The Rebel's Guide to Art 

When Jit first came into our studio, he didn’t even want to pick up a brush. “I’m not an artist,” he shrugged. “I never followed the rules in school, and art always had too many of them—perspective, proportions, colour theory… I’ll just make a mess.”

Two hours later, Jit stood staring at a canvas splashed with bold streaks of red and gold. It didn’t look like anything you’d find in a textbook, but it had a wild, magnetic energy. One of the other participants said, “I’d hang that in my living room.”

Jit smiled in disbelief. For the first time, he realised: you don’t need rules to make something beautiful.

The Problem with “Doing It Right”

From school onwards, most of us learn that art has “right” and “wrong” ways to do it.

• Trees must be green.

• The sky must be blue.

• Stay inside the lines.

This conditioning kills creativity before it even starts.  A landmark study from George Land for NASA found that 98% of children score as creative geniuses before age 5, but only 2% retain that level of creativity as adults. The reason? We’re taught to value correctness over curiosity.

Rebel Artists Change the World

History is full of people who broke the “rules” of art:

• Van Gogh ignored realistic colour and painted skies of swirling emotion.

• Jean-Michel Basquiat scrawled graffiti-like text across his canvases, blending street culture with fine art.

• Frida Kahlo painted her pain, not just her likeness, defying the conventions of beauty.

They weren’t celebrated because they coloured inside the lines.  They were celebrated because they ignored them.

The Science of Creative Freedom

Neuroscientists have found that when we stop judging our creative output, our brain’s default mode network (linked to imagination and divergent thinking) becomes more active. This state fosters original ideas and deeper emotional expression—the very things that make art powerful.

In other words: self-imposed “rules” can literally shut down the parts of the brain that make creativity thrive.

Jit’s Transformation

Over the next few months, Jit became a regular in our workshops.  He never once painted something “realistic.” Instead, he explored textures, abstract forms, and unconventional tools—once using the edge of a credit card to drag paint across a canvas.

He told me, “I thought I was bad at art. Turns out, I was just bad at following rules. And that’s the best thing about it.”

Your Rebel Toolkit

If you’ve ever thought you “can’t” make art, here’s your permission slip to break every rule you think you know:

1. Forget the Subject: Paint feelings, not things.

2. Break the Tools: Use sponges, old toothbrushes, your fingers—anything.

3. Ditch the Plan: Let the first stroke decide the next.

4. Embrace the Mess: Accidents often become the most interesting parts.
   
   

So if you’ve been waiting for permission to start, here it is:
You don’t need permission. You don’t need rules. You only need to begin.

The Beauty in Freedom

Beautiful art isn’t about technical perfection—it’s about authenticity.
It’s the rawness of a mark made in the moment, the chaos of colour that somehow makes sense, the piece that speaks to someone even if you can’t explain why.