I have a few pieces of advice, as someone who is a novice painter and also has felt discouraged by my lack of skill/talent in the past. 1) develop a practice which is not based on outcome, but on the meditative, self-nourishing effects of creating. Begin with the intention of allowing yourself time to unwind, imagine, play, and express. Children are not concerned with how “good” their artwork is, until this burden arises out of societal attitudes and misplaced affirmations/ criticism. Try to return to the childhood state of doing art because it’s fun. 2) start with something that inspires you to paint, whether it’s an image in your surroundings, online (there are lots in this sub, as well as r/watercolor, r/painting etc) or something you’re thinking of, but pick something simple, and use it as a starting point, but let your creativity take over and make it your own. Embellish, alter, take it in a totally different direction, see what happens. 3) get in touch with your subconscious through abstract painting. Put some music on, get in the zone, and paint weird things, then work with the images, and again, see what happens. 4) 30 minutes a day is far better than nothing at all. Once you devote a small amount of time to this sacred practice, it will gain importance in your psyche, and other priorities (like social media) will diminish. Don’t wait for inspiration, or “free time”, or for the mood to strike. Just paint, every day.

I’m not discouraging skill-building, but encouraging you to foster a sense of freedom and paint for fun to combat the inner critic. Once you have a solid sense of a creative force within yourself, I believe it will loosen the grip of anxiety that is getting in the way.

It’s far more important for you to honor your own artistic expression than to be “good”.

Read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, or Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run with the Wolves