How to Be Bold with Hashim Akib

If your goal is to be bolder in your work, Hashim Akib (Ep.50), says you can approach it one of two ways.

You can work up to it slowly or you could throw yourself into the chaos and learn rapid fire.

But here’s the problem.

Only one of those ways actually teaches you how to be bold.

Put it to Practice:

Boldness- as an artistic approach- takes a special kind of practice.

Akib points you that you can’t practice being bold by being timid. You have to actually TRY being bold. Again and again and again.

So yes you’ll still need to learn your materials and techniques and all of the standard foundations. But at some point, to really step into boldness, you have to actually try something BOLD. You can’t necessarily sneak up on it.

It’s like learning to do a flip off a diving board. At some point you just have to jump and try the flip. And yes, absolutely you might land stomach-first into the water.

But you try again and again and then your body begins to learn how to move so that you land feet or arms first.

When you practice being bold in your paintings, those first attempts will feel wild and uncontrollable. They will be, like Akib’s first efforts, absolutely all over the place. Some of them will be flops.

But don’t feel deterred by this. Keep trying.

Trying to paint boldly and having flops is exactly the path to learning how to paint boldly. You are practicing a new skill. The more you practice being bold, the more you will understand the ins and outs of it.

So the next time you feel the desire, grab those saturated colors, pick up that big brush, make those big marks. The only way to learn how they all work together is by taking the leap and trying.