Start Small: The Easiest Way to Build Confidence in Art

There’s an old joke:

How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.

It’s silly, but it’s also pretty good advice for art.

A big creative project can feel overwhelming when you look at the whole thing at once. A full pet portrait means eyes, nose, fur, ears, proportions, color, expression — all of it.

Before you even pick up the pencil or brush, your brain can already be thinking, I don’t know if I can do this.

But maybe you don’t have to solve the whole thing at once.

Maybe you just need to figure out the first bite.

The Drawing Method That Never Worked for Me

When I was learning to draw portraits, I was taught a very traditional method.

First, lightly sketch the overall shape of the head. Then add guidelines showing where the eyes, nose, mouth, and other features should go. Once everything is mapped out, you begin drawing the actual portrait inside those guides.

It makes perfect sense.

And for me, it was a disaster.

I could draw the head the right size. I could put the guides where they were supposed to go.

But once I started drawing the actual features, something happened.

My drawing shrank.

Every. Single. Time.

I’d end up with a pretty decent little face floating somewhere in the middle of this much larger head I had carefully planned.

I tried again.

Same thing.

I tried harder.

Same thing.

Eventually I got frustrated and thought:

Screw the guide.

Instead, I started with the right eye.

Then I drew the left eye in relation to it.

Then the nose.

Then the mouth.

I just kept working outward, one piece at a time.

And it worked.

Was it the method I had been taught? Nope.

Was it necessarily the “correct” way to draw a portrait?

Depends on who you ask.

But it was the way that finally made sense to me.

That taught me something I still carry into my own art and my teaching:

A good method is only good if it helps you make the art.

Guidelines are useful.

Techniques are useful.

Rules are useful.

Until they aren’t.

Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to find another way in.

Why I Start With the Eye

There’s another reason I tend to start a portrait with an eye.

If I’m drawing someone and the eye doesn’t look like their eye, I’m going to keep working on it until it does.

There’s no sense in spending hours drawing the rest of the portrait if I already know one of the most recognizable areas is off.

And it isn’t just the eyeball itself.

The eyebrow matters too. A lot.

Try this sometime.

Look at a photograph of someone you know really well and cover their eyebrow with your hand.

It’s surprising how different they can suddenly look.

Change the angle, thickness, arch, or placement of an eyebrow and you can completely change the expression of the eye underneath it.

So when I say I’m studying an eye, I’m really looking at that whole little area — the eye shape, the lid, the brow, the shadows, and the relationships between them.

With animals, it works much the same way.

Dogs and cats may not have human-style eyebrows, but the brow shape, fur direction, markings, shadows, and little changes above and around the eye all help create the expression you recognize as your pet.

I have pages in an old sketchbook filled with eyes.

Eye after eye after eye.

Sometimes I had to draw the same kind of eye several times before I finally understood what I was seeing.

Once I got it?

Then I was ready to move on.

That’s another version of starting small:

Solve one important piece before trying to solve the whole thing.

Start With the Part You Can Handle

A full pet portrait can feel like a lot.

Suddenly you’re thinking about the shape of the head, the placement of the ears, the nose, the fur, the markings, the proportions, the color, the expression…

So what if you don’t paint the whole pet?

What if you paint one eye?

One eye gives you plenty to work with.

You still get shape, color, light, shadow, texture, personality, and expression.

But now the project feels manageable.

Instead of solving twenty problems at the same time, you’re concentrating on one small area.

And when you finish, you don’t have something that feels like preparation for the “real” art.

You have a finished little portrait.

Something you can frame.

Something you can give as a gift.

Something you can look at and think:

I made that.

Small Doesn’t Mean Unimportant

I think sometimes we treat small projects as though they somehow count less.

I don’t agree.

Working small can actually give you permission to pay closer attention.

Instead of thinking:

How on earth am I going to paint this entire dog?

you can start asking:

Is the iris really brown, or is it amber?

Where is the darkest dark?

Where does the light reflect in the eye?

Is the eye perfectly round, or does the lid change its shape?

What direction is the fur growing?

Is there a lighter patch above the eye that changes the expression?

What makes this eye look like my pet’s eye?

Those observations are a huge part of making art.

A tracer or guideline can give you somewhere to begin, but after that, you have to look.

Really look.

That’s where your subject starts becoming more than just “a dog eye” or “a cat eye.”

It starts becoming their eye.

You Don’t Have to Feel Ready

This idea goes far beyond pet portraits.

Want to learn watercolor?

Paint one leaf.

Want to try charcoal?

Draw one simple object.

Interested in portraits?

Start with one feature.

Want to paint a landscape?

Paint one tree.

Want to try mixed media?

Make one small piece.

The point isn’t to stay small forever.

It’s to make the first step small enough that you’ll actually take it.

Because every finished piece gives you something planning alone never can:

Evidence that you can do it.

And that’s where confidence starts.

Not before the work.

Because of the work.

Try the Same Subject Again

There’s another nice thing about working with a smaller subject.

You can do it again without feeling like you’ve committed yourself to another giant project.

Paint the same eye in watercolor.

Then try colored pencil.

Try graphite.

Try charcoal.

Try acrylic.

Try chalk pastel or oil pastel.

You already understand the basic shapes, so the subject itself isn’t completely new anymore.

Now you can pay attention to what the medium does differently.

Maybe you love the looseness of watercolor.

Maybe you like the control of colored pencil.

Maybe charcoal gives you exactly the softness you were looking for.

You may even end up with a whole little collection of your pet’s eye made in different materials.

And if painting eyes turns out to be the thing you love?

Paint twenty of them.

There is no rule saying you have to move on to the whole pet.

Art Doesn’t Always Need a Master Plan

I’ve realized over the years that, for me, art works best when I know where I’m starting but I don’t have every inch of the journey planned before I begin.

That won’t be true for everyone.

Some artists love measuring, mapping, gridding, planning, and carefully working everything out ahead of time.

And that’s great.

But if a particular method makes you freeze up, shrink your drawing into the middle of the page, or convince yourself that you’re doing everything wrong, you’re allowed to try another way.

The method is supposed to serve the artist. The artist doesn’t have to serve the method.

Start with the part that makes sense to you.

See where it leads.

Ready to Start Small?

That’s exactly why I created The Eye Study.

It’s a free beginner-friendly art project designed to help you create a close-up portrait of your own pet’s eye.

You’ll start with a simple tracer for the basic eye shape, then use a photograph of your own dog or cat to add the colors, markings, fur, expression, and little details that make that eye belong to your pet.

You can use watercolor, acrylic, colored pencil, graphite, charcoal, chalk pastel, oil pastel — or whatever art supplies you already enjoy using.

You don’t have to paint the whole pet.

You don’t have to feel confident first.

You just need somewhere to begin.

Start small. Finish something. Let the confidence come afterward.

Get The Eye Study Free

Create a finished close-up portrait of your pet’s eye with simple tracers and easy step-by-step directions.

Get The Eye Study free → https://payhip.com/b/lwNY5