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When I try something new in art, I set targets for myself.  Always doing that in everything that I have tackled in my life has been my modus operandi. A friend of mine once told me that she was supposed to be mentoring students about setting goals, but she said that she never sets goals for herself, so she felt out of her element. That surprised me. Like I said before, you think people are just like you until proven otherwise. I have always set specific goals so that I have particular target to strive for. Everyone can hit targets to some degree. Breaking the pathways to my goals into reasonable steps lets me reach my goals without as much frustration. The hardest part is in setting realistic objectives for myself.

A long time ago when I was subbing in various school districts, I had a student tell me that he always set low goals so that they would be easy to reach and realize.  Disagreeing with him, I told him that if you don’t shoot for the stars, you’ll never reach the moon, and that it’s best to strive for something out of reach so that you really push yourself. It’s true, I do shoot for the stars, but I stop at a lot of planets along the way. If I set a goal too high, I can just end up frustrating myself.  Plus, I need to break down my goals into attainable steps. Little successes lead to larger successes. Just like when I taught science to my former students, I have to know what I want to accomplish and then figure out how I am going to do it.  Analysis. I guess my science training does come in handy sometimes. All of my science students would hit the targets that I set to some degree. I put my efforts of reaching my goals into similar pathways.

When I first started painting trompe l’oeil techniques, I started by painting small paintings with very few images displayed. I tried various images in simple layouts to learn how to create them. It’s not that I prefer a complicated layout to a simple one, it’s just that attempting a complex arrangement would have seemed insurmountable to me until I had some success in creating smaller designs. If you compare this trompe l’oeil painting of a photo of martini olives with the trompe l’oeil piece on the homepage on my FASO website called “The Bird Cupboard” you can compare how I have progressed to a more complicated design. Could I have tackled “The Bird Cupboard” when I was trying out this new technique? Probably, but I also might have given up right away! There were just too many images that I was portraying in “The Bird Cupboard” for a beginner to the technique to attempt without frustration, at least for me. Various feathers, eggs [there used to be two], photos, a door, a drawer with a label, knobs, tape, a plastic bag, a chalkboard hanging by wire, writing in chalk, a piece of chalk balancing on the frame and a torn page from a note pad would have been overwhelming to someone new to the technique of trompe l’oeil. “The Bird Cupboard” was painted on a flat board, so I had to make the drawer look opened and the frame look like it protruded, as well. Smaller paintings with simpler designs allowed me the little successes of understanding the technique that led to my creation of this larger piece. A few years ago, this piece was selected by jury for the prestigious international show, Birds in Art, at the Woodson Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin.

Have you analyzed your art career and set targets? Are your targets attainable, yet something that makes you really push yourself?  Have you analyzed the goals for your career so that you can have little success that will lead to larger ones?  Everyone can hit targets to some degree. What are your targets?