I found my first watercolor again as I was looking through one of my art binders.

When I first saw this after all of this time, I was initially horrified. The composition is terrible. There is zero technique. I didn’t understand values, tones or color harmony. I had no idea what I was doing.

I considered relegating it to the trash bin of history.

I didn’t. I closed the binder and walked away. When I went to bed, I found myself thinking about that painting.

This time, instead of thinking about all of the many things wrong with it, I suddenly realized something that might seem obvious, but wasn’t.

I’ve improved a lot since then. I’m sure we can all look back at something we created at the beginning of our journey with amusement or possibly horror, but looking back is valuable.

Had it not been for musing on this attempt at a landscape, I might not have really thought about what I’ve learned since then. Maybe I wouldn’t have something to compare my more recent works to and see that linear progress.

Although this kind of looks like something painted in kindergarten, I’m happy that I rediscovered it.

So before you toss out something you’ve created, maybe pause and ask yourself, will this be important for me to look back on?

Not everything will be a masterpiece, but it all has a kind of intrinsic value.

Thanks for reading.