Challenge One: Stepping Into the Unknown

When I decided to participate in The Outstanding Artist, my palms would literally start sweating every time I thought about it.

It wasn’t excitement at first - it was fear.

I kept asking myself:
Am I crazy to do this?
What if I fail publicly?
What if this becomes proof that I’m not as capable as people think?

After years of working deeply in my own style, I’ve grown strong in what I do. But strength can quickly turn into comfort. And comfort can turn into limitation. I didn’t know how I would react to stress. To restrictions. To being pushed outside of my rhythm. Everything was freaking me out. My inner dialogue sounded something like this:
Just do a good job. Your task in these first technical challenges is not to fail. You don’t need to win. Just get good scores and move forward.

Season 4 was structured around the Mastery Program curriculum. That meant the first part of the competition wasn’t about personal style - it was about fundamentals. Drawing. Oil subtraction method. Mixed media techniques.

And here’s my honest truth:

I haven’t seriously drawn in years. And I haven’t painted purely in oil start to finish, well - since the program, so about 7 years ago.

Then I got on the plane.

I left my husband and my five-year-old son in Texas not knowing whether I would be gone for two weeks or six. We moved in to shared Airbnbs - six artists in each house, sharing rooms, adjusting to new energy and routines. But once I made the decision to go, I made another decision to myself:

Nothing will distract me. I am here to grow.

One of the first nights, we were all in the kitchen and living room together. Some reviewing notes. Some sketching. Some just sitting quietly with their thoughts. There were a lot of discussions - about strategy, about technique, about what might come next. It was competitive, yes. But it was also deeply supportive. No one was pretending to be fearless. We were all stretching.

The first challenge was oil painting using the subtraction method. I chose a photo of a bird that I had taken a few months earlier in Florida. I chose it because the composition followed a beautiful golden spiral - it felt intelligent, structured, safe.

In hindsight, it may not have been the most dynamic choice.

But I was proud of it. It was my photograph. My composition. A technique I hadn’t practiced in a long time. It stretched me.

Then the second challenge began - mixed media animal.

It was supposed to be three hours.

CURVEBALL. It became one hour. I chose one of my favorite animals - a cheetah. And oh boy… painting that under such time pressure was intense. The proportions started shifting. I could clearly see where things were off. I just didn’t have the time to fully resolve them. And panic really started taking over…

You’ll see what happened next in the upcoming episode.

Episode 2 comes out this Friday.

And as always, if you watch it, I’d genuinely love to hear what you think.

Rita