"Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind." -Nathaniel Hawthorne
I followed the trend. #100dayproject
On Instagram, these people committed to a 100 day project. I felt this would be a brilliant way to commit to practicing art and it would instill good habits. Tiffany Thomas being the most inspiring with all her beautifully captured abstract paintings.
I recently also read that Khaled Hosseini would wake up EARLY in the morning to find the time to write his best selling book, The Kite Runner and still tend to his day job.
That balance to find time for creating (aka sanity) and still tend to the chores of the day is so ... so... desired but yet so difficult to attain. For me there was/is so much to paint and learn! And knowing that time is one of our most valuable assets, I wanted to use and claim it, not squander it.
So I committed to 100 studio mornings. And it has proven to be so much more than simply time for creating and good habits.
Things I learned these 100 days:
- posting for 100 days is really difficult - especially as my subject matter began to be paintings that were not for the entire planet to know about -many a random studio object became the center of the post
- perfection is a time and energy warp and those Instagram editing options and filters fuel the need to capture everything just right. ugh. I gave up on that after a while.
- I do LOVE a #hashtag. I'm still not sure why and most days I want to #watercolor in every language possible
- I'm a better artist in the morning than I am late at night. I blame my 40 year old eyes. Hello reading glasses.
- I wake up easily without an alarm clock because I am waking up to something I enjoy
- I like and need to be completely ALONE in quiet spaces often-so finding time to paint early in the morning, helps prevent my being a troll the other hours of the day.
- I have learned why I make art and what it is that I am after in the process
- I discovered new things to study and explore
- This quickly became a sacred time for me. Time for praying, meditating, pondering.
All to say, I have loved the process though there were times in the midst of it, that I was ready to be done with it. Mainly because of the posting aspect and not knowing what to put out there.
Here a look back at my first little full of energy and good intention filled post beginning the process. It feels very long ago! Now, I have only two days left. It has increased my productivity, my drawing skills have improved and I've learned a new thing or two about watercolor as well.
A few years ago, I learned to love watercolor from Tom Herzog. He encouraged our class then to commit to painting or drawing each day for at least ten minutes. I get it now, why that is so important and I completely agree.
