Lately I have been doing a lot of reading about fostering creativity. A couple of books that I have really enjoyed include Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work, and Keep Going book series. They are very popular at my local library, but I found the lessons learned and messages really helpful and would write key quotes and takeaways that resonated with me in my creativity journal. I also recently finished reading Find Your Artistic Voice by Lisa Congdon, and have one of her other books, Art Inc. on reserve at my library and am eagerly waiting for it to become available for me to check out.
A key message in the books by both of these authors is to practice art every day. It doesn’t have to be a grand piece of work or even a single project. It can be anything at all. But the goal is to practice each day to try things out and learn new skills, and over time, to improve. It’s very similar to language learning through Duolingo (which I am also a fan of, and my current streak is 1153 days). Every day I open the Duolingo app and practice French. Sometimes I’ll spend 30 minutes, but most days I just have time for one quick lesson. But the point is, a little is better than nothing. It gives me exposure to the French language on a regular basis that I might not have if I didn’t focus on practicing every day.
To put this into practice for art, I got the idea to create a daily art journal. I simply went to Target and found a monthly and weekly planner that I liked and wasn’t too bulky. And then I started on February 22, 2023 with my first daily drawing. It was called The Alligator Closest to the Boat because that was part of a conversation I had that day. It was a random saying that popped into my head to illustrate. The following days my drawings were weather-themed, and I even got to practice some French on one of my daily drawings. Each day of the week I created a little piece of art. For the page in the planner with the entire month shown, I made a thumbnail with that day’s theme depicted.
So far it is going really well! I enjoy thinking about something from the day to include for my daily art. Sometimes it is something I learned, or a goofy phrase that was invented that day that gave me inspiration for a character. My goal is to fill my art journal for the entire year, and share each month of artwork here. Since February is over, these are the pages I completed. I’m now looking forward to having March be the first completely filled month.
