Top tips for daily drawings, paintings or photos

This is the third post in a mini series on daily creativity, which will hopefully inspire you to do something you love in more depth! On the 17th November Marianne, Tessa and I talked about our projects and the first one was about my little 6X6 canvasses.

MARIANNE:

Marianne has done daily drawing /painting projects on and off for almost 15 years and has lots of beautifully hand bound books (which she made) filled with her artworks. She is an artist, calligrapher, oil painter, maker, baker and many more creative things besides…

She says:

• Be prepared, make a plan, have tools ready to be picked up easily. A ready-bound book helps.
• Set a time limit, maybe even set a time to do it every day. The routine and rhythm is helpful.
• Don’t be precious about it. If you’re like me and DO get precious about making a mess on expensive papers, then use cheaper paper (or botched artwork), or fill a sketchbook with a combination.
• Don’t force yourself to do it every day. The burden can be onerous. The idea is to have fun. I found by doing this, often I’d get on a roll and do several drawings.
• If you can belong to a group where you can share your work, it will help keep you motivated. Working in isolation is hard. Blogging or sharing on Facebook is another option.
• Try lots of different techniques. Paste in collage, bits of photos, cut outs, anything. Make the book an intimate record of a period in your life.

TESSA:
My daughter Tessa is a part-time graphic designer, full-time Mother of 3, full time artist /at-home interior designer /  photographer / creative person / initiator of projects:

She says:

• Keep it time limited so your project doesn’t go on indefinitely.
• Set yourself parameters such as the time of day, or subject matter.
• Have fun and don’t beat yourself up if you don’t always keep your good intentions.
• It is useful to make it a SMART goal which is a mnemonic acronym – Ensure your creative goal is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound.
• Have fun and don’t be distressed or disheartened to try again another time if you don’t always maintain your good intentions.

LIN: Blogger / artist

• Stay flexible and remember what this is about: It is for YOU; not to impress your mother in law or anyone else.
• This sort of discipline doesn’t work for everyone so don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t work for you. My daughter Megan is passionate about writing but would rather do a solid few hours several times a week. My son is a digital animator and works almost all the time, and finds this sort of idea laudable but crazy! Tessa and I really enjoy doing a daily project.
• I like working with good quality materials, lovely paper and had a load of technical pens of different sizes and my small box of artist’s watercolours.
• I had folios of good paper for painting and when I was very inspired and cartridge paper for drawing at airports. They are 19cm square when folded and can be used as a double page landscape. It’s a useful size and I can get 6 folios out of a 56 X 76 Fabriano Artistico. And I can bind the ones I like into a book afterwards!

I hope that these ideas inspire you to unleash your creativity. Look at these tips – and take the ones that you relate to and then GO GO GO!