Start an Art Habit
Start an Art Habit.
When I first saw this phrase online, it revealed something I've always believed was essential.
Being creative is everyone's domain.
But not everyone has the patience or resource to be artistic.
Growing up, I always enjoyed sketching and drawing people or scenes from movies I liked (The Dreamworks animation Prince of Egypt, at age two, was life-changing!). I especially loved drawing portraits that carried complex emotion and movement. Growing up and to this day, I use sketching to journal my thoughts and feelings. I appreciate the power art has to extract meaning from our inner world, but I found it also introduces meaning to the outer world.
I was always inclined to personify the world around me. The trees danced, and the leaves somersaulted down the sidewalk. Nature, animals, and inanimate objects had complex feelings. Now, thank goodness it didn't get to a clinical obsession! Still, my young curiosity to bend the boundaries of "real life" catalyzed certain creative thinking that I'm grateful illuminates my art process today.
Start an Art Habit became a series on my Instagram to show people stories happening around them. My first series was with a picture of the sky above me, and I sketched what I saw in consecutive Instagram stories. All artwork was done in the app and posted with no editing. I wanted to encourage people to remember they can be creative anywhere with very little resource.
The concept and method of the series were rudimentary because I wanted to remind my followers that creating art is in the person who commits their pen (or, in this case, their finger) to find it. Since posting the series, I found a couple of followers followed the prompt with their spin, drawing faces that appear in the negative space of an image they captured and posted to Instagram.
To the Artist Reading This:
Find Art in your everyday life and commit to caring for what you create- Whatever it is. It doesn't have to be a practice of drawing funny faces in the clouds (although I say it's a fun place to start). Cook a thoughtful meal, arrange an inspiring space, or build a functional chair... Find your thing and Start An Art Habit.
If you'd like me to speak at a workshop or creative workshop on this topic, or have other projects in mind, reach out to me at 616network@gmail.com.