Feeling a bit unaccomplished after going to gallery opening..

I think you should do things for you……if you’re interested in painting then paint.Set up your paints ,brushes etc and keep having a go.If you’re stuck for ideas there are loads on Utube.Good luck in whatever you want to do…….but don’t waste your life.

Don’t compare yourself to others - just find what makes you happy. That’s not meant to sound like hippy talk… It sounds like you’re talented and need to keep going. Keep challenging yourself and congratulate yourself on what you can do. X

Perseverance and 1 hour a day. Yes! Excellent advice.
I once asked a daughter if she would like me to teach her to sew a dress for her daughter. "No" said she " I only want to concentrate on cycling and knitting". She now makes beautiful cardigans and sweaters and does long distance bike rides for charity.
I think she was right to focus on 2 interests. I had too many interests " Jack of all trades master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one!" sprang to mind. So, I dropped some interests and concentrated on painting. I doubt I'm really good at it but I have improved and I love it.

Perhaps you are just content to dabble in numerous things. I too like to do a bit of embroidery, ballet, knitting and gardening etc etc but I lack the desire to be really good and if I am honest I can’t be bothered as I feel it would take away the enjoyment. Each to their own though. A jack of all trades but master at none - suits me.

What nice answers; I knew I could always get some good advice here. I guess the answer is to make sure you find joy in whatever it is you do, but I do feel that I need to persevere a bit more, especially now that I am retired.

Maybe deep down I am looking for a sense of accomplishment, since I am at that recently retired stage of life. Finished with my work life, but not really yet settled into a retirement routine. It has only been 3 months for me, so perhaps I am feeling like I need to accomplish something.

I dont really feel a need to become accomplished at anything and I do not have any strong talents, if I were to spend an hour everyday on something it would have to be an activity I enjoyed rather than one that leads to something.

Getting through life is hard enough without trying to be 'accomplished' in my experience.

I am moderately accomplished at lots of things.
I really do enjoy them all.
So long as you enjoy what you're doing, that's the main thing.

I wonder if your local art college has a short course?
That would be a lovely and "waking up" sort of boost...

Over 50 years ago at university, somebody said to me

“You are more intelligent than I am, but I will always achieve more because I keep going and you quit.”

Absolutely true as time proved. But I think I have had more fun.

I guess it’s down to personality really and I can see that if you’ve been accomplished in your work life you will be missing that sense of achievement.

Is there one thing you would really like to do?

I love the idea of persevering for just one hour a day. I have given up so many times on trying to learn a language but because of your post CanadianGran I am going to have another go. I remember being newly retired and wondering what to do next. I joined things and volunteered with great enthusiasm. Now 15 years on, a lot of these activities have gone, some due to Covid and others because I just gave up. Still, I could manage one hour a day and see how it goes. Thank you.

An hour a day is what I’ve been telling myself to do (piano practice) for around 10 years!
Most days after the first couple of years, it’s been zero.

So it’s hardly surprising that despite being ‘nearly ready’ a couple of times, I never did reach my goal of passing Grade 5.

As far as painting goes, you say you get frustrated at water-colours - so do I, particularly as I got older and really couldn't be bothered. Traditional watercolours need you to be very organised, to know exactly what you are going to do from the beginning, and not put any intense patches of indelible colour in places where you later decide they need something paler and a different colour entirely. The discipline required in working it all out before you actually dip a brush into water is probably very good for the character, but not for the patience. I changed to using acrylics - they are less transparent than watercolours, so you can paint an approximation of your intention, and see how it looks before changing the bits that look wrong, and adding highlights and shadows as they are needed. If you do that with watercolours it soon looks muddy and confused, but with acrylics the changes don't show and the whole final effect looks fresh.

The other thing I learned is that doing a detailed drawing before adding paint doesn't work for me. I start by drawing rough outlines with a brush, using a watered-down version of the colours intended colours. That is more free and flowing than a careful drawing and gives more movement to the picture.

There are also other techniques which are more interesting and undemanding that ones which require you to work hard at "improving". How about "Mixed Media" like the photo I will attach? The background is acrylic, the bunting (or maybe it is washing) was cut from pictures in a catalogue of ladies fashions.

This is not to say that I could fill an exhibition with the final "successes", but it does mean that I enjoy the experience more than I would while trying (and failing) to produce perfect washes and gradations.

Thank you Canadian gran, I read your post this morning and have thought about it most of the day. Yes an hour day, to paint/ sketch is what I shall be doing. I have always been embarrassed by my efforts, but now I shall persevere, after all no one needs to see them

I hadn't picked up a brush for some years but I joined a U3A Mixed Media group and gradually started doing some reasonable work. The great thing about the U3A group is that nobody cares how good you are, no one is off puttingly brilliant and nobody tells you what to do

Like many I am a jack-of-all-trades - I enjoy doing lots of different things, and am reasonably good at some, not so good at others. DH tells me I stick at nothing - I tell him he starts nothing. I tell myself it's my natural curiosity - I don't necessarily want to be great at things, just to know how they work and how to do things. But like you I would really love to find the thing that compels me to pick it up and stick with it.

I am also 63. Loved art at school but never pursued it. I decided to invest in some charcoal pencils and paints. I've just done a one off acrylics evening course where I painted a lion. It's not very good but I appreciated the tuition.
Unfortunately I have now fractured my right wrist after getting knocked over by a horse! I'm right handed but no more, driving, writing or painting for at least 8 weeks after my surgery. I have tiny wrists apparently and have managed a "proper job" of smashing it!

So enjoy your painting, art, crafts and anything else you are able to do. Life can change in a second.

I appreciate my condition is temporary and could have been worse.

Hi
I’m also 63, and for the whole of my life, I have been average at everything. I have never excelled at any one thing. Perhaps that is my best skill, I’m actually laughing to myself. I think what is most important is to try and find your inner piece. I have been dabbling with art with sewing. I’m back to doing some work on a jelly plate. I now know that I’m never gonna be great at one thing, but that’s okay. I know I am a good cook, but the most important thing for me is that I have family that love me and are around. It all comes down to what you want in life. I thought that my life‘s destiny was my work, as a physiotherapist. I threw myself into work, possibly to the detriment of my children sometimes. I think I was good at my job, but I wanted to excel and I wanted to be well known Within the field. It turns out that life had a different path for me. I was so busy with work and being a justice of the peace and trying to look after elderly parents, and children. Anyway, to cut a long story short I became exceedingly ill with a rare illness which left me paralysed from the chest down. I didn’t make a good recovery, and I can’t walk or stand very much. This is why I started to try different crafts. I get enormous pleasure out of different crafts and although I want to be instantly phenomenal at one of them, I doubt I will. There will be times in your life when you feel miserable, but don’t compare yourself to anybody else. We have no idea about other peoples lives. They may look like they’re living their best life, but in reality it may be a totally different story. Be happy with what you are and what you have, and be thankful For everything.

I love listening to music and I've always wished I had some sort of musicality about me - despite being half-Welsh I am pretty much tone deaf. I look with awe at anyone who can sing but in particular those who can play an instrument. My brain just cannot take in the different notes. My lovely nephew once tried to teach me some basic guitar playing - after 3 weeks I still couldn't recognize a chord. I can hear two different notes when played at the same time, but can't reproduce them or recognize them later. I think that part of my brain went AWOL at some point, never to be seen again.

I have always been fairly artistic and have always knitted and sewn. In the last year or two I have been going to a friend’s monthly craft group where I’ve tried all sorts of different things.

As well as the craft group I have been attending various study days and courses - stained glass, African quilting, mosaic and pottery. I have enjoyed all of them. In fact OH and I are thinking about continuing the pottery stuff. When we get back from holiday we will pick up the eight or nine objects we each made on the Potters Wheel!

A friend was never allowed to go to art College as a girl. When she retired she did an Arts Foundation course at a local college. She now belongs to an art group.

Over recent years, my family have started giving me art equipment for Christmas and birthdays, because I used to draw and ain't and make birthday cards. There's nowhere in the house where I can work on Art, and it honestly would be such a faff getting myself organised!

My daughter is in her early 60s and has recently taken up, and enjoys, kayaking and wild swimming. In my 70s I was dabbling in a bit of creative writing then enjoyed writing a few quite well received poems. Suddenly I discovered open mic evenings and became a performance poet. For a decade now I have enjoyed meeting other poets and sharing work, on and off zoom. I wouldn’t have missed my ‘late budding’, if not ‘late flowering’, for anything, a great source of pleasure and a way to communicate with a wide variety of people.

Don't compare yourself to others. We all have our own special gifts to share, whether it's a kind heart, a radiant smile or a witty mot.

Buy an easily portale camping table. Set it up somewhere peaceful in your home and put on it the craft of your choice, with the necessary tools, and have a chair near by. If you need a lamp there are portable craft lamps. then you can do it in free moments. Keep a journal with your activity date, thoughts,desires, intentions and progress points as they come up. good luck.

Get over it, don't do yourself down. All my friends are more academic than I, a few of them lack commons sense and can't do anything other than what was their work. I am a Jack of all trades - they turn to me occasionally for what I would think nothing of. I am content with my life although widowed 17 years ago.