Persistence unlocks creativity and also, it develops human skills and brings out the refined form of man's talent. In this post, I will use my experience as an upcoming artist for an example.
But before I start, I would like to acknowledge @calumam for initiating this proofofbrain weekly contest, it is surely an avenue to endless engagement in the community. I would also like to acknowledge @fireguardian for the wonderful post when quitting is not an option, I got to know about this weekly contest from the post.
WHERE PERSISTENCE LED ME AS AN ARTIST.
When I was younger, during my primary school days. After school hours, when it's time to read at home, I was found of sketching, I love sketching.
Any time I was asked to read, I will secretly open to the back of my book, or get a sheet of paper to sketch. It got to an extent that my grades started going down in school, that got my father angry. He did everything to make sure I stopped drawing, any time he sees a drawing in my book, or on a sheet of paper, he would punish me. Well he was helping me to secure good grades and probably a good future.
So I stopped everything that has to do with drawing and focused more on education, throughout my secondary school days, I only made few sketches. I lost everything for that moment.
After secondary school, I meet with an old friend who makes sketches too when we were younger, he showed me some of the works in his portfolio and I was amazed, he has gone from making sketches to realistic drawings.
He encouraged me to go back to my pencil, watch YouTube videos/tutorials, follow important artists on Instagram, get the necessary equipment and start making improvements.
So I brought myself together, picked up a pencil and started drawing. The first picture I drew was that of Ben Carson at the front cover of the gifted hands.
After sketching the outlines, I added some shades which looked awesome to me then, due to my level of drawing. I kept looking for new pictures to draw. My this time I was already older and could manage my time with drawing and also create time for important things like reading.
As time goes on, my drawing skill started improving, I persisted in watching tutorials on YouTube, from artists on Instagram, went to some art galleries to have a close look at some artworks, I bought sets of materials for sketching and shading. I got better over time, people were amazed with the new set of art work I made and gave comments that help me to do better in the next one.
Here I am today, still making improvements, ensuring that my drawings gets better than the previous ones.
persistence is the key to Improvement
Lessons learnt from these short story is that, persistence as a form of discipline will lead you to the realms of great accomplishment by constant improvement.
Persistence is the drive to continuity. When you stop doing something for a long period of time, going back to continue it becomes a burden that seems to high to be overcome.
Persistence brings about relevance, I mentioned earlier that been persistent brings out the refined form of a man's talent. Anything that hasn't been refined in out world today is considered useless.
For example Crude oil, Gold, Ideas, Talent, and so on.... So for a man not to be useless, for a man to be relevant, he has to be persistent in his doing.
I hope I have been able to inspire, through this experience as an artist, that persistence is the key to Improvement and the pass code to creative accomplishments.
If you have read through this post till this point, I really appreciate you and if you haven't heard of the weekly contest on the proofofbrain, the you have to read through this 👇👇.
@calumam/pob-word-of-the-week-persistence-003