“Study your strengths; then decide how hard you want to work.”

~Martha Stewart on finding confidence to succeed

Artist Will Terry, founder of FolioAcademy.com discovered early in his career that his strength was in applying beautiful color to his artwork. He has recently found that he has a knack for saving time by Illustrating electronically, like with Photoshop or even on an iPad.

Every artist has strengths as well as weaknesses.

So you want to figure out what your strength is (Drawing, Painting, Great Color, Figure Work, Humor, Value Patterning or what ever) and use that and strengthen your strength. Exorcise your strength to make it stronger. Make it even better, use your strength to make your art that much more excellent. By focusing on your strengths, your artwork’s quality will be better and you’ll have more fun creating it.

“You grow most in your areas of greatest strength.”

“You grow most in your areas of greatest strength. It sounds odd, but you will improve the most, be the most creative, be the most inquisitive, and bounce back the fastest in those areas where you have already shown some natural advantage over everyone else—your strengths.” – Marcus Buckingham

Believe it or not, I am no good at math. I hate math, I am horrible at the third R, it doesn’t even start with an R. YUCK!

I’m one of those dads that can only help his kids with their math homework through 1st grade. After that, they’re outta luck. No wonder I went into art. Thank goodness my wife is OK at math. But she doesn’t like it much, even though she is good at it. Therefor, math is not one of her strengths.

Your art should revolve around your strengths.

Obviously, it makes sense to hone in on our artistic strengths and avoid our weaknesses in order to create huge masterpieces, or at least, nice pieces of work.

So, what exactly is a “strength?”

Now that is the Million Dollar Question. It seems like an obviously simple question to answer. And for a long time I simply thought that a “strength” was anything that we are good at, and in most cases it is. BUT. . .

Marcus Buckingham,“ strength-specialist” says that:

A strength is “an activity that makes you feel strong.” It is an activity where the doing of it invigorates you. Before you do it, you find yourself instinctively looking forward to it. While you are doing it you don’t struggle to concentrate, but instead you become so immersed that time speeds up and you lose yourself in the present moment. And after you are finished doing it, you feel authentic, connected to the best parts of who you really are.”

Remember I said that my wife is good at math, but she doesn’t like it? Since she has no enthusiasm for math, it is not a strength. Have you ever had a job that you were good at, and maybe it even paid well, but you hated it? You were good at it sure, but it wasn’t a strength or you would have enjoyed it.

Focus on Your Strengths

When you focus on your strengths, you’re engaging in the work that invigorates you and fuels the energy to keep you going. Why not bring your strengths into your artwork as well?

I would also say that you should take some time occasionally to work on your weaknesses too. You may have a tough time drawing humans, but who knows, that may become a strength. Don’t be afraid to push the envelope. But don’t stress too much over it, no one can “do-it-all”. It’s impossible.

So, imagine, for a moment that you eliminated the areas that drag you down and only engaged in the areas that pump you up.

How would THAT change your art efforts?