Newbies Need Newbies…

I LOVE all the support and help that the experience artists offer newbies in this Reborning community. I have had SO much help from so many people I couldn’t begin to name them all. ANd not just feedback and constructive criticism…but actually giving advice and showing step by step how to’s. So many “BNA”s (Big Name ARtists) give their time unselfishly helping those of us who are new that I honestly can’t imagine how to thank them. But sometimes, a newbie just needs to talk to another person who is around their own level.

Sometimes it’s hard to admit to someone you want to emulate that no matter how well they have described something, no matter how much time and attention they have given you…you just don’t get it. And I don’t know about other newbies, but I don’t want to tell a BNA that just spent 2 hours of their valuable time explaining in minute detail how to do something that I STILL don’t get it. I imagine them screaming in frustration on their side of the computer connection, wanting to reach through the screen and strangle me and I feel like the stupidest person on the face of the Earth.

THAT is when talking with another person who is in the boat (or a boat the same size and lost in the same sea of paint and glass beads) as you are. ANd sometimes it just takes “OH! I know! I do…..fill in the blanks” to trigger an explosion of understanding as the synapses in our brains finally fire in the right sequence.

That’s one of the reason there are so many Facebook groups for those starting out on this reborn journey. Support. It’s nice and very useful to have established artists give constructive criticism, though it can be hard to hear at times. But the support and sharing of information and links to information between newbies is invaluable in the process of learning. Sometimes a newbie to newbie conversation can be enlightening, because we are sharing not only the journey, but we are on the same part of the journey. And it’s not just about understanding concepts, sometimes it’s just about sharing the pitfalls and mountains. And trust me, there are days when trying to learn how to reborn is like climbing Mt Everest…..even littered with half finished vinyl bodies waiting to be reclaimed. We might take different paths, but those path cross each other, and sometimes run parallel to each other, then diverge again. But in the end, that summit up there? That’s what we’re heading for….

So if you don’t get anything else from this blog, get this “HEY!! Fellow Newbie! We got this…give me your hand, I’ll help you to this ledge I’m on….”