Habit: The Foundation for Self Taught Artists
As a beginner (or even an intermediate), self taught artist, it can be hard to know where to put your time and attention.
There are just so many OPTIONS.
But a post from a #20for20 participant really struck home to me why putting HABIT at the center of an art practice is so critical… especially for those of us self taught.
My own work from the #20for20
Here’s what JC wrote after not loving her work for the day, “I’m not happy with this at all. … I am OK with the daily reminder that I am a beginner and I have the rest of my life to practice. Love being challenged this way.”
So often as self taught artists learning to paint, we use external markers to gauge our process. Finishing a painting. Liking a painting. Having someone ELSE like a painting. These are all external.
And it makes sense why we do that. It’s because we don’t really know of another way.
This is why building HABIT is so critical especially for the self taught artists. It gives us another way to measure our success. And it’s one we can feel successful in IMMEDIATELY. Not some day when we have more skills under our belt. Not at the whims of others. But now. That then builds momentum and we learn more.
When you can establish a daily art habit as a beginner, suddenly being a beginner doesn't feel so overwhelming. You're not looking at every single individual piece of work and letting it be this big judgment on your future.
When you show up every day you begin to get a daily reminder that yes you are a beginner but you have the rest of your life to practice. You trust that you will because you have built the showing up.
Put it to Practice (+ an invitation)
Your practice doesn’t have to be DAILY. But if you really want to see improvement, aim for dailyish.
Daily or dailyish works not just because the more you show up the better you get. It works because when you design for daily, you make different considerations. You learn to scale for the time you have. If you have 5 minutes a day as a baseline, design for that five minutes. If you have 20 minutes as a baseline, design for that.
This is something you can absolutely do on your own. And if you want help or to do it with a community, I’d love to invite you to join us as a Founding Member inside the Art Habit Membership: a place for self taught artists of all skill levels working to build and sustain a daily art practice.
We’ll do this through monthly coaching (audio recordings called The Art Habit Talks) to help you learn the systems and structures to build an art habit, reference sheets with links to images around the web for every day of the month so you never have to ask, “what will I paint today?” and monthly Challenges to keep you motivated.
Most memberships cost around $40plus a month. But right now you can join as a Founding Member for $24.99 and keep that price for as long as you’re a member. Doors close January 25th and then we get started. Join us here.