Five Things More Important Than Natural Ability?

Talent is a magical entity that you have to be born with. You either have it or you don’t. Talented people pick up things quickly, sometimes even effortlessly.

Those of us who have it are truly blessed from above, destined for success. Those of us who don’t can forget it. They will never have it, end of story. They will simply have to find something else to do.

That’s what I was told anyway.

With that in mind, you can imagine my disappointment when my teachers at school informed me that when it came to art I was to be firmly placed in the non-talented category and that I should not continue. The case was closed. The art of drawing was not for me.

This was highly distressing. I loved to draw. At the time, it was pretty much all I did enjoy.

Luckily for me though, what I did have going for me was a stubborn determination to dig in my heels and refuse to take the very definite no that I had been given as an answer.

Now, at this stage it is worth pointing out that it was indeed true that I didn’t possess any noticeable talent for art.

In other words, I wasn’t very good.

Everything I did was very tight. Nothing flowed. Still, when I drew or even thought about art it completely consumed me in a way that no other subject at school did.

I just knew that this was something that I had to continue with even though my argument seemed to be lost on the authority figures that resided within the art department at my school.

In fact, when at one point my art teacher appealed to the head of the school to put a stop to me choosing Art as one of my specialist subjects, I had to write a letter pleading my case to the head of the art department asking him to reconsider.

Eventually they were forced to relent and I was reluctantly allowed to continue my studies in art & design.

Ironically, I ended up being the only student in my school year to go on to art school.

Now, of course it is not for me to say “how stupid it was of them to attempt to deny me the chance to study art when it turns out that I’m absolutely brilliant at it?”

I know that I’m not.

My work has its flaws and there are countless others out there that have done, are doing and will do better than me in the creative world.

And yet, I’ve made it work.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with clients such as Timex, Funny or Die and Hilton Worldwide. I have exhibited in many different countries, my work sells and I’ve made a career out of the creative industry.

Now, if we acknowledge that my art teachers were originally correct in their initial estimation of my artistic abilities then the question is how did I manage to make a go of it anyway?

This is the part that interests because as an artist who originally showed no visible talent there must have been other qualities that I was able to put to good use.

I’ve thought about this for a while and here are my findings:

1. Enthusiasm

Drawing rarely felt like work. On the contrary, I found it relaxing and therapeutic.  Enthusiasm for art didn’t just ensure that I was prolific with my own work, I would also happily spend hours researching other people’s work in order to learn and seek out further inspiration.

I rarely had to motivate myself to do it. In fact, I found myself being pulled towards it.

2. A Desire to Improve

I was never content with the standard of work that I was producing. If I produced a drawing that I felt didn’t show a certain amount of progress when compared with the last one then I find that extremely frustrating.

Over time I began to see a lot of improvement. In a lot of ways, talent really just means the amount of time that it takes to master something. A person with a large amount of natural talent may pick something up really quickly where another may take ten times the amount of time to learn the same skill. But it can be learned.

3. Dedication

I would do what I knew I needed to and not what I felt like doing. That would mean giving up a huge chunk of my free time in order to improve.

I also had to be prepared to focus on what I was weak at. I wasn’t that bad at producing architectural drawings and seemed to have a basic understanding of perspective but when it came to drawing the human figure I really was god awful.  It was uncomfortable to focus on my weaknesses but it was crucial that I did so.

4. Patience

I touched on this in another recent post. It was not always apparent that I was making much progress in all of this. I kept drawing away trying to improve and still my art teachers would shake their heads.

I remember one particular moment where I was attempting to draw a vase of flowers and probably failing really badly. My teacher saw what I’d produced and asked if she could have it for a moment and off she walked towards the head of the department. I initially thought that this was great as I’d seen her do this before with other students where she would show the piece of artwork to the head teacher so he could marvel at the beauty of it.

However, it quickly became clear that this was not the case with me as I could tell from across the room that this was a very different sort of conversation. She was holding my drawing up with a kind of frowning expression whilst the head teacher shook his head and made protesting like gestures with his hands. I’d clearly have to try a little harder to win this lot over.

5. Love

Alright, so this one may seem a little airy-fairy.

However, I think that it’s relevant as if you don’t have a natural love for something then you’re going to struggle to stand out. the reason that you’ll struggle is that there are too many people that do love it. Those that love what they do will rarely struggle to put the extra hours in or ignore how close it is to 5 o’clock.

Having a natural love for drawing sustained me through all the different disappointments and early struggles.

Without a natural love for drawing I would have found it almost impossible to go that extra mile.

The Problem with Judging a Person on Natural Talent Alone

When you judge a person based on natural talent alone you run the risk of completely ignoring whether or not the person in question actually wants to do this in the long term, short term or even the present.

As discussed there is so much more required for success than a natural ability.

You should never assume that it is a certainty that potential, however promising, will necessarily be fulfilled.

One Last Thing

School was almost twenty years ago now. The teachers I have spoken of are most likely retired and probably wouldn’t even recognize me if I passed them in the street.

In other words, it really is time to forget it. However there is one thing left over from that period that I should probably touch upon.

In hindsight, my determination to prove them wrong and eventually get their approval probably led me to focus on the wrong things a little. I got hung up on what quality was meant to be and what others thought. I wanted to be an artist and to be seen as one. I was always constantly on the lookout for approval and validation.

The fact of the matter is that you’re an artist every day you choose to pick up a pencil and open your sketchbook. If you love drawing then that is the reason for doing it. Don’t get too hung up on the quality of what you’re doing and whether you are getting approval from other whether it is the amount of likes you get on facebook or the amount of followers for you get on instagram.

Just keep the pencil moving.