#20for20 Artist Spotlight: Sarah Jo Studio
Sarah Jo entered the #20for20 Challenge with nearly 100 days of a new daily habit and a deep understanding of the decision fatigue she faces as a painter. Determined to make showing up as easy as possible, she designed a 20-day project tailored to her needs. Learn more about Sarah Jo Studio here.
What were your goals heading into the Challenge?
Avoid overworking/perfection, Practice color mixing, Paint w/o traced outlines
I’ve had a daily practice for about three months and wanted to use the challenge to refine some of my process.
But what I started with as goals wasn’t what I actually accomplished!
Because after Lesson 1 I wrote down: Goal - Learning/practicing the skill of speed, efficiency, and looseness. Auditioning thumbnail studies because I don’t usually use them.
How is this different from how you'd worked previously?
Previously I painted just to paint, sometimes finishing a painting in a day, sometimes lingering over several days. The intention was only to create a daily habit. This challenge was the first time I set down goals for my practice and had the intention of “alla prima”.
You did your daily work in about 20 minutes. Why did you decide to approach the Challenge that way time wise?
Part of not wanting to “over work” and avoid perfection meant that I needed to put a time limit on the work. Otherwise, I’d end up continually reworking my painting to “fix it” all afternoon long!
How did you need to adjust to the 20 minute time frame?
At first I thought that I wouldn’t do a sketch and just jump straight into painting, because that’ll “save some time.”
Well, it only took one day and one very wonky looking cardinal for me to realize that my skill is not there yet and the challenge would be demotivating if I continued on without sketching!
So I had to adjust my expectations about how much time would be spent with the actual paint and also understanding that sketching _is_ painting!
When it’s just 20 minutes, there's a risk in expanding out the time until you’ve “finished a painting” or got something you like enough to share with the world. What is the benefit to you to really hold to the 20 minutes even if for thumbnails?
Working fast kept me from making the painting too precious. (Working on heavy paper stock instead of canvas or panels helped, too). The 20 minute timer kept me present in the moment. There’s not a lot of stepping back and wondering about where that next brushstroke needs to go perfectly- just get. It. On. There!
For thumbnails, this was a perfect exercise; if I really loved a subject, I could go back after 20 minutes and create it in a more permanent/precious fashion. But for this challenge, any longer than 20 minutes and I would have been trying to be perfect again.
Did holding to 20 minutes teach you anything that you would have missed if you’d allowed yourself to go as long as you needed to fully finish a full finished painting or even a complex longer thumbnail?
If I hadn’t held myself to the 20 minute limit, I would never have learned that you can actually create something really beautiful and fully complete/finished in just 20 minutes!
Not every painting needs to be an hours long investment- sometimes less really is more!
I’ll add: I had to be careful not to directly compare my work to my peers who were going “20 min MINIMUM” There were a lot of incredible, detailed, realistic paintings in the FB group and I had to remind myself: not all of those were speed-painted in 20 minutes!
How did you decide where in your day to put your 20?
I am _not_ an early riser. I wake up at the absolute last minute, throw on less than 5 minutes worth of makeup and the clothes I set out the night before, and hustle to the car for my commute with just barely enough time to slide into work without being late.
So the commitment to paint everyday meant that I needed to carve out time after work. (And typically after dinner, too.)
I started up my daily painting habit a few months before the 20x20 challenge as a way to constructively dissociate from all the drama happening in the world so I found that, surprisingly, I came by the energy to commit to the task pretty easily. I enjoy the time in my studio. Painting puts me in that state of “creative flow” where time and stress just disappear and energy and joy seem endless.
You came into the Challenge having an established daily practice. How did you use the 20 minutes within that established practice?
It was a challenge to myself of moving fast, thinking on my feet, and resisting perfectionism. Some days, the subject from the workbook and my 20 minutes max was all I would do for the day. Other days, I would do my 20 minutes, and then move into another project I had going on - especially on weekends when I had larger blocks of time vs the weekdays with my full time job and 45 min commute.
How and where did you keep your materials the same?
Taking the advice from the prework, I prepped my materials for the challenge all in advance. I already use a 9 color limited palette of Golden colors and only 4 sizes of flat top brushes. I usually paint on canvas or panels, but chose to use heavy weight 9x12 watercolor paper, with a 5x5 square traced into it (again, less expensive base materials to keep from feeling like these thumbnails needed to be perfect/precious).
Keeping the same size/ratio of my work shape was one less decision I had to make each day, getting me to the actual fun of painting faster.
How much did keeping your materials the same benefit the challenge but also a daily practice?
I think having the same foundation to work with (surface, size, limited color palette) every day, reducing the number of decisions that need to be made, makes getting to the fun part of the challenge easier.
Decision fatigue is a real thing! Especially towards the end of a long day. I have more flexibility in my normal practice because I have more time to make choices, but keeping those items limited/the same was perfect for the 20 min max I was challenging myself to.
References: You decided to use the references from the Starter Pack. What did having someone else choose photos and you just followed give you as artist?
The starter pack was a HUGE help for me!
I mentioned earlier: decision fatigue is a real thing- especially after a long day and commute home in Houston traffic.
Knowing that the subject was already chosen for me - including a grid for my sketch, a desaturation for my value study, and a composition in the square 1:1 ratio - took all of that “boring prework” out of the project for me. I could just jump right into getting marks on the page- the fun part!
I also really enjoyed that others in the Facebook community were using those same references- it really created a sense of camaraderie; I could see what my peers were doing and get ideas on how I could execute when I made my own attempt. This was SUPER helpful with the subjects that I felt intimidated by, like the glass vases and any (ok, ALL) of the animals. We’re still laughing at the Angry Rabbit I painted for Day 14!! And to that point, using the workbook put subjects in front of me that I normally wouldn’t have picked for myself - like the tomatoes on a plate, or the lemons.
Did the parameters you used help you explore more deeply? Why?
I would say “no” on this just because of the goals I had for myself, BUT, it was great to see my peers use the challenge to dive deeper into color mixing everyday or a series of value studies.
I was happy with the variety of subjects the workbook offered me. Now I’m doing only bluebonnets for the #28flowersfebruary and it’s Day 7 of the same subject… so ask me again how I felt about that come March!
One of your goals coming in was to work on perfectionism. How did the Challenge help you around that?
It taught me that I’m nowhere near perfect with animal portraits! lol! Honestly though, I walked away from the challenge with several paintings that I am incredibly proud of and if you look at them, you wouldn’t know I only spent 20 minutes on them.
So what I learned about myself, and my paintings, is that it doesn’t take a lot of time to walk away with something that you’re proud of - and THAT is perfection!
What benefits did you find working on something pretty focused day after day even if not necessarily for a long time?
The benefit of showing up for myself. For Future Me who I know is a talented artist (but needs Current Me to put in the practice to make it happen). Lesson 6 taught me that Success is SHOWING UP and I should tie my goals to something I could control. There was incredible power in the realization in my journey as a new artist, that showing up and just painting can really be the most valuable thing.
Any days jump out as having aha moments? Could you share what those were? (Kelly, I’m going to list these by the paintings from the workbook, if you can please use that to determine what days that happened on?)
Cardinal (Day 1): Oh boy, trying to skip straight from blank paper to paint w/o a sketch made for a _really_ wonky bird! Need to shift my intentions for this challenge to include a basic sketch.
Glass vases (Day 5): The thing that really intimidates me wasn’t so scary once I tried it!
“Angry bunny” (Day 14): Ya know what? It’s OK if I’m NOT an animal portrait painter after all (this was also after the “is that a Cat” Day (Day 7) where the only triumph I could find was “it has eyes” lol)
Tropical landscape (Day 8): I wrote down “look how far you’ve come!” with a big heart. This was my personal Day 99 of consecutive painting.
Succulents Day (Day 16): What a HUGE difference simplifying the subject down made. This is my favorite painting of ALL time and is now my phone Lock Screen, and I’ve recreated it three times on canvas and panels already (and have it in an exhibit with my local art club!)
What was the most helpful mindset for you to try and keep during the 20for20?
You’ve got a commitment to yourself and you know how much you’ll feel good about it when you’ve made it all 20 days. Make Future You proud.
Was there anything that was useful to remind yourself as you showed up each day?
It’s just paint! And it’s only 20 minutes!
So often the focus is on finished and beautiful work. Did you feel any difference in shifting the focus to the showing up? (The habit.)
It was surprising to find that the work I made in 20 minutes WAS finished and beautiful! It encouraged me to continue to show up for myself because: if I could make this kind of art in just twenty minutes a day, imagine the kind of art I’ll be making years from now when all of those twenty minutes add up to hours upon hours of practice!
How did that change your relationship to your practice?
I would say that it made me even more committed to my daily painting. On those hard/tired/“I don’t wanna” days in the future I should set a timer for 20 minutes to stretch myself. My habit has been that I do at least one brushstroke. And there have been days in this journey that that was literally all I did - a dot of paint on a scrape paper and smush it around, throw my brush in the water cup and call it done. But 20 min is such a small commitment, and what a difference it makes over time!
What advice would you give to someone who is doing the Challenge for the first time?
Engage with the community on Facebook! Don’t be afraid to share your work because your artist peers are incredibly supportive and encouraging people! Have a bit of humor when things don’t turn out the way you thought - and really commit to finding at least one triumph BEFORE you criticize what you created.
And mostly? Jump in and paint! There is such joy in the flow of creativity and the Challenge can give you just enough structure to get you to that joy so much quicker.
Learn more about the next #20for20 here.