the day! It was distressing to see how few students liked science. I grew up in an era when men tried and succeeded in walking on the moon. I heard planes fly over as they broke the sound barrier. Computers have evolved from being the size of a room to now being able to use on my phone [talk about a Dick Tracy moment!] Science is fun for me because it explains how things work. It explains about all of the wondrous things on our planet and beyond. How could students not find it fascinating? How was science being taught in the elementary grades that students were so turned off by it? Like a pyramid, students need a broad base of science knowledge when they are young, so they can build on those basic science skills as they proceed into the higher grades. They can get a broad base of knowledge if they are taught in ways that instill a love of learning instead of a loathing for it.

When my children were young I told them that their talents and abilities would be better than some people, worse than others and the same as the rest, depending on which talent or ability that they were examining. I also told them that they should learn what their strengths are, to know their weaknesses and to figure out what they love to do. That way, they could combine what they are good at with what they love to do and find a job that they would enjoy. My science students were also told this many times, as well. To get them to get away from their fear of science, I made science fun to learn. I tried to inspire them to try new things and not to be afraid of failure.

Now that I am no longer teaching in school, I want to teach through books and the Internet with eBooks. I have written about ten books about science, so far, and have illustrated and published two. I am almost finished with illustrating my third one, and I am sketching out ideas for the fourth.

There are so many topics to choose from in science, so where was I to start? Like writing these blogs, I just picked a topic and went with it. My bio 2 students really loved learning about the mammals that are the monotremes and marsupials because they are so different than us. Do you know what those mammals are and how they are different than us? My first science book about baffling, bizarre beasts is called, The Peculiar Platypus. I hope to soon be making an eBook of it. The next book for which I am finishing the illustrations is called, The Enchanting Echidna. If I can get children interested in learning more about a topic that I write about, then I am accomplishing my goal. I want them to have the desire to know more about it, whatever the “it” may be. These books will hopefully be a catalyst that will encourage them to love science. I want reading books to be a pleasure as well as informative, tapping into a child’s innate desire to learn.

I am having so much fun illustrating these books. The way I have illustrated them is totally different than how I paint my studio pieces. To create pictures that are extremely dissimilar from my studio work is an interesting challenge. If you have been following my blogs, you have discerned that I like trying new things. Controlling my fear of failure is an on-going process, but one that I gladly tackle. How can someone have artist’s block when something fascinating is always on the horizon?

As I told my children and students to evaluate their abilities, I have appraised my own. I have combined my double delight of science and art to create books that will hopefully create a spark in children that will ignite their love of learning.