It was review night (in my case it was 6pm) and my piece did not get picked. And even if I did not expect it to get picked, and I did not aim for it to get picked, and I immediately knew why the other pieces got picked - it stung. It stung bad. My first thoughts were that I’d done everything wrong, misunderstood the assignment, and my work was bad. And judging by the entries I’ve read in the facebook group, others had the same feelings.

In earlier days I might just have given up at this point - I am not very good with rejection and this sure felt like one - but this time something was different. I started to dig deeper into my feelings and tried to analyse what was causing this very strong reaction, and I found some curious things.

First, I felt stupid because I thought I clearly misunderstood the assignment by just drawing the characters very plain on the page without any interaction. On second thought, I tried to cut myself a little slack. I have never done a course like this before, and it simply did not come to mind that anything else was possible. Also, I maybe was still kind of stuck on the idea that I could do something wrong - which I can’t. So I was kind of angry at myself for not thinking it through. While listening to Lilla and Zoë and looking at the images of all those talented artists, I started making out all that was bad and wrong 🙄 about my piece. In the end, I didn’t even like it any more and was not sure why I submitted it in the first place (big time second-guesser here 👋).

I still took notes of what was said and strung along until the end of the review, but I had a bad feeling in my stomach. Afterwards, I just sat on the couch, had a glass of wine and frantically started redrawing stuff. But it did not make me feel better. I felt drained and filled with disappointment, while simultaneously being angry at myself for letting this get to me so much. I drew the line and went to bed.

The day after

I woke up early and all of it was immediately in my head again (I am an overthinker - if you couldn’t tell by now). So I decided to leave the course be for a while and focus on something else entirely. Right now I have a job where I paint the stairwells of a school in my area. So I went there, and I got some painting done which had nothing to do with the course or the characters. Working there gives me regular confidence boosts because the children are always commenting when running up and down the stairs, and so far it has been nothing but super nice comments. They also say some pretty hilarious stuff too, so I also get a good laugh. After doing this paint job which is quite meditating and listening to podcasts, it felt better to get back in my head and deal with my emotions.

I went home for lunch, took my iPad, put on a silly movie which I had seen before and started to scribble some faces and expressions while thinking about the whole review again. And a few things got clearer:

1. I could make out a feeling of insecurity and being lost under all this disappointment and anger, and I traced that back to the fact that I found it much harder to use the feedback given to others instead of getting feedback on my own work. I tried to turn my thoughts around there and used all the points mentioned by Lilla and Zoë about what makes a good piece while redoing my own work.

2. I narrowed the anger down to the feeling of rejection, which is just something I have to work on in general. There will always be rejection of some kind or somebody not liking what you do or maybe just not the right time or moment for you. But it is okay. It should never ever stop you from doing what you love.

3. I have learned a tonne from this review! This became even clearer during the rest of the day while I reworked my character. I felt that my view had shifted a little and I noticed other things in my work and process. I am taking this course to learn and grow, to find my style and what I like, and the course has already done a lot of that. So I might just go and give myself a little more grace and space to evolve.

4. Having a community is so valuable. Reading everyone’s comments in the facebook group and seeing other people having the same struggles and the same thoughts, or people saying that they had taken the course multiple times before making the review, helped me to go through this. On top of that, everyone is just kind and helpful and uplifting ❤️. (Also, one person shared a progress picture of their character from week one to week three or four from a previous course, and I found that immensely helpful.)

After entering my feelings on that level and working through them, I am coming out more grounded, somewhat uplifted and excited about the next stage. I feel I am ready to tackle the next assignment and incorporate everything I’ve learned so far.

I would really love to hear about your feelings regarding the review, fellow MATS students. Leave me a comment and let’s discuss what else would maybe help, especially us newbies.