Monday 24 September 2018

The Completion of a 100 Days Challenge and the Beginning of a New Painting Adventure

I'm picking up this blog again after letting it wither and die about 4 years ago.  Now, after deleting pretty much all my old posts, I'm starting afresh with a new purpose.  It all came about after taking part in Lisa Call's 100 day challenge of art making.  For my 100 days I chose to create a sketchbook habit.  I've never been successful with working in sketchbooks, but after undergoing 100 days and much trial and error, I did manage to work out why AND create the habit I desired.
I had, at the start of the project, images of wondrous sketchbooks, and though I knew in theory sketchbooks are the best place to explore and experiment with no concern for  finished 'beautiful' pages, it was difficult to get myself out of my old mind set.  I put pressure on myself to produce something 'worthy' everyday and around three quarters of the way through I stopped, because there wasn't the enjoyment and the habit wasn't properly sticking.  That was the breakthrough.  Taking those few days away and not feeling good about it, there fortuitously came a perfect piece of writing  in an email from Lisa about creating habits, I signed up for the five day free course offered by Tiny Habits she linked to and I started with a 5 minute practice at the same time every day after making my bed.  It worked, and brought about a radical change in my approach - it had to be MUCH simpler, and I began to enjoy the practice.  Since then I have been extending the time gradually and I have now created a habit of working for 30 mins in my sketchbook pretty much every day, and now it IS all about trying out ideas and making marks and discovering new things in a very simple way.

Now it's time to continue with making painting a habit.  To stop the on and off and procrastinating behavior, and find my way to a committed and consistent painting practice.  I'm returning to this blog to write about it and to get to know myself as a painter and discover what the work I really want to do is.

To get me off to a good start I'm taking Paivi Eerola's 12 week course 'The Exploring Artist'

Today's sketchbook page




My 100 days challenge finished on September 18th

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations - first on completing the 100 day challenge. And second on taking up blogging again.

    Good for you! yay! 100 days of blogging. Yes! Feedback. Doing the work.

    You've got this.

    ---lisa

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  2. Thank you Lisa, I almost missed this comment, I wasn't expecting to get any! Your challenge opened the way for me to look at the practice of making art in a new way and put me on the path of 'doing the work' and learning to believe in it.

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