I’ve covered all of the preparation needed to create. Now it’s time to get down to the work of actually doing the art work. It is important that you think of it as your work. When you are working for someone else, would you come to work late? Would you skip a day or two? Would you leave early? Probably not. You need to be as consistent in your art work as you would be at any job you were hired for.
Musicians and dancers know the importance of daily practice. I took piano lessons for five years and my teacher expected me to practice one hour every day-no days off for weekends or vacations. For some reason that level of consistency has not generally been accepted as a part of the process of visual artists. It should be.
One of the problems many artists face is that we need to work at a nonart job to pay the rent. I worked for thirty years at a job that took up much of my time for most of the year. I put off my artwork as a result. I would tell myself that even though I was not doing any artwork during the week, I would make up for it by spending all day Saturday painting. Saturday would come around and other things like laundry and shopping would fill the day and another week passed with no artwork done. Ten years before I retired, I became concerned that I would enter my retirement unprepared to create. I was justly afraid that I would be too rusty to produce a high quality of art. I decided that I would use the same commitment I brought to my piano playing and work every day. My problem was how to find the time. My job by that time was taking 50 hours or more a week. I also wanted to stay fit by spending several days a week at the gym. I also had responsibilities to my family. How could I squeeze in time to do artwork?
My solution was to get up out of bed 45 minutes early and go straight to my studio. I made a commitment to spend the 45 minutes painting every day. What I learned was that this was the perfect time to work. This is a time of day when no one pulls on our time. The phone doesn’t ring. The kids are in bed. No one really needs us at this time. In addition to the lack of outside interference, there is a freshness to our thinking when we first arise. Sometimes, dreams are still fresh in our consciousness and can add to the creative process. 45 minutes sounds like a short amount of time, but when repeated every day the end result is more art created than if you spend one entire day a week. After following this pattern for a year, I had enough artwork to have a one person show in the museum in my town. I was amazed at what I was able to produce. A bonus to this plan was that I was much calmer and happier for the rest of the day. I had already done what I wanted to do, so I could give myself freely to the needs of my job and other people. Read the full story
