Your Brain Is the Worst Art Critic (And What to Do About It)

You're listening to the Savvy Painter Podcast Episode 338. Hello, my friend, welcome to another episode of the Savvy Painter Podcast. I am your host, Antrese Wood, and if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, welcome back. If you're new here, welcome. Super happy that you have found me. Savvy Painter is the podcast for artists who want practical, tactical tips to create a meaningful art practice that is both fulfilling and supports you.

I'm just curious, have you ever had that experience where you finish a painting and you step back and immediately your brain goes, "Ugh, this is terrible," or worse, “What if people see this and think I have no idea what I'm doing?” Well, here's the thing, your brain, it's the worst art critic. It is not objective, it's not fair, and most of the time, it is straight-up wrong.

What got me thinking about this is I was coaching an artist recently and she was absolutely convinced that she had ruined her painting. I mean, she was ready to just toss it, call it a day, just this thing is toast, it's over, it's done, I have destroyed this painting. But when we dug in deeper, the real problem wasn't her art. It was the way that she was looking at it and that's what we're going to be talking about today; how your brain sabotages your perception of your own work and how to break free from that cycle so that you can talk about your art with clarity and confidence.

Because let's be real, if your inner voice is constantly telling you that your work is garbage, how are you supposed to talk about it in a way that actually connects people? If your inner voice is constantly telling you that your work isn't good enough, then of course, you're going to avoid talking about it with people. Why would you even want to do that? Why would you want to talk about something that your inner voice is constantly telling you, “It's garbage, it doesn't work, this isn't good enough. Nobody's going to like it”?

Of course, you're going to want to avoid that conversation. Why do we do this to ourselves? We do this because our brain is wired for negativity, and that is why your brain is a terrible judge of your work. Your brain's one job is to keep you safe, which means it is constantly scanning for what is wrong. You might look at your painting and see every awkward brushstroke and every moment of hesitation and every little thing that didn't quite come out right, like that color that looks muddy or that shape that's just weird or whatever it is.

Somebody else, they just see a painting. That's it. But the thing is because your brain is wired for negativity, and especially if you had experiences of being highly judged and criticized when you were younger, then imposter syndrome is definitely going to sneak in, which is like, “What if I'm not actually good at this? What if everybody is just being polite?” That used to be my favorite. I genuinely believe that, like, “Oh, they're just being nice.”

The thing is that if you believe that your work isn't worth talking about it, you're going to hesitate to share it. That hesitation is one of the things that keeps you stuck. I have this student in Growth Studio, she is amazing, but she was second-guessing her work. I think it was like six months ago in June, I feel like it was, she joined Growth Studio. You might recognize her name. This is Sabrina. She's been on the podcast before, a couple of months ago.

She wasn't sure if her mini paintings were valid. She wasn't convinced that the work she was doing was "legitimate art". The way she saw it was, "Ugh, these are just these little watercolors that I'm playing around with." But the thing is that she loved doing them.

Now, six months, seven months later, she entered her very first art show. Not only that, I mean, to me, that's a huge win and to me, I'm just jumping up and down and squealing inside for her, but not only that, she had the show and she was featured on the cover of the show, all the promotions, all of that stuff, that was her artwork that they used to promote the show and she was awarded first prize.

I mean, just amazing, right? The part of me that has watched her work so hard over these last couple of months on both her work and her mindset, I just go crazy inside of my head. I get so excited and I'm just beyond happy. But when she told us this story, what I thought was really funny was that even after all of that, even after submitting her work to the show, getting accepted into the show, being featured on the cover of all the show promotions, and getting awarded first prize, she called it surreal. She couldn't quite believe that it was real.

I think that's so interesting and also just how our brain is going to work. The lesson here is that recognition doesn't come before you put your work out there. It comes after, but first, you have to be willing to talk about your work. That surreal feeling that Sabrina was feeling, it's just the unconscious mind waking up from that old trance that says, "I'm not actually good at this," and stepping into this new awareness that says, “Oh, wait a minute. I am good at this. What was I thinking?”

Of course, it's going to feel surreal because you just woke up. Just throwing that out there in case this has ever happened to you. Let's talk a little bit about that link between self-doubt and talking about your work because your brain is very convincing. Again, it is really trying to protect you from anything that you might perceive as “dangerous” or you might perceive as something that is a “threat.”

If you are really resistant to experiencing the emotions of disappointment, of failure, of rejection, of whatever you might feel if somebody looks at your work and doesn't have the response that you wish that they would have, if that is something that you, in the back of your mind and your unconscious just cannot tolerate or just really see as a threat, then your brain will do everything it can to protect you from that.

One of the things it will do, a very, very effective tool that it will consistently use, is “Your work's not ready yet. Just keep working. It's not ready yet. Don't show it. It's not ready.” That hesitation is what keeps your work invisible. It creates this cycle. The cycle is this: You have this idea that your work isn't ready yet. You doubt your work, so you avoid talking about it, which means that people don't see it.

When people don't see it, that means that you don't get feedback, you don't get opportunities, you don't get sales. Then your brain takes all of that, “I'm feeling doubtful. I'm scared to talk about it. Nobody's seeing my work. Nobody's giving me feedback. Nobody's saying anything. I don't have any opportunities. Nobody's buying my work.” It's taking all of that and using that as proof that your work isn't good enough.

Very tricky, your brain. It's not just you. It's the human brain that we all have. It is looking for proof to validate the idea that you have and we accidentally give it to it. We hand it to our brain on a silver platter. Our brain is very, very good at collecting this stuff. Another one of the artists in Growth Studio, Elisabeth, almost talked herself into thinking that she wasn't a real artist anymore because she let go of her studio lease. I'm so proud of her for that.

These are the little things that just make me so excited to see somebody just instantly catch themselves and catch the trick that their brain is trying to play. She's like, “Wait a second. No, what's actually happening is I'm consolidating and focusing on what matters, on what's important to me.” With that, everything shifted. She created this beautiful space in her home and she works with so much more ease now.

It was just this little shift, just this letting go of an outside idea of what an artist should be like or should have or should look like. You know what? This happens all the time with artists in their work. They have this idea that I can't talk about this piece. It's not important enough. But what if your art is more ready than you think? What if your art is what's ready, but you are the one who's not? Think of it that way. It's interesting.

If that is true, if the art is ready, but you are not, what is it that you need to do to get yourself ready? That, it turns out, is much easier. It's a much easier question to answer. So, how do we override our brain's terrible critique? The critique that our brain has given us about the arts, how do we override it? Now that we see this problem, how do we fix it?

First thing is to recognize that self-doubt is not reality. Don't believe everything you think. The thought that this isn't good does not make it true. That is just a sentence in your head and it's doing its best—your brain is—to create some sort of meaning about this experience that you're having and it may just be that in that moment, there is another fear that's popping up and you're placing it on the art and the easiest thing is to say, “Well, this just isn't good.”

Now, this first step is all about doubting the thought rather than doubting yourself, doubting that sentence in your head rather than doubting who you are. Because even if you could objectively prove that the painting hasn't reached your vision, that is not a permanent state. That is a snapshot of where you are.

Let's just say for a second, let's just believe this idea that there is something about the painting that you see that you need you fix. Your brain offers you this big blanket statement of “This isn't good.” Well, “This isn't good” is really hard to work with. It's so open and vague and all-encompassing. After you recognize that that self-doubt that you're feeling is not reality and that these are just sentences in your head, the next thing you want to do is to separate the story from the facts.

Instead of “This painting is terrible,” or “This painting isn't good,” or “This painting is garbage,” as someone recently said, ask yourself, use some clarifying questions. Dig into that. What specifically isn't working for me in this painting that I'm working on? Answer that question, really dig into it, and force yourself to articulate what it is. Is it the edge? Is it the color? Is it the composition? Is it the values that you're using? Clarifying that way, then you have something that you could actually work on as opposed to “This whole painting is just terrible.”

Another clarifying question that I like to use is “What is one thing that I do like about this painting? What are some areas that I really love?” Both of these questions are going to help you suss out what it is that you want to create. That's the first two things that you can do when you have that experience of just that sensation, for some people, it's an actual thought of “This isn't good,” or “This sucks,” it makes me laugh when I say it because I never say things like that anymore, so now when I do, I'm just like, "Ew, that just feels weird. I just tried on somebody else's clothes and they don't look good." Sorry, just a little tangent there.

Those two things of A, recognizing that this is a sentence in your head and then asking yourself these clarifying questions so that you can get details that give you something that you can work with. Another piece of it is to practice talking about your work before you feel ready to talk about your work because confidence comes after action, not before.

Remember, there are two kinds of confidence. There's that feeling of just the confidence that rides on the experience of having done something that like, “Oh yeah, I know how to do that because I've done it a hundred times before.” There's that level of confidence. That comes after action, not before. Talking about your work before you feel ready is going to help you create that confidence and give you something to build your skills off of.

Because you don't know what pieces of talking about your work you need to work on until you talk about your work and then you assess how you did and you can go, “Oh, all right, I see. I need to have some stories that I tell people about my work or I need to work on how I introduce myself,” or anything like that. Again, notice that I'm breaking it down into small pieces that you can actually take action on. So, practice doing that before you feel ready.

Here's the key that I will give you is you can start doing that with small, low-stakes conversation. I wouldn't recommend that you practice talking about your work somewhere where you feel like not doing it well is going to have “expensive consequences.” If you talk about your work with your artist friends, with people in your community, or here's something I would highly recommend, start off writing about it yourself before sharing it publicly just in a journal and just start with something very low stakes, write something about your work, if you don't like it, if it doesn't feel right, nobody ever has to see it.

Then you can start practicing with your friends, with people in your community, and that is how you will build up that evidence that, "Oh, okay, I can do this," "Oh, this is how I feel comfortable talking about my work," and get support so that you don't spiral into overthinking. When you have that space to practice where people are actually listening, it changes everything. You want to be a little bit specific about who you choose to practice talking about your work with so that it feels like a safe environment.

Recently, I'll tell you another story. One of the artists in Growth Studio was tangled up in self-doubt about her work, her direction, and whether she was “doing it right.” What I did was I led her through a really quick self-hypnosis session, and actually, I brought all of Growth Studio in on it. She had this incredible moment where she was able to quiet all the noise and her gut gave her this answer and she said it was loud and clear and just so powerful, and that message, that answer was, “You can do this.”

I think it's a really interesting thing that when you're in that state and your gut is so powerfully clear, it truly lands in a way that we don't experience very often. Just imagine for a second, if you could talk about your work that way without all the mental gymnastics, without all the second guessing, just knowing in your gut exactly what you want to say and what feels authentic to you, that's what happens when you allow yourself to practice these skills and you tone down that critic that shows up in the studio, it frees up all of this mental energy and space in your brain, in your gut, in your body to notice what is working about your work, what you do love about your work, and to I know, I know, I know, but really, people do it.

I'm saying this already because I know every time the first time I say this to people, they just look at me like, "I'll have what she's having. I don't know what you're doing over there, but..." What I mean is loving your work, truly loving your work. Here's the thing, your brain might be a terrible art critic, but you do not have to let that part of your brain, that message, that thought, that little blip on the radar run your show.

Learning to talk about your work is a skill and just like painting, it is something that you can practice. Something I'm working on right now, I don't even have a name for it yet, but at the moment I'm just calling it the very repetitive “Talk about your work” workshop. I might give it a better name, I might not. I don't know yet, but I'm designing this workshop that I think is going to be so much fun where I will give you real tools to explain your art in a way that feels very natural, no jargon, no awkwardness, just clarity and confidence, and we'll have lots of space for you to practice.

If you've ever had that experience where you just freeze when someone asks, “So what's this work about?” then you might want to consider this workshop. If it sounds interesting to you, I will put a link to the show notes. You will get on the waitlist. It will be a live class and it will be late March, early April is about the time range that I am thinking of doing it.

Of course, more details will be coming as I have them. But if this resonates with you at all, go ahead and sign up on that waitlist because seriously, your art deserves to be seen and you deserve to feel good about talking about it. It impacts everything. That's what I have for you today. Hope you have a wonderful week and I will talk to you soon.

If you want to take what you are learning here on the Savvy Painter Podcast even further, join us in Growth Studio. Growth Studio is a unique community of artists. We meet multiple times a week for live coaching, critiques, and demos. Just go to savvypainter.com/join.