Work was done for the day, and it was time for me to visit my son. (Because I still struggle with my mental illness, my son lives with his grandparents.) I took about two steps into the house, and eleven-year-old Ford – as I will call him – shouted, “I want to draw today.” We stepped into the back room, where his laptop and table were already set up. Sitting down with an online drawing tutorial is something Ford and I love to do together. Most tutorials have been fun, but occasionally we have find one that’s truly complicated. Something with so many steps, shapes and squiggly lines that it’s hard to get it to turn out right. Those aren’t so fun.
As we sat down, Ford says, “I want to draw a dragon.” Really? I thought as Ford searched for the perfect subject. I recalled my “fantasy drawing” stage as a teenager. Dragons were especially hard. Hours of work trying to get the wings and teeth just right only to meet my Waterloo. But we’ll have a tutorial, I thought, Usually those work out okay.
Usually.
“This one’s super cool,” Ford said as he found an image. And indeed it was a majestic, “super-cool” dragon. A burly beast perfectly capturing the essence of its kind. It was also really complicated. Said tutorial had about eighty-seven steps and pages of written instructions. I took a deep breath. Here we go.
Ford and I started marking on our pages. Circles, squares, triangles, and other odd lines. They didn’t look like much, but we persevered. Ford occasionally looked over at my page saying, “Yours looks better than mine,” in the accusatory tone that only a preteen can pull off. I looked at his page and saw similar squiggles, created with a slightly less steady hand. “Not really,” I said. Ford sighed and went back to his artwork.
Continuing to put lines down, we didn’t see much improvement. Are those claws or scales? I thought, looking at my artwork, Should a tail bend that way or is that just the back leg? Would someone please tell me how a circle, some triangles and bunch of lines are supposed to make a wing?
About half-way through the tutorial and my page contained a Christmas ham surrounded by snakes and some circle-triangle wings. How? Just how? Adding more lines didn’t seem to help.
At this point, I was ready to give up, but Ford was still working on his project. It’s not like a few more scribbles are going to hurt anything, I thought, lets just get this over with. I was about to add another set of triangles to the back when Ford said, “Mom, let's just draw our own dragons.” Oh what solace those words gave.
Our dragons didn’t look anything like our original target, but this time we enjoyed drawing. As we drew we joked, comparing our disastrous first attempts. We laughed at all of our dragons’ distorted features and confusing lines. At the things we couldn’t make out and even more at the things we could.
You could say that following this tutorial turned out to be a failure. And in the strictest sense it was; we learned absolutely nothing about drawing dragons. Yet our shortcomings taught us something about how we can benefit from failure and let it led us in a positive direction.
Failure means you are trying.
I have no less than 200 hokey inspirational quote memes on my phone. I use them as wallpaper, thinking they might help me when I’m depressed. And to meme makers credit, sometimes they do. One of them says that mistakes are proof that you are trying. And when I’m not currently screwing up spectacularly, I think this is wonderful advice. When you refuse to try something, you walk away with nothing. You don’t have the chance to fail or get it right. Giving yourself that chance allows for growth. Ford and I may have flunked the tutorial, but we gained an understanding of our skill level. And with that knowledge, we decided to go with something simpler first, dragons from our own imagination.
Failures don’t mean you give up.
Have you ever actually been good at something challenging on the first try? Made an intricate clay vase the first time you sat at a potter's wheel? Played a symphony piece the first time you sat at a piano? Tried something from Pinterest that wasn’t a complete train wreck? Me neither. When Ford decided he wanted to draw a dragon, we didn’t understand how complicated the tutorial would be. So we tried something simpler. At the same time, we were able to laugh at our mistakes.
Some failures are good for a laugh
No one is perfect and there is no better proof of this than the internet. Remember what I said a minute ago about Pinterest? Try looking up “Pinterest fails.” If you have returned, I trust you have had a good laugh and congratulate you on your resolve to finish reading this second-rate blog post.
Being able to laugh at our non-accomplishments helps with the anxiety that mistakes can create. After all, failing isn’t fun. Both Ford and I were upset by how poorly our work was coming along. But afterward, we found humor in our piteous first attempts.
Sometimes we just fail. Even with the tutorial’s instructions, Ford and I ended up with a hot mess. Nevertheless, we decided to try something a little simpler. And in the end, we were able to laugh it off. We tried, we failed, and we had fun.
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