The Habit of Practice

Art only improves with practice (there are no hacks).

I know the only way to mastery (of anything) is with practice. A lot of practice. The practice cannot be a little bit here, a little bit there, or only when the motivation strikes (which it never does - action creates the motivation). For years, and I mean YEARS, I’ve been bemoaning to myself I need to do more art, I need to make the time, claim the time, block off the time, to just sit and create. Yet, I would never do so. Did this mean I really wasn’t into it as much as I originally thought? I tried to convince myself this was the case, that art wasn’t an end-all, be-all activity for me, so if I didn’t paint (or draw) it wasn’t a big deal. Then after some time passes without much art to show (or there is, but only poorly painted pieces), I would once again wonder why I wasn’t making the time for it. I DO actually enjoy the process. I like seeing what the end result will be, but I continually convinced myself spending time on it was a “nice to have” option, and since I wasn’t monetizing it, I could push it further down the list of priorities.

But whenever I spent time away from creating, I found I missed it. When I started here on Substack I was excited and ready for the new adventure, ready to showcase whatever I was working on. Then after a week, the anxiety of the process settled in and I loathed the idea of having to hurry up and create continuously in order to post here regularly. I contemplated terminating my account. I contemplated giving it all up again. My real fear? Publicizing my progress with drawing and painting. I have always been the person who doesn’t need to have an accountability partner or post to the world what my goals are in order for me to stay on track. I am the exact opposite. In the past, I would never talk about the things I was working on - I put my head down and plowed through the work. Only when the end goal was achieved would I publicize it (if at all) as well as all the work that went into it. I believe with the popularity of social media I felt I should be more open with my artistic growing pains. “Show Your Work!” is the mantra of the art world. But this hasn’t worked for me - at all. So this weekend I finally sat down to come up with a solid plan for watercolor painting with various goals along the way. I’m also considering rewards for each milestone achieved. The concept of rewards for goals achieved is new to me, so I haven’t the foggiest idea what the rewards will be yet. But I’m geniunely excited about it, and find the plan doable. The crux of the plan: practice. Lots of practice. Continually. Every day, every week. An unbreakable practice of showing up to form the habit of art time, to ingrain it into my daily existence. I’ve failed at it over and over again, but I’m still determined to make it work.

Next week I may divulge what my intentions are, but for now, I’m keeping them close to me. Yes, I’m being a bit paranoid and a bit ridiculous, but if mastery is to ever be achieved, I must get serious about my intention of doing art every day (good art!). I started yesterday with a solid 30 minutes of ass-in-chair time and it went great (it actually ended up being a little over an hour). Today, more of the same.

Below are two of my works-in-progress. The door in the forest has been slow-going, but yesterday I did quite a bit on it, although it’s far from finished. The tulips are a painting for a friend who loves tulips. I usually don’t paint florals (she also loves peonies, but they are quite intricate and I gave up trying after a week, lol), so it’s been interesting witnessing the process.

Until next time, thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts on building habits, or have any comments on the paintings, please let me know!