How to Mix and Match an Art Practice with Lisa Daria Kennedy
Lisa Daria Kennedy (Ep.14) gets up every day and paints.
She’s done this for well over 5,000 days.
The reason she gets up every day and paints isn’t because she wants to make a pretty painting that day. At least that’s not her first and foremost goal.
Her first and foremost goal for that daily painting is the practice itself. It’s non negotiable. She gets up. She starts a painting. She finishes a painting.
This daily painting practice is the heartbeat of Kennedy’s practice, but it’s not the only part of her artistic practice. She also paints much larger, more complex paintings. But she doesn’t do that every single day. With her smaller daily paintings, she 100% does them every single day.
Put it to Practice:
Your art practice will be a mix and match of what you make of it.
For Kennedy, that looks like small daily painting in the AM and then larger, slower work in the afternoons.
Kennedy’s daily painting project has very specific rules about the number of colors and format and subject matter. The afternoon painting is much more wide open and unpredictable.
Other daily painters follow similar approaches:
Brian Miller completes an AM painting and then focuses on more experimental work on the weekends.
Kim Smith also does a small daily AM painting and then larger paintings on the weekends.
But you can design your practice however you want. Maybe that’s daily painting but maybe that’s daily drawing or daily color mixing. Maybe you work through the steps of a painting a little bit every day.
Part of learning to become an artist is learning how to set up your art practice with a rhythm that works for you.