"""" There is no sweeter business than trading in stocks when you know how."

  """ To treat the stock market as one does betting on the races is to overlook one of the greatest opportunities for legitimate money-making."

                                                                                                                                                                                          Richard  W.  Wyckoff

In my varied experiences in life, I have spent  several  years in  an Academy of Arts pursuing my  love of drawing , painting and sculpting. As I rely heavily on  visual chart interpretation, I  find  it   useful   to point out the similar processes our minds go through in the training required to get that  hightened sensitivity to visual forms, be it in chart interpretation or drawing or  structural  design.  In this context  some reference to  practices in learning to draw can prove insightful:

 "COMPREHENDING THE FORM.   Developing the consciousness of the form is a slow, sensitive process. It is not something that can be comprehended instantly, no matter how intelligent you are. The parts of the figure are welded together in a perfectly logical and functional manner. No one can teach you their truth, but by a certain manner of approach you can bit by bit come to know these forms and their relationship to one another. No diagrams, no pat explanations, will suffice, because the form speaks to you only as it does things"(1)

Not only patience and persistence are  required to develop a trained eye, but much more is called for in tuning  yourself  for  fruitful  performance. Again. just like in painting as described here: "The paint becomes the best medium for the study of drawing when used correctly. These directions are given only as a starting point to help you feel that you are drawing, not with any idea of teaching you a way of 'handling paint'. If you painted steadily for eight months, I couldn't keep you from learning to handle paint even if I tried. The secret, if it is one, is to be so completely interested in studying   the model  that the paint just follows. Forget that you are drawing or painting and feel that you are using this medium to reach out and touch the model."(2)

Immerse your mind in the activity, so that it taps your   vast  reservoirs of gray cells that usually stay unemployed. Let’s not miss on these golden words of  advise   good for learning any skill you can think of: “ As long as you draw, each subject will present a unique problem and will demand alert observation. I am not trying to show you how to master a few specific problems but to give you a basis from which to work in future. Sometimes when I  see  a student struggling with a particular difficulty, it is hard to refrain from giving him a practical clue to its solution. But I know from experience that , If  I can force myself to leave him alone long enough, the solution he eventually reaches will have more  personal  truth for him than any that I could suggest.Do not try to learn a  formula , but to become sensitive, to feel more deeply. Do not try to master a particular technique. Progress has  been  made  by the people who refused to submit themselves to mediums. The rules of  technique have been made by  people who copied those who made the progress. You will paint well when you  are  able to forget that you are painting at all. When you are conscious of your medium, things become difficult, but when your interest is completely absorbed by the model - the idea - your materials become easier and easier to handle. Therefore, practice is the watchword.

If your drawing is the best you can do, it suffices. No human being can do better. The  best  you can do today will not compare with the best you can do a year from now. What I hope is that after   two years  you  will still be doing the best you can.”(3)

One crucial difference between an artist relating to a line on his board and a trader relating to a line of market's action  on his screen is that while the first line is an artistic expression of  one sensitive, creative being,  the second is an external by-product of an  interaction of a collection of people. The difference is profound. because  for the artist the line comes out of him/her,  it is part of him/her to some extent, and, very importantly, he/she controls the outcome, But for the trader the line is something external that he/she must aligne  himself/herself with in order to perform well in trading, The trader is truely powerless, controlwise, in front of a devleoping  line on his/her screen and  he/she  can only  accept or reject it as given.

So while both activities call for sensitive and developed visual skills, they engage a wholly different set of emotions.

Source:

(1) From 'The natual Way to Draw' by  Kimon  Nicolaides.  Published by Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, 1969.  Page 96.

(2) Idem. Page   195.

(3) Idem. Pages  100-101.