Meet Yourself Where you ARE

Artist Liz Murphy (Ep.76) doesn't create a plan ahead of time for her painting day. The reason is simple: She doesn’t know who she is yet that day.

Murphy, like the rest of us, walks into her studio each day as a different person. And what that person wants to do may differ day to day.

Maybe she feels like grabbing pens and making marks all over the canvas in a burst of excitement.

Maybe she has music stuck in her head and she’ll turn it on to respond to it.

Or maybe she'll walk into her studio and recognize that she's actually quite sad. Maybe that day she needs to do something in her studio that is soothing. So she'll pull out her sketchbooks and let herself slowly enter her painting day.

She walks in, takes stock of where she is that particular day, and then responds accordingly.

Put it to Practice:

Your work will be stronger when you match the work to the mood. This doesn’t mean only paint when you’re happy. Far from it.

Instead, it means respect that some days you’re not in the headspace to try to work on complex or potentially frustrating puzzles. And on those days, come up with other things you can be doing.

The good news is that a robust studio practice requires many more jobs than just finishing paintings. So make a list of what you can do on days you really don’t have the bandwidth for painting.

Maybe that’s gessoing boards or cutting paper to size. Maybe it’s editing reference photos or trying some new ideas on paintings in your “Ruined” pile.

By lowering your expectations, you might find that you get more done than you thought you would, and you give yourself what you needed that particular session.